Blake Hunsley 0:01 You're listening to within our reach a podcast by reachability association that focuses on accessibility, inclusion and leveling the playing field at work and in your community. My name is Blake Hunsley And my co host is Shelley Alward MacLeod, and today we're joined by reachability as therapy dog handler and man of many responsibilities, Evan Dobbie. Evan joined reachability as a client in our free programming and has moved on to be a very important member of our staff today, as part of our 25th anniversary celebrations, he's going to tell us a bit about his journey through both sides of reachability. Enjoy the episode. Today, we're actually going to be talking a lot more kind of inside baseball here at reachability, because we have the writer of our client journey section of our annual report is here to join us to tell us what it's like to be a client at reachability, and what that journey looked like for him. So first we should introduce ourselves. I guess it has been a hot minute. I'm one of your hosts, Blake, and

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 0:53 I'm Shelley, your other host. So it's nice to have you back. It's nice to be back. I hope you're feeling better. I am,

Blake Hunsley 1:00 I am post post COVID, post COVID brain. Thank goodness the brain fog. Oh, my God. If this episode is just off the rails, you can blame me, because, yeah, do you think

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 1:11 we're allowed to use the brain fog thing? Because I, you know, I had COVID last October. Is it fair

Blake Hunsley 1:16 use? I plan on going, listen. I plan on going into the next decade with an excuse for my behavior, and I finally got one. This is great. I've been using I use ADHD for half the things. I'll use COVID brain for the other half. Perfect. Sorry to our special guest, Evan, welcome and thank you for putting up with us. Why don't you tell the people listening who you are and what brought you here today? Sure.

Evan Dobbie 1:41 My name is Evan Dobbie. I have a sort of strange, unique experience in life. I was on a long, strange journey of caregiving for my parents, inevitably, both of them, and when that journey ended and I was trying to figure out my next steps forward and what directions I wanted to go in and walk along that path. And speaking to a few different people, reachability came up, and I had not had success with a few other organizations. And I thought, all right, I'll give it a shot. And here I am now, everything is much different,

Blake Hunsley 2:24 good, okay, so, yeah, so you joined us as a client here at reachability in what, how long ago was that? Now it

Evan Dobbie 2:32 really was not that. It was just this summer, really. So I think it would have been July. I believe, I think I did intake in June, and then I did the first programming in July.

Blake Hunsley 2:46 Okay, and you've had a successful but odd journey through reachability, because we kind of adopted you as one of our own to an extent. So Evan, if you stop by the reachability offices, you would see him around here. He's kind of wearing two hats these days. You're helping us with some it work, and you're also helping us with some dog wrangling work with Neo, our therapy dog too. So we're doing that typical thing that nonprofits do where they see that you're good at things and they just put you wherever they can make use of your skills. So you, I don't want to get into the other I don't want to slag any other agencies, but you mentioned that you hadn't had as good luck at some previous agencies before reachability. So why don't we start there? What was the difference in the approach that you found here at reach versus your previous experience at other agencies trying to find the same kind of assistance? For

Evan Dobbie 3:29 me, it was really responsiveness and communication and actually just being available when contacted, when when I first reached out, the response was prompt and quick. The vibe I got was good, which was nice, because, again, I had a bit of a sour taste from some previous experiences. It was a little hesitant. I thought, well, you know, maybe I'll give them a shot. Maybe I won't. We'll see how it goes. And I ended up coming down then for my intake with crystal. And that experience was very pleasant. And I noticed immediately upon arriving the office that things felt a little different here. It looked different. It was livelier. For one thing, I had been to a couple different offices, and they either felt very sort of dead and empty or very clinical and sterile, whereas reach felt much more academic, almost a very sort of like welcoming, pleasant environment with with a staff that was not only present, but clearly got along, and there was a very good vibe of just a general, I don't know how to how to frame it exactly, other than it was just a pleasant atmosphere. I. Yeah, and it seemed like everyone got along and that there was a sort of shared sense of positive values we it's

Blake Hunsley 5:12 funny that you say the positive values that makes me really happy, actually, because Shelly, I know you've been around for some of these, some of these sessions before, too, with with us and with other clients, but we sit down once a year. We're actually slightly overdue right now for another session of this, but we sit down as a staff and examine our values once a year. And it's not a top down the CEO coming in and saying, these are your values, and this is what we'd here to know. It's a very open process where everybody from, well, I mean, from the newest employee, which would effectively be you. And we have this next time, we really get together and brainstorm out exactly what this place means to everybody and what it's going to mean going forward. And it's, it's always funny to me that we kind of It sounds silly to focus on vibes to an extent, but you made such a good point when you came in that that feeling struck you so different, and tell me if this was the case for you. But I always assume anyone coming into reachability who's looking for and I mean, if people don't know by now, if this is your first episode, maybe you don't know what we do here, but we have employment preparation courses. We have courses to get you into volunteerism, back into education, and we also have emotional management courses and life management courses for people who aren't necessarily in a position to get directly into the workforce, who have some other personal building to do that's all intense personal work that you've got to be very anxious to be undertaking, especially your very first visit when you're walking in you know nothing about us. Yes, I can imagine a clinical sort of setting, or an or a kind of sterile feeling setting would not really inspire you to do that work. So we've always aimed for more of a I like to think of it like, you know, you the cool teacher in high school had the classroom that was decorated in a really warm and engaging sort of way. We try to make sure that everybody has

Evan Dobbie 6:53 that, and especially for this, this position of reachability as this sort of like juncture of easing people back into that workforce, active daily living sort of environment was, I think, yeah, that was, that was really important, whereas I was familiar from my own previous mental health journey with with that sort of much more clinical environment, and that's fine for Certain things, and for doing that hard work to, like, prepare you to be ready for that, but then when you're making that juncture, yeah, I felt that the easy environment really was conducive to that.

Blake Hunsley 7:35 Okay. I want to, if you don't mind, I want to read something from from your client journey, yes, portion of the AGM report that you wrote here, because this is, we talk a lot about building momentum around here. It's, it's a lot of us, and I say us, not just clients, a lot of the staff too. When we first arrived here, we've been stuck in various ways. I count myself in that very firmly. So to build that momentum is a really big thing for us. And you address this directly. So I want to read from you, if I can quote you if I can quote you here, you said, reachability employs a focus on identifying pursuing any actions that can be taken immediately and will generate the most possible benefit in order to manifest energy and drive forward momentum towards a client's goals. These successes help to raise self confidence levels and encourage the client's investment in their own progress, further generating their own momentum. So what I want to ask you is when you first started doing coursework here, what did you find that really kind of lit that spark for you and started building your momentum towards moving forward to where you wanted to

Evan Dobbie 8:30 be. For one thing, I think I just I came in ready, which was a big part of it, but it was really being aware of that focus that really seemed, you know, asserted here, of pursuing those like, not, I don't want to say easy, but like, readily attainable objectives that can be accessed in the near future with, like, Available resources that you might just not be available or aware of, rather that are just right there and ready for the taking, but you might not be simply aware of it, or have the resources or think you do to access It that very quickly can not only improve your your sort of, your appeal ability, that's not a good choice, but like the general sort of attractiveness of, let's say, your resume to an employer and or just immediately qualify you for a new sort of role or position or career that you never might have considered before. And then, even if not, then it is just another accreditation that can help you stand out, look better to employers. And then, not only that, but then give you that personal sense of achievement and accomplishment that real. Sort of like objective, concrete goals that you're you are making progress on, and you can see that, and you can feel that, and that gives you that, that extra increased confidence that helps develop that momentum and really create, like a sense of forward inertia, so that momentum can keep carrying you forward with that confidence, carrying you further towards your goals in life.

Blake Hunsley 10:26 Okay, it sounds like, I think a lot of people, when they come here, they feel again, some sometimes staff, but definitely most, most about all of our clients, we hear a lot about people who don't feel that they have options. Is the main thing. I think it's so easy to get that stuck. Feeling and perspective,

Unknown Speaker 10:42 yeah, is so critical, and

Blake Hunsley 10:46 they have agency and choice can be can be very powerful. There are things

Evan Dobbie 10:49 that you know you're blind to and you haven't been considering yet for a multitude of reasons, but that inevitably, one way or another, you haven't noticed because of whatever the blinders on your eyes, or just a lack of information, or a lack of advertising or marketing on their part, whatever, and then just sort of realizing way down the road all these things that are possible that you just never considered, Even though sometimes they were right under your nose, but you just never thought of it or looked at it in the right perspective.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 11:26 And I think that, I think that's true. I think about the fact that many, you know, there's other agencies out there, you know, doing, you know, get people back to the workforce, type work, but one of the things that I think is very unique to reachability, is looking at, what are the skills that you have, what is it that you're wanting to do? And maybe there's, maybe there's a stepping stone to that, maybe there's some volunteer work, right, that you that could happen. And I was actually in one of the workshops, and was talking to an individual, and they said, well, like, I don't, you know, like, I don't really know what to do because, like, you know, like, I have lots of volunteer work. It's kind of what I really want to do, but that's not, like, a job and, you know, so it's, you know, it's some of those type of things, understanding, well, yeah, actually it could be like, it could be your stepping stone to getting, if you wanted paid employment, but that may be your way to get back into the workforce. The other thing that's also unique to reachability is they also look at the pillar of entrepreneurship, right? Versus, you know, getting a, you know, employer, paid job, right? Setting, setting you up and exploring ideas for entrepreneurship. So it's nice, it's nice to, it's nice to to hear, to hear your story. I loved reading your story in the AGM report. I thought that was, you know, a very, very nice reflection on reachability, and it's important, I think, because many of the staff right and myself, as well as as a consultant with the reachability who's worked with them for many, many years, we see changes, but we don't always see them through the client lens. We're seeing them from the employers lens. I mean, I think it's wonderful. Like, it is very welcoming when you walk in here. So it's nice that you've said that. Like, the vibe is very different. And this year, I was observing when we had the open house, I was observing people coming in who'd never been before, even people coming from other agencies. Some of our partner agencies are still going and looking for going, oh my gosh, oh, wow. Because I think, right, they're thinking of other, you know, organizations, which is, you know, white walls, right? Very, very, you use the word like clinical or sterile, and it does give a different

Evan Dobbie 14:16 physical environment itself, but also just the staff. I felt it was immediately recognizable that there wasn't that sense of everyone's already jaded and sort of burnt out and done with the world and just not suited for this sort of work at all, which I understand it is. It's very trying stuff. But there was that sense that everyone was still very like committed, enthusiastic on board, sense of community and teamwork and sort of like very sort of horizontal level, sort of equitable workplace. And. And that, yeah, everyone actually cared and hadn't become sort of disenchanted with whatever their original intention might have been. If

Blake Hunsley 15:12 I can toot our own horn just a tiny bit, I will say I think I've been here for coming up on five years now, so I've seen a lot of changes around here. I think we've struck a really good balance of finding people who, like you're saying, aren't jaded. They still have that genuine care to them, but they're not pie in the sky idealists, either. These are people who want to see practical growth. They want to see momentum actually building. They don't want to sit around and plan for weeks and weeks and weeks on end. They want to get something moving. And that's why

Evan Dobbie 15:42 I feel that reachability is so effective in that sort of junction role of developing that like real, concrete movement while allowing sort of like understanding, compassion and flexibility to do so on their own timelines and with their own capabilities and goals, but also with that, you know, regular encouragement, not forceful, but also wise application of resources, because, again, they're also limited and just that sense of like, what can we actually do practically to move you towards your goals, but what's realistic? Yeah, and what can we do to just start making progress immediately? Like, how do we start, like, improving things right now?

Blake Hunsley 16:31 Yeah, right. Shelly, I'm interested in your thoughts on this too, because I honestly, I forgot that you've been doing so much work with the employment side of things here lately. So you've been doing some some work with the actual clients, classroom work here too, lately, haven't you? Yes, so what's been what struck you, because you you've spent a lot of time around reach over the years, but, but this might be some of the more intense client time that you've spent, yes, but what's been your takeaway from that?

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 16:58 I think that the setup that we have now is a, is a, is a flow through the organization, being able to sort of customize individuals time in each of the different areas that they might need. Like your journey, Evan, as you said at the community, was relatively short and quick and quick, right? Where some people come in and they, you know, based on their intake, based on their needs, right? They their journey is longer through the process, right? Because there's tools for everybody. And in, in the employment workshops, or where I'm been assisting is, I've been assisting in a couple of areas, which is, you know, to come in and and give the employer perspective, if you will, or even the legal the employment law perspective of hiring and cover letters, all the things that you've gone over right by the time I come in that, you know, the the client would have already talked about cover letters, would have already talked about interviewing the resume and done that work in prep. But now I'm coming in to talk about, okay, why does that mean So? Much like, what use Tales from the field, if you will, to kind of bring some realism to it. And then, and then, then, I usually do some mock interviews, right? Because we do mock interviews so that, again, it's, it's, it's making the clients, pushing them, maybe outside of their comfort level, to do a mock interview with somebody they may have just met that day, like I may have only just met the person that day, or even with another member of reachability staff who's doing the mock Interview that they see wandering around, but they don't know who they are, and they don't know what that would usually be me, and they also don't have time to prepare, like they don't know what the questions are going to be, and that's intentional, right? Because, you know, in a lot of cases, you are able to find out what some of the questions might be in advance in interviews, but it's just to get to take away some of that anxiety, yeah, and then to have a debrief afterwards, yeah. And I am, and then then, usually, I'm going back into the into the classroom with whichever of the facilitators, and we're just doing a Q and A, you know, they're usually almost at the end of their section, and so it's now okay. So what questions do you have, right? And they can be like so wide and varied. What the questions are depending on the clients. And I love that that's so refreshing to. To see that, that interest and also to kind of dispel, like, you touched on that, like, maybe people's sort of thoughts or misinformation, right? And what's maybe made them have a bit of a hang up. And, you know, maybe they were going, thought they had to go down this path, right, not realizing that this path was available to them. Or how would I do this best? So really helping to dispel some of those myths, and, you know, to just really watch, like, the growth, like, you know, Evan, I don't think I would be talking you wrote such a lovely, uh, I guess, letter, if you will, for the for the for the AGM referral, reference, recommendation, which, if you

Blake Hunsley 20:52 don't mind, I should say I'm going to link to in the show notes so people can read exactly perfect.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 20:57 And I don't think I'd be talking to school, but like Evan was in one of the sessions that that I I dealt with, and it was pretty refreshing to to walk into that class and see and again, the groups are very small, so when we talk about class, for those people who've never been to reachability, I think it's important to realize that You're not going to be in a class of 35 when you think of schools now and 30 they're doing. We're talking like three, four, maybe five at the maximum in the classes. So you're almost getting one on one. Yeah,

Blake Hunsley 21:34 right, assist. And in a lot of the courses, you are getting specific weeks of one on one as well, exactly.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 21:39 So when I walked in to first start talking to the group, you know, there was, like, you know, a lot of in trepidation, like, Oh, who's this? I'm a bit nervous. What's she gonna ask and, you know, Evan, everybody was very, kind of quiet. And, you know, then we just started talking and having the conversation right through to I did Evans mock interview. Oh, interesting. And so that, that I think was like a, you know, a really cool experience from my perspective, right? Because I knew what I was asking for questions and but to watch, you know, Evan start the interview like he had no idea what I was going to ask. He didn't he knew me from, like, we

Blake Hunsley 22:30 didn't expect to be coming in to sit down with an HR professional and lawyer. He

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 22:35 also, you know, knew me like, for one hour, right? Like, basically before, and so I could see the nerves, and, you know, the, you know, the somewhat anxiousness and to, you know, just a very short period of time in where you could tell all the things that Evan had learned, okay, in the various sessions that he'd had, right, he was using right, and it was making him more confident, right, you know, because then I was nodding my head, or then I was asking follow, and then then we really just got in a we got in a dialog, and we actually ran at a time. Yeah. So then we had to talk about, best

Blake Hunsley 23:23 mark of the successful interview in my book is when you run at a time, because you're having a legitimate dialog,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 23:28 absolutely. But we did have to, we did have to come back, and we did have to have some conversation about, well, what if that you know when that happens when we run at a time, and were there things that you didn't actually get to tell about your self that you think are going to be important to make you stand out as a client, how to, you know, sort of sum up certain things. But it was just to watch that. So from an interviewer perspective, I loved being able to be part of that process, because I saw growth already. And I have to tell you that Evan, that you know, being able to to watch you from like that session to how I've seen you like at the times that I've been in, and your level of confidence is like amazing from From when I would have first saw you to today, even like just showing up at the AGM, to speaking at the AGM,

Blake Hunsley 24:28 which is a big deal if you're not normally used to addressing folks like that.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 24:31 I think all of that, all of that, to say that there Evan, You know, Evan said his journey was relatively short to get to here. Well, there

Unknown Speaker 24:49 (Crosstalk)

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 24:51 journey through reachability was relatively short. But again, I think it's important for those people that you know, are you. Listening to this and pondering, Oh, should I be reaching into reachability? That your journey will be customized to what you need, right? And there, you know, I think Evan alluded to the fact that he, he already did some hard work, okay, before he got to reachability. And there, there are times, okay, as part of the intake, where you know we need to set people up to do some hard work before we're not just putting you into the class to start doing employability skills and mock interviews if you know you're not ready, like if you one

Evan Dobbie 25:40 size fits all Exactly, and that's really one of the things that that that helped put me at ease and reachability, and again, showed me that this place had a different attitude and a different policies of the assurance that I received that the support would continue as long as I needed it or desire it, regardless of timeline, which was huge, because, again, in my previous journey extensive, a lot of different groups and therapies, and a big part of that is also being made aware, especially if you're going through the public system here in Canada, the limitations of the resources and the timelines and that you like, you will get this much, and then after that, you're done and like, and that feeling of pressure and anxiety of like, needing to make maximum use out of those resources while you had them, to Get the best you can so that you can actually make the progress you need. Because this is this feeling of like this is your one shot, whereas here it's a much different vibe, and I've seen that personally now too, in my time working here and interacting with other clients now and seeing them become aware of that and making that realization, and seeing the anxiety and stress levels of them visibly reduce, like almost immediately. It's funny, you

Blake Hunsley 27:08 mentioned that, because it's actually a bit of a challenge for us on the other side of that, because, you know, we are a non for profit. We do have the same limited resources as everyone else. I wanted to mention. We're talking about how nice our environment is here. By nice, we mean we've taken some time to personalize. It's not fancy, not for profit, but there's effort Exactly, yeah, but when it comes to the client, journey through, you're right. We don't ever want to rush. We don't want to make it a one size fits all. We do always have to kind of fall on the other side too, where we're not letting anyone just kind of languish. There's always a push, but it's a gentle push through, is the way I like to think of it. We have, I think about 18 working mottos for this place, taglines that we use on everything. But my favorite one is no one goes nowhere, despite it being a bit of a double negative, but it's the most accurate descriptor for us here, if you're really stuck, if you're really not getting to where you want to go, and you're really scrambling and you're genuinely ready, right? That's a big part, yes, and you have some drive to help yourself, because if you come in the door, you have no drive to help yourself, and you're not willing to attempt to create that with the help that's here. No one's ever going to be able to help you. There is a level of personal responsibility from all of our clients, but we're going to work with them from exactly where they're at, and we're going to get them somewhere close to or

Evan Dobbie 28:26 redirect them someplace where they can receive the those foundation skills that they need to build, you know, a more robust structure off of, yeah, some people

Blake Hunsley 28:38 have a lot, and some people are Starting from really tough spots. Yes, and have a lot of work they need to do personally on structuring their life and their life management skills before they can even consider going into an employment prep course. And that's fine. You, when you came here, you had done a lot of the work yourself, so yeah, we were able to tailor it to you. Your journey is particularly interesting to me because it's a very rare thing where we actually transition a client into an employee, or in your case, sort of a contract employee. But when that works, when we see someone who responds so well to not just the programming and the environment, but also to the other clients, if there's going to be a good fit, and we can work that in the budget, why would we not you have you have the perfect knowledge base because you've been on the other side. You've been through the client, you can empathize with people coming through the door even better than the most well intentioned facilitator can if they haven't been through that process themselves. That's true. Yours particularly interests me, though, because yours is a bit to go back to Shelly when you were talking about encouraging entrepreneurship as well. What we're trying to do with you here is build some IT skills practically that you can practically use here to help us out. So it's self serving too, because we need this work done that win, win. But then you have those skills once that's done, and you can use those in any workplace. You can, you can be a person on call to help with these very particular things. Absolutely, yeah, it's I. We overuse the term. Win, win, win. Real hard around here, but in this one, it's really, really, is it really is it's been a huge win for everyone involved. So

Evan Dobbie 30:08 it's a great goal to target, like if, when you can make it happen, it is a beautiful thing for everyone to benefit from, from a result like that. And yeah, it has been remarkable. And yet those those skills will be highly transferable, and, yeah, beneficial in so many different ways to so many different goals and paths and desires, and you're making

Blake Hunsley 30:36 a bigger impact too, which is the third win we always consider. Because, yes, there's a win for the employer, which we want. There's the win for the client, which we definitely want. But there is one less person out there in our community feeling unsure of themselves, feeling directionless, and not having some sort of job or prospect of some kind that they can wake up to and look forward to at the start of the day. That, in my head, is the greatest impact we see so many people who are just stuck. It leads to problems in their family life, leads to problems in large order, in the community life. We have a lot of people who come through our doors because they've been referred through the court system. So we see those, those real cause from that directionlessness. So no, I'm that third win is honestly probably the biggest. Oh yes for us, yes, yeah. The other two are very important. We want the client to win, and we never want we never want to send someone to the wrong job either. The right person right job is another one of our many, many mottos around here. It is very important. But that community win. You're a great example of that, because I can just see the success, how it's how it's working for us in a very selfish perspective, you've made my job much easier because you're taking on not wrap my head around but no, I can see you going into other workplaces and doing this in the future. And then once people get to know you a little better, too, it's oh, well, what's your background? Well, it's this really interesting path through this agency you may have never heard of. Let me tell you what they do. Let me tell you about my journey. You can read this beautiful story that I've written. You're the best advertisement that I've seen from us here, which is, again, it's self serving for us, but it's also a huge win. That's

Evan Dobbie 32:07 wonderful. That's, that's a great point. I hadn't really considered that, but, yeah, as a sort of proof of, you know, proof of concept, yeah, it's like, it's like, here's a sample product, yeah,

Blake Hunsley 32:19 exactly. And you're it's great when clients are coming in new now too, and that you're very open about your experience here and about the fact that you did start as a client. So you know, they may know out of the gate that this is not a typical client journey that ends with you actually working at reachability, yes, but they can still see not only the skill development, but the identifying of existing skills that you may not have known how to use, and they can identify with that and look at you as an example of, okay, what am I actually capable of doing right now? I'm not giving myself enough credit for that I could go to make something out of make opportunities

Evan Dobbie 32:54 and that, yeah, that and that sense of purpose that I've derived from it is like been huge for my own mental health and its improvement, and I hope that, yeah, maybe some of the other clients who have been aware of me during my time here, maybe they have seen that and can derive some, you know, I guess I don't want to say hope, because that sounds too grand, but all

Blake Hunsley 33:18 in my opinion, Maybe

Evan Dobbie 33:19 not even a little. But what keeps us going, like, or just like, some example of a success story of like, hey, if he can do it, then why can't I? Yeah,

Blake Hunsley 33:32 and it's not just great for the clients either. I know you've both been on the receiving end of the Friday afternoon emails we occasionally get around here from one facilitator saying, Here's my latest success story of the week. This is where this client is now working. This is the client who now has visitation rights to their children again, for the first time in years. It's yes that, you know, none of us work in this sector because the because the pay is so great. In the not for profit world, there's a lot of other very tangible benefits, and that's the biggest one, is feeling that you're making an impact, and so, yeah, you're giving that hope, not just to the clients, but you're a tangible example to the rest of us that, like our efforts are are paying off as well.

Evan Dobbie 34:09 That's great to hear. As someone who has sent a few of those messages myself. Yeah, that was very much the sense of wanting to express my appreciation for that, and recognizing being aware of very much that those realities of our world and that these are difficult positions that aren't well remunerated and are often overlooked and under appreciated by so many sectors of our society, and that it's easy to for, for some of like those facilitators or whomever, to fall into that sense of, you know, not dejected, but frustrated and and, yeah, that potentially that sense of becoming jaded. Hated it. I just really wanted to express that sense of gratitude I had, and to really communicate any win that I can and make sure that those people, if they do help me, that they're aware of it and that they they know that I appreciate what they did and I recognized it, and I value it, and I think it's important and that they should, you know, they should receive kudos for

Blake Hunsley 35:26 that. I think you definitely, you've definitely given that feeling to a lot of the people who work here.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 35:32 So well we are, as does always happen with our podcast we're running. So in closing, Evan, I want to thank you very much for sharing your story, and I want to put it out there to those people listening to the podcast. Blake is going to be adding the link to Evan's review from the AGM, his his story, his journey. And for those we didn't actually talk today, so I do want to just put this little plug in for Evan that Evan has a background in journalism, yes, and I think you'll see, but when you read his client's journey story, that is very well written. So anybody out there who's looking to have, you know, maybe their AGM reports written or have some documents worded in a by somebody who knows proper use of the English language, good grammar skills. That's Evans background as well. So Evan has many talents and strange,

Unknown Speaker 36:47 circuitous

Blake Hunsley 36:50 Welcome to reach that is the person we look for more than anyone else, absolutely, and we will if you think, we're not going to drag you into forces to have you teach how to write professionally at some point, it's one of the things I love most about this place, is that if you show any evidence of a skill, well, that was silly of you, because now you're going to be using that skill on the regular. I

Evan Dobbie 37:11 really appreciate it honestly. So it feels great to make use of those things that for a long time were like, ended up becoming a source of like frustration to feel like, Why did I do these things?

Blake Hunsley 37:25 (Crosstalk)

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 37:32 exactly. And it is a way of, like, you know, positively, you know, giving, giving back, yeah? Like, how you know, Evan talked about now that, you know, he's actually watching new clients come in and seeing their journey and their anxiety lesson, and now you actually have some skills. Just being able to talk about your journey is likely helping somebody else. So another great podcast. I love the fact that, you know, today we, we really did talk about the journey, and it gives people more of an insight into what we do here, reachability. So thank you very much, Evan for joining us and being so open and sharing, and thank you for joining

Blake Hunsley 38:12 us on the team. Because I know, you know, like I said, it's it. It takes a lot to work here. It's not always a super positive day. Some days it's hard some days, some days, clients are not making the progress we need them to, and some days we're not helping them in the way that we need to. And it can be tough. And you've made things, you've definitely brought a very positive energy energy here, but you've also reminded that you've been a good reminder for why we're doing this, because we've really seen you flourish. And that's honestly, that's that's better than any paycheck at any job I've ever gotten, not that we don't have bills to pay and need that paycheck, but if you're not a win exactly, and if you're not getting something deeper than your pay out of your job, yes, we all need you're not me, because I need that. I do, and I think most people do, and you've been a good reminder for that. So thank you. Thank you

Evan Dobbie 38:58 very much. I feel a real sense of of kinship here and and, yeah, that weird, circuitous route and my strange, sort of scattered nature I find makes me a good fit here, where I find this place and its environment more appealing than sort of more structured, rigid, predictable environments, because this place suits suits my my own, you know, much less.

Blake Hunsley 39:28 So listen, I fully understand. It's a great fit, good. I'm very glad. Well, thank you again, very much for joining us. Thank you so much for having Shelly. Thank you for joining me as my lovely co host. Again, it's been a pleasure as always. Pleasure as always. And thank you everyone for listening. Thanks for listening to within our reach. We'll be back in two weeks with our next episode. If you have an idea for an episode, topic you'd like us to cover, or if you'd like to join us as a guest on the podcast, reach out to us at withinourreach@reachability.org.

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