Hey Alexa, What Invisible Systems Are Shaping Our Lives?

In this episode of The Hey Alexa Podcast, Alexa sits down with strategist, speaker, and author Stephanie Forbes for a conversation that goes far beyond supply chains and global trade. Together, they explore the invisible systems shaping modern life — from government policy and economic infrastructure to human behaviour, relationships, resilience, and the way people navigate uncertainty.

What begins as a conversation about global systems quickly unfolds into a much deeper discussion about curiosity, adaptability, leadership, trust, and the repetitive patterns humanity continues to revisit throughout history. Stephanie shares insights from her new book, Global Wealth, Local Impact, while offering a grounded and deeply human perspective on how systems break, why resilience matters, and what happens when people stop asking better questions.

Viewers can expect a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation about:

• the hidden systems influencing our daily lives
• how uncertainty shapes innovation
• why relationships are becoming more important than ever
• what history teaches us about human nature
• how individuals and nations respond under pressure
• the connection between global resilience and personal resilience

This episode is for anyone curious about the forces quietly shaping the world around them — and how greater awareness, collaboration, and curiosity might help us navigate what comes next.

Connect with Stephanie Forbes:

Book — Global Wealth, Local Impact
https://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/Global-Wealth-Local-Impact/Stephanie-Forbes/9781637635162

LinkedIn
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/calgaryforbes

The Forbes Group Website
https://theforbesgroup.ca/

Order the Book Directly
https://theforbesgroup.ca/order-now/

Find & Contact Your Representative in Canadian Parliament:

Find Your Member of Parliament
https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en

Parliament of Canada
https://www.parl.ca/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome back to the Hay Alexa podcast where curiosity is the currency of every conversation. Today's guest is someone whose work lives inside systems. Most people rarely think about until those systems break. Stephanie Forbes is a strategist, speaker, and author of the newly released book, Global Wealth, Local Impact: How Supply Chains Build Thriving Companies, Cultures, and Countries. Feel free to share the front page of that book, real quick. I'd love to see it. Amazing. Look at that accomplishment. So what stood out to me most in learning about Stephanie's work was the realization that invisible systems shape the way businesses, leaders, and people function every day. This conversation became so much more than operations or procurement. And it became a conversation about what holds people, organizations, and societies together and what causes them to fall apart. Welcome to the Hey Alexa podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Thank you so much, Alexa. Really, really honored to be here. Super excited about this conversation. Can't wait to see where it goes. Um, yeah, let's get in. Let's dig into it. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Me too. Let's start off. So for someone listening right now who hears words like supply chain procurement, governance, or value chains and immediately thinks, I have no darn idea what any of that actually means, myself included. How would you explain what you do and why it matters in a way that the average person would understand?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Uh, so in a nutshell, I solve problems. That's really as complicated as it gets. I solve problems in spaces and places that a lot of people don't really like to solve them, or they find them really complicated. Um, but ultimately it's just problem solving. I take, you know, for example, a situation that might be, you know, how do we get product from A to B? Or how do we get a hold of a supplier that we can't get a hold of, or how do we um solve a delivery issue, or any number of different things. Um, but it actually just really comes down to some pretty basic uh problem solving and um connecting with our fellow humans really is what I do. It's doesn't sound I know it's not it's really actually when you condense it down, it's just too thick.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

You're like, hey, I relate to that. I think a lot of people can relate to that because everything needs to be mowed over and examined from time to time. So you show up when things need fixing. Your work exists inside systems most people never think about until something goes wrong. But what first made you curious about the invisible infrastructure behind everyday life?

SPEAKER_01 2:38

So I had a massive privilege when I was getting my real first job, right? You know, your first job where you actually get health and dental benefits. And in that job, I ended up on a project, a really big project, about a billion dollars all told. Um, so it was the Aurora projects. There's Aurora One and Aurora Two, and at the time they were built under Syncrude. And I had the opportunity to work on some extremely large, um, complicated uh mechanical and electrical packages. And one of the mechanical packages really started going sideways. And, you know, it was a product we needed to get out of the US. It had real custom metallurgy, um, so metal components in it that were sourced from other places. There's a lot of intellectual property and other um design constraints. Um, and then there was also shipping it. Like a single, a single pump was like seven to 14 truckloads. Well, for one pump. When it was assembled, it's the size of a two-story house. And so this particular package, I had tons of problems on. I had issues with documentation. I had issues with the supplier getting back to us. I had issues internally with our own teams, you know, and I had issues on the road. I like it didn't matter which portion of that package I had, I had problems at every single level. And I learned really quickly, I'm really good at solving problems. So it'd be like, oh, hey, like we don't have this. Okay, well, who has it? Let me go and find them. Let me go talk to them. Let me find out what the, you know, what their pinch point is, then let me go to the next person and the next person. Because I just kept asking questions and and kept removing roadblocks and um, you know, just seeking to understand. And so that slowly over time ended up, you know, on larger and larger projects, ended up on more and more complicated things. And I realized that the system behind the system isn't just one thing. It's like a spider web of of little things. And you got to be careful what you pull on because it it might cause something else down the road. So you got to take the whole picture and you got to take it from a really holistic viewpoint of like how does this all work together? Um, you know, how does you know pushing or pulling on one area impact another? And is that an outcome that I actually want? Right. So, and I always like to use a little triangle kind of example, and it's um cost, quality, and schedule. So you got cost, you got quality, and you got schedule. And you can have two of the three, but you can never ever have all three, right? Because you're you're always playing trade-offs. So if you want high quality and low cost, your schedule's gonna move out. If you want um, you know, schedule's really important, quality is really important, well, your cost is gonna go up. And so all of these trade-offs always occur. And so that's when you look at your system, you've got to start there. Obviously, there's probably other trade-offs as you know you move through time, but generally those are the three that drive the majority of our decisions. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

So taking on a very uncertain sort of atmosphere and being able to say, hey, despite the uncertainty, here's what we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

A hundred percent. Um I like uncertainty. I find it interesting, challenging. Um, um, and I realize that I'm rare. I not everyone likes uncertainty. A lot of people like consistency, they like routine. And I I think I like to spice it up just for fun, just to see what what else is out there sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

I think certainty is a bit of an illusion. That's just my my per uh personal take on it. And the more you get good with being uncomfortable, you know, the less uncomfortable you feel.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Well, you don't necessarily feel less uncomfortable from my experience because this whole book thing was uh like hugely outside of my comfort zone. It extends the brand. So I got so uncomfortable in so many situations. And it didn't mean that the uncomfortableness went away. What it meant was I had better tools to navigate. So um I think what happens over time is we just recognize that we we need to have different tools. Um, it's not that the certainty, you know, changes suddenly or somehow everything's, you know, more clear. It's that's not the case. It's I have I've developed new tools for how I want to approach that uncertainty. But yeah, it's it's been it's been really interesting to put myself in a deliberately uncomfortable space. And then like, how does that feel?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

I like that. What have the global systems taught you then about human behavior?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

We're very repetitive. Um we we do a lot of the same things over and over again. When you have, and so as an example, when I write in the book about the East India Company, so this was the first organization that was a corporation where they um had share certificates where people owned portions of the company and it shared risk and liability across multiple shareholders. It also created insurance. And part of the problem with the East India Company is because they were dealing with so much money that power and greed were too tempting for too many people. And so you had systematic and widespread corruption and theft and a variety of other things, poor decision making, that ultimately led to its demise. It led to legislation being passed in in Britain to say, hey, you can't behave like this, some of the first uh legislation. It ended up, uh Britain ended up taking over portions of India because that uh portion of land was ceded to the East India Company as as part of a trade. So you you ended up in a in a really sort of dicey situation. And what we learned from that is, you know, power and greed does continue to disrupt and corrupt absolutely. So where you when you have unmitigated power or unmitigated greed or lust for greed or the availability of a lot of cash, it people go after it every single time. And so, you know, when we look at some of the historical items um around, I'm just picking on greed and corruption as two right now, um, you know, those things continue to be pervasive throughout, you know, society and as humans, like it continues and is ongoing. But we can also look at more positive aspects, uh, like the Silk Road and innovation. They were masters of innovation. Um, you know, they you know figured out how to do letters of credit, they figured out how to do currency exchanges, um, quality control. There's a whole bunch of different things like that that really demonstrated the power of innovation and that that problem solving and that problem solving for collective good is also in there as well. It's just one of those important things to note that we we do as humans, we do have a very predictable nature. We are very innovative, um, but we also do succumb to, you know, sort of that lust for power or, you know, if there's too much money available, there's the opportunity to take it.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

On the topic of succumbing, then what breaks first in a system under pressure, processes or people?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Oh, so the process is always bright. People generally will work around processes. If the processes don't work for them, so it's it's a hindrance or an obstacle, people will go around. And so you see this actually really all the time in audits, right? Where people you go and you say, Hey, you didn't follow this process for doing this transaction, they're like, Well, yeah, because it was broken, it didn't work. I had to go around to fix the problem and you know, help the customer or do this or do that. And so, like, it is in our nature to go around anytime that we see something that isn't working for how we need to solve a problem. That's part of our innovation. Like, there is almost nothing in the world that will truly stop us if we're trying to like get to a goal or we have an objective, right? We, you know, we climb mountains, we go underwater, we traverse oceans, we stick stuff in sea cans. Like we, we will solve that problem.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

What did the disruptions of the past few years from global supply uh supply chain breakdowns to economic uncertainty and rapid technological change reveal to you about the way humans respond under pressure?

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So, two things. Um, the the most recent disruptions um tell me that we became very comfortable with our global supply chain uh way of doing and being, and that we got very complacent and I'm gonna use the word lazy with how we decided to transact globally. And it's it was working for now, so we weren't really interested in in taking a longer look at the resilience of it. You know, where are these things going? How many places and ports do they touch on their way here? And what happened is we all got caught and it no longer works. And the disruptions are not just these like random black swan events, they are all the time. They are continuing to increase with severity and frequency. You have very major constraints around your availability of boats, availability of planes, availability really of anything. Um, and now we have some serious, you know, impacts to fuel, you know, whether that's regular gasoline or diesel. And that's going to impact again, ability to move things across the globe and within our own countries. So when we look at those things, what it tells me is that no one was like, hey, we should plan for a bad day case, you know. It's like, oh, that won't happen. Or if it does, we'll just deal with it at the time. Well, now we're dealing with it at the time, and it's like, oh, hey, you know, we could use a lot of this infrastructure that we've been talking about for 20 years that we've never built. That would be really handy right about now. And so now it's gonna take five to 10 years to build all the infrastructure that we should have been building over the last 20 years, and we're gonna have to play a little bit of catch up to get there. But what I also do honestly believe is that again, you're gonna see a lot of innovation, right? Because we're gonna build it, but we're gonna want to build it cleaner, greener. Um, we're gonna wanna be more strategic about, you know, the locations of it, you know, who has access. So there's gonna be a lot of great innovation that comes with that. But, you know, it we do need to be more proactive about how we get our products to market, where we buy our products from, and what what do those global tentacles look like in terms of reach and disruption, not just within our own countries, but across the the larger economic scale and perspective.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

And whether we're playing catch up, as you were uh mentioning there, or if we're yielding the tools we already have set in place, what qualities actually matter most when everything becomes uncertain like that?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Oh you know, actually on this one I'm gonna pull a little bit out of my book. So on the Silk Road, they had um a group um that would be responsible for like kind of like disputes um in the canniversaries. And so you'd have these sort of individuals that would be responsible for resolving disputes, and they were highly regarded uh because not only were they able to keep their word, but you know, they were the ones that kind of decided, you know, how things sort of shook out on the Silk Road. That's what we're starting to see in the global scene sort of play out a little bit. So you see a lot of what we call middle powers. So countries like um Great Britain, Australia, Canada, certain countries in Europe for sure. And so you'll notice that they're all talking. So you've got the middle powers all talking and saying, hey, like how about this? Well, what do you think about that? Um, I'd like to hear your perspective on you know, some of these this reshifting. And so, very similar to the Silk Road, you have um, you know, a bunch of individuals coming together to have quality conversations that really depend heavily on how much they can be trusted and how much they can be respected and how mindful they are in terms of their um their conversations with these other middle powers. And that's really where I'm gonna start to see more of a shift in terms of how how do we navigate forward. It's hard with the the majors, right? So when we think of like China, the US, Russia, um it's very hard for them sometimes to navigate sort of this degree of uncertainty with, you know, well, this is what we're gonna go do. And because there is so much at stake, oftentimes you can see middle powers navigate better with better outcomes than some of the majors, just because of inherently what's involved. When you're when you're really, really, really big, there's there's much more complications to any sort of statement that you make versus a middle power where you have a lot more latitude because you're you're not one of the majors. And I think that's some of the things that we're gonna start to see play out. And I think those are the groups and conversations that are gonna actually help us navigate through this level of uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

What would you say is the difference, or let's let's word this differently, the cost then between control and doubling down versus being adaptable in circumstances like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Oh, the cost for control. Uh, that's a good question. So again, I think we're gonna come back to a com a comment that you made earlier. Control is an illusion. We we don't actually have control. What we have in some cases are some some great well-ordered contracts to to move goods to A or B. Um but that's about it. We we don't actually have control. And so what we have to rely on is um the ability for us to have an agreement be upheld by others. Um because a lot of those agreements are are not being um honored or they're being um swapped out for different agreements because the um the world's changed too much and and that it's no longer it's no longer working. So the cost for control then becomes um it's not so much about money, but it's more about reputation and um being a trustworthy and responsible contractual relationship, whether that's between two nations, between different organizations, between um, you know, a supplier and a manufacturer, like in in all different levels, it really gets down to, you know, how much do you believe in that relationship? And relationships I think are kind of counterintuitive to the the AI um endemic. Um relationships are really going to be what helps us navigate a lot of these spaces and places forward. And I think that that's the more important piece when we talk about control isn't necessarily that we have any. It's about who can we trust and who's responsible and who can we rely on.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

It feels like your work naturally sits at the intersection of all these things. So relationships, parenthood, we spoke about that earlier, mental health, leadership, identity, whether it's you know unique to each individual or to a whole country at large. What invisible systems are shaping modern life that people rarely stop to think about?

SPEAKER_01 16:54

So this is gonna be like at the government level, you have people that help direct policy. So, for example, in Canada, we have different policies on um interprovincial trade. We have policies on global trade, we have policies on how we start projects, how we develop those projects. And a lot of those policies as they relate to sort of legislation can be really helpful in terms of getting business going and getting projects going. Others can be really onerous and drive a lot of unnecessary red tape. And so these invisible systems that you don't necessarily see because you got to get right in the weeds of like how the government operates and what are the rules, which is like painfully boring, but really, really important because those invisible systems decide how and who we trade with. They decide how much is a tariff or a tax or a fee, which directly impacts your ability to be, say, profitable or not profitable, or you know, ease of access. So when you're trying to develop a new product, do I have reasonable ease of access to the raw materials to make the new product? If I don't, you know, how do I, how do I navigate that? And there are a lot of situations where certain rules and regulations, for example, on like pharmaceutical products that could be very dangerous to the public. Those are important things. And we we don't want to get those wrong. But we have other things where, you know, we have just you know regular companies trying to put something together that's of value add for not just an organization, but for, you know, whether it's your you know, local constituents, you know, at the municipal level, maybe it's at the federal level. Um, but you know, all of those things help drive the economy and help drive growth. And when we have too much red tape in terms of what those policies are, in terms of how we trade, how we get access to markets, how we can sell into other markets, um, you know, that is really problematic. Because one of my favorite um comments to date is the GDP of nations is a direct KPI in terms of how good your supply chain is. If you have a great GDP, your supply chain is reasonably efficient as a country. If your GDP sucks, you probably have barriers to entry, or you have a lot of red tape, or you have corruption on some level. So when we look at that and we're like, hey, our our GDP is stagnant, what does that mean? So as Canadians, what does that mean? Well, it means that the ability to transact on a goods and services level across the country is not great. It means that we have policies and rules and regulations that create unnecessary bureaucracy that weighs businesses down, that doesn't allow them to generate uh as much profit or growth as we would like. Like it's that simple. And so those are the hidden systems in there that I would have to say really need more attention. And the more people who understand and pay attention to some of those policies, I think the the better off we would be as a as a nation.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I like that you brought that up because I think a lot of the time we get so split as voters with the left and right nonsense that we forget to really scrutinize the systems and how they're being handled. And you said it perfectly. And that is a clear reflection of our supply chain as well. Something for for viewers to think about too when they're, I don't want to say place blame, but when they're looking to scrutinize and hopefully push their MPs to solve problems, that's a good place to start.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, it's about asking questions and being curious and saying, like, you know, explain to me why, or, you know, help me understand, you know, this section. And I'm not politically aligned, but making our representatives, doesn't matter who you vote for, but anyone like your representatives accountable to you to say, hey, like I'm a small business or I'm a medium business, or I'm just an individual, but I really care deeply about access to these things or to enable my ability to move goods and services around. Maybe I'm into windows and doors, maybe I'm you know into lumber, maybe I'm into mining and metals. Like it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, we all need to be able to have viable businesses. We need to be able to rely on our elected officials to help us, you know, build strong, sustainable businesses that are good for everyone, right? They're good for the economy, they're good for people, they're good for the environment, they're just you know good for everybody and and to move forward. And and those things all can be true at the same time, right? We can have a thriving oil and gas industry across Canada. We can have thriving mining industries across the country, we can have thriving timber and related pulp and paper industries across the country, and they can still all do good things for the environment. They don't all have to be bad at the same time. We have a lot of environmental protection regulations that are some of the best in the world, as well as we've got amazing like reclamation programs and everything else, because the world and Canadians need a lot of these resources to get to what's next. And that includes like electrification. That looks like, you know, more sustainable farming and uh food practices in the agricultural space so we can be more self-sufficient. Like all of those things require some resources for us to build. And we can do those things in a very appropriate way, but we also need the ability to get these projects off the ground. And that's going to require some maneuvering at the policy level.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

So regardless of who you vote for, those things still all need help. 100%. And they enrich us as a nation in so many other ways, even social programs, all the things we deeply care about. How did writing this book change the way you personally see the world?

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Uh oh, that's a tough one. So I think this book really highlighted the fact that we are we are a little bit predictable as creatures, which I didn't I thought we were a little bit more like, hey, we're innovative. Like we are really innovative, but we're also really predictable. We move through pretty big cycles and and those cycles are are really driven by sort of rise and falls of primary powers. And then just sort of the general the general push and pulls of um trying to meet the needs of a populace while trying to meet the needs of what you might need as a as a country, right? So making sure everyone stays fed might be different than taking over a neighboring um you know country right so to pick on Rome as an example, right? Trying to balance you know feeding feeding the country the city of Rome and trying to take over you know some neighboring um land. Those are competing priorities because in some cases you can't do both. You can't feed an army and feed your your population and so like what's your trade-off and so those types of trade-offs um do continue and and I think are repetitive. I didn't I thought we would move out of that. I thought there was be some stuff that we actually move forward with as people that we'd be like hey we're smarter than that now we can move away from this thing. But I I did find a lot of it really cyclical and that we keep revisiting the same things which was both kind of an aha moment and a oh that sucks yeah do you think that's a reflection of just collectively how not self-aware or aware we are of those trade-offs? Um I think self-awareness is one part of it. I think the other part of it is human nature. We are um wired to to behave a certain way like oh I have to I have to get more stuff so I I can survive well how much is enough stuff that you have for certain point in time do you do you have enough stuff that that you're going to be okay like the the the amassing of unbelievable amounts of wealth for the purpose of just amassing it without any sort of like giving back or bringing society along with you is is a little bit troubling. I think that you know as when we get to a certain space and place, you know, that altruism of like giving back and and creating a a legacy and and trying to uplift that doesn't appear to come one and then the other. You know there there's there's different pieces there and and that's also pervasive throughout history. So that's unfortunate that we don't lift others up and bring others along as we move forward. And I and that seems to be human nature. That appears to be and that's that whole nature versus nurture argument. But it appears to be you know we're a little bit hardwired. I think self-warness is really helpful at the end of the day I think that you know making sure that leaders of our countries and of our organizations, you know, making sure that we put people in those positions that do more than just look after shareholder value. They're also looking after you know the broader picture of what is what is our role in society look like and how are we contributing, improving the lives of others. Like what are what are some other things that we could measure that would benefit the broader the broader people and not to say you know throw, you know, we have to do all this you know soft social stuff. But at the same time I think that we need to take a look at what are our values? What are we driving towards? And if we're just driving towards shareholder value, it's I don't think sustainable in the long term and I think it's going to cause a lot of collateral damage that we're probably not prepared to deal with on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Mm-hmm. This sounds like a resounding theme of a sense of curiosity towards not just the self, the me, me, me, me, me or our country, us against them. And it makes me think this conversation it keeps bringing me back to this realization that these systems aren't only global or organizational, they're personal too and we all live inside systems every single day in our relationships, in our homes, our workplaces, our communication, even the way we respond to stress. Would you say when you study resilience in systems at a global level, do you begin to notice similar patterns in people's everyday lives as well?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

A hundred percent you're bang on um you'll always have a friend just sort of anyone who's listening to this or yourself, but just think about all your friends that you have. And you're gonna probably be able to go oh yeah if I had to like in five minutes like leave my house she would be there he would be there and they would have me packed up in like 13 minutes. I would be off to a safe space I would have something to eat and like a water bottle or something right like like they just they're that person that they can just show up and like do all those things. So that's a really high functioning person that you know can really be very resilient and very adaptive. And so you have indiv specific individuals like a friend that you can think of that are that person. And then you can also have organizations that are that people or functional teams within organizations that are like those people and and and those are the the models that as you're moving through and you're going how do I become more resilient or how do I set up these things you know it you can think of at least one person I'm sure that would fit that bill and be like oh how do they do that? How do they you know how do they just come up with those ideas? And that's where being this again would be really helpful and be like hey like tell me how you got like this or you know how do you always know what the right answer is or how do you always know what to do? And they you know might not be for everything, but you know maybe they're they're you're just you know like get out of jail free kind of you know like monopoly game kind of like get out of jail free card. Give them a call and they you know they they help you out sort you out and away you go again. And so we we do have a lot of organizations that are like that. You know small and medium sized enterprises generally tend to be more nimble and quick and and quite a bit more resilient than than larger organizations. Larger organizations I find that you have functional teams that develop those characteristics where the larger organization itself is built on sort of stability and consistency. But you you can find it you can find it everywhere where you're we're trying to look it just might not appear the the same way that you think it should. If somebody listening feels overwhelmed by the pace and complexity of modern life what helps create resilience then both in systems and in people personally because I was I should show you actually I was gonna this is my like my to-do list today right giant crazy like how are you gonna get through that so I go okay what are my top three things and it's just one two and three and so I'll go through and I'll write down one two and three and I don't look at anything else until one two and three are done and then I'll add another one two three and and then I just go through it in in those principles. If I develop like something really big like a month of stuff that I I'm like okay this is what I'm gonna do I'm gonna map out all my things then I'll break it down at night I'll go through okay tomorrow I'm gonna do these three things and then that's it. Once those three things are done I'm done. And then Tuesday I get my next three things and and Wednesday Thursday etc. But I break it down into threes and the other thing I have to tell myself is that you have permission after three to take a break to stop if that's sufficient for today then you move you know other stuff for tomorrow. Obviously if there's certain things that are high priority like there's a banking issue or there's something you deal with that right away. But we often think that we got to power through like all these things in one day, right? We've got to like get everything done. And there are days that you have big days where you've got to get a bunch of stuff done but the average day you could probably make yourself a list, stick to your top three. We get really overwhelmed when there is so much stuff and there isn't enough time and then and then we just add more stuff to our plate and it and then it leads to paralysis, right? Because I don't even know how I can start. Right. And and we start by just picking just picking three things. Sometimes you pick the easiest three things sometimes you pick the hardest three things. And I often find that when you get in and you do some research and you you you know figure out some of the details around something, it takes some of the mystery away and then it can often reduce the level of like overwhelm or anxiety around something in particular because you've you've figured it out or you have a better understanding of it. And I think oftentimes we stop at understanding because it's too complicated, it's too big. But if we actually like took five minutes and tried to understand it, it it wouldn't actually be that bad.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

What would you say to people then who are like Stephanie I am not a a list maker I don't subscribe to systems I think because in my opinion we all do whether we're aware of it or not just our systems all look different in our day-to-day life, right? Some of us have kids, some of us don't have kids, some of us have a nine to five, some don't so what would you say to those people?

SPEAKER_01 31:35

So who knows? Maybe you live leave yourself voice memos, maybe you use the notes thing maybe you stick stuff in calendar everyone usually deploys something. Rarely have I met somebody who just keeps it all up in their head and they just extract it whenever they need to most individuals will use their phone or their laptop or you know something to uh make sure that they have their cells organized. And so then try to figure out what works best for you. Is it just you know one big thing a day is it um you know in the you know I block off this chunk in the morning to get all my emails done and this chunk in the afternoon to do my errands like it it it just depends on on where you're at in your space and place. And then just really using the thing that works best for how you like to navigate. I'm a paper and pen person. I write it on the piece of paper because then I get my big pen and I go and that you're out of my yeah yeah that dopamine release of crossing something off the list is like that is my jam. And so that's why I write a physical list is because I want that dopamine hit of crossing it off. Be conscious of what works for you and then and then use it to the best of your ability.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

I think and the the most important factor that you touched on was getting it out of your brain because what what keeps you up at night is all the things stalling you out that keep playing on repeat. Just pick up a notepad and just like debank all that stuff. Get it out of your brain I'm pretty sure there's a science behind this. I've heard it somewhere but get those things out onto paper get them tangible in front of you don't let them cycle around up here.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

I keep a notepad and a pen beside my bed. When I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like oh my God I just I just jot it down and then I can go back to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

I don't want to kind of the irony is it's repetitive. So you said as a species we've noticed resoundingly we're very repetitive in how we do things. I was to ask you after years of studying systems, leadership and global infrastructure, what have you learned about people? But instead let's rephrase this and say what will it hold us back from if we remain less curious or if we allow our curiosity to impose threats on our psychology as opposed to curiosity towards oh that's what they're doing over there. How can we collaborate? Hmm that's a very very good question.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Hmm so we as a species are repetitive yes we we fall in the same cyclical patterns. We are however very innovative and we can be very curious. And so one of the things that requires a shift which I I think we're going to get there anyway Mother Nature has this really wonderful way of like disrupting everything all the time until eventually we figure it out so whether that's going to be um you know some more um flooding events or maybe a couple more natural disasters like a fire or a hurricane she just you know she she kind of likes to like sort of make it seem a little bit more disruptive we have a lot of man-made impacts right now like the Strait of Hormuz isn't moving we've got a you know a lot of of things that are our own you know issues some from a geopolitical perspective but with all of this disruption it forces us to be curious it forces us to come up with other options it forces us to think innovatively if we are not pushed and challenged we're just going to default back to our maximizing value right we always default back to maximizing value. When we're pushed okay well how do we work together how do we connect how do we collaborate how do I if I'm over you know here you know how do I work with you over there Alexa like what are what are the things that you and I need to to work on so that we can connect and trade and and do all those types of things and what are you most concerned about? And so now I need to be concerned and curious about what you find to be most important. And then you're gonna probably ask me something similar about what do I find most important and then we're gonna collaborate and coordinate on our shared values and our shared goals. And depending on what your number one what my number one are maybe they're the same thing. But in order to do that we actually have to want to move the ball forward. And because we have so much unbelievable disruption right now everything from just regular commodities moving across boundaries or whether that's the ocean, air or by road or train or whatnot, we have so many disruptions there. And as that continues, uh we have to find new ways, new routes, new origin sources, new everything and as that happens that curiosity is going to become larger and greater and and more profound we're already seeing quite a bit in Canada in terms of like well how do we navigate this? What do we need to build? Where are we going to build it to can we use this? Can we use that? How quickly can we start you know building this particular infrastructure project you know what does that look like we have everything from just a regular sort of pipeline one of the old Keystone XLs you know can we can we re you know revitalize any of that hey can we expand the port at Churchill? Can we run stuff through Churchill? Can we you know expand a port, you know, in Vancouver area um can we do something on the East Coast? What about Halifax? Is there something there that we can do so you're seeing a lot of continued conversations that have probably been happening for a while but they're now starting to to really take shape and and really move move forward and I that doesn't happen in isolation that happens in context with the other larger conversations that are going on Stephanie what gives you hope about the future we don't laugh hope about the future we have overcome a lot as humanity over millennia we've overcome you know the rise and fall of many empires um the rise and fall of different trade routes we've survived pandemics we've survived wars we've survived everything natural disasters we will survive and continue to thrive in in our next new environment I just hope that we ask better questions and we hold people more accountable so that we can have better outcomes um than where we're at right now.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

And what do you hope listeners carry with them after this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 37:51

That they really want to buy my book no just kidding um that's a bonus absolutely that's a bonus that's a bonus right uh what do I hope they really carry with them um I hope that the listeners out there think obviously that supply chains are as fascinating as I think they are all joking aside I really hope that they take the opportunity to learn about systems and learn about you know where things come from and where they go and how they are important within that system themselves, whether that's negotiating with your elected officials on what you think are important to you to help your businesses grow and thrive it's about weighing in on what you need at a municipal level from your local governments to make sure that you can have access to you know whether that's permits or you know different business options. It's really making sure that that you A, find it hopefully more interesting and B, you find some renewed sort of sense of passion or purpose in how you're going to be successful in the years to come.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Well you've definitely left me with a level of curiosity towards the systems that are guiding me that I may not even be aware of, but also the ones that I know I've implemented and have done well for me. So I really appreciate that and not only your expertise but the humanity that you're bringing into spaces that many people assume are purely operational and technical. I think this conversation reminded us that behind every system are people, behind every disruption are human decisions and behind every resilient organization are relationships, communication and trust. So thank you so much for being here and to everyone listening thank you for spending this time with us. We're going to link everything you need to know about Stephanie in the show notes including where you can buy her book. This has been the Hay Alexa podcast where curiosity is the currency of every conversation