introduction: 0:03

Eric, you're listening to fascinating women with Mark Laurie. And now, Mark Laurie,

Mark Laurie: 0:10

Hello everyone, and welcome to fascinating women. We're glad to have you here. I'm Mark Laurie, your host. Usually I spend my time behind the camera photographing these wonderful men, hearing their stories. But today I get to have Erin McDonald in to tell me all about herself. I photographed her, and we've connected back and forth over the years. She is truly a very interesting lady. Welcome Erin,

Erin McDonald: 0:31

thank you for having me. Mark. It's great to be here.

Mark Laurie: 0:35

It is wonderful to have you. Let's start right away. You've had a fairly diverse life, but you've been kind of academia is where your focus has been.

Erin McDonald: 0:45

It's been applying academia to the arts, nonprofits, culture and heritage. So I knew that I wanted to work in museums in my during my undergrad, when I realized very quickly I didn't want to go into practicing law, and I had to find a career path I would be able to pursue with an undergraduate degree in English, and I didn't want to teach. And so after I determined that law was not my path, I started observing that some of my happiest moments and memories were in museums, and that started this process of trying to figure out, how does one work in museums? How do you move into that career if you want to be a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant or those are all paths that are pretty clearly, yeah, yeah. And museums, yeah, yeah.

Mark Laurie: 1:48

So you, you said this is one of the passions of your life. So how, how young were you when you started going, Oh, I like this museum. I like that museum.

Erin McDonald: 1:56

I was going to museums probably from a very young age, my parents, for many reasons, thought that it exposing me to the arts as a young child was good idea, and it wasn't something they had had access to growing up. So we were very working class people, and they thought that access to education and access to culture would be door opening, and so I was in museums when I was very young, but the moment that I realized that I was fascinated by museums was on a high school field trip To the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and standing next to a bust of Aphrodite on display and realizing that this piece of stone, this marble, was two and a half 1000 years old, and that the stories that it needs to be able to tell through that journey. That's my fascination with with objects and stories and art also has this element where there's an image or a produced item, sculpture, painting, film, but I'm really fascinated by the work that goes into it, what was the intention and the motivation of the Creator, what parameters and framework surrounded them at that time? So going back to the Second World War era, and trying to unpack how art was created at that time, and what the factors were that were influencing the decisions that were made on what was displayed, what was hidden, what was underground and risky, those all give us insight into the community and the culture and the tone that existed at that time. And I think that's, for me, the really fascinating part

Mark Laurie: 3:56

Art kind of mentioned of art over the ages is that it kind of reveals how evolved, I guess, in the society is like art is risky. Artists tend to poke at leaders, poke at social norms. And so as a society is more open and accepting and safe, I guess, like it's it's not safe, confident in itself. It allows more poking, prodding than joking. Is that an accurate understanding of the status of art for society? Well,

Erin McDonald: 4:30

Well, I mean, I'm sure there are many academic frameworks that would support or challenge that thinking, but I would say that art is a mirror of society. And so whatever era you're in, it is a direct reflection of what is being seen on the ground. And so sometimes that satire, where it's poking fun at the reality, sometimes it's subversive, sometimes it's propaganda. And. It also helps us understand what voices are missing, right? And so we think a lot about history and women are often side characters in the main story of great men. And so I'm really fascinated in things like domestic tools and their creativity of women who didn't necessarily adhere to societal standards at that time. So you know, authors and politicians and pragmatists over the years, who, who we have records of someone like Madame de Beauvoir, which was only because of status and access to power, but that gives us a really good insight in what the life of women was like at that time. Soyeah,

Unknown: 6:12

yeah,

Mark Laurie: 6:15

because, of course I feel as women and giving them empowerment, I constantly come across will build hidden twigs of history that, well, a whole thing turned on one woman's decision, and then some guy comes up and he gets a bigger picture. But I thought that is, like, so wrong.

Unknown: 6:30

I mean, I think we've seen definitely a transition in the past 80 years, certainly, and I think it's ebbed and flowed. So I don't think there's a moment in time where we can say, well, this is the moment when patriarchy ended and something new began. Different cultures, different civilizations, have valued different

Erin McDonald: 6:51

understandings of gender and gender role in different ways. So we can see moments in time where things are really restrictive for women, and we can see moments in time where there may be liberation of various kinds for various women, and that tracks on social hierarchies as well.

Mark Laurie: 7:08

So yeah, now you've got unusual past. So one of the questions I always get curious about is, Do people understand you? Do people around you understand who get you?

Unknown: 7:18

No, no, I I've perpetually since I was very young. I was I had hyperlexia. What that means is I was very advanced in reading, very young. I think I was reading books at about two or three years old that were a little bit more than picture books. But by the time I was 10 to 12.

Erin McDonald: 7:43

I'll give you an anecdote. Okay, I had been reading another book, and in that book, they had referenced some German literature. And I thought, well, I better read that so I understand the context of this other book. And so I went to my my public school. This would be grade five, six, and I went to the librarian, and I sincerely asked the public school librarian for a copy of Goethe Faust, and she looked at me, her eyes went like this, and she went, we don't have that here, but you might check the public library. And I did, and I got the book, and I read it. I don't know any other children that were that age that were like, I would like to read Faust by Goethe. And it just, I've always felt a little separate, and it's only been in the past few years through testing and self awareness and a lot of a lot of processes that I've come to learn that I'm autistic and I have ADHD, and these are, these are neuro divergences that result in my socialization, my learning, my adaptability. Those are different than a neuro typical person might be. But the challenge with it is also creates this distance for me, where I always feel separate from or outside of a group. I feel great one on one. This kind of conversation and interaction is very comfortable, but add more people, add loud noise, add complexity in the environment, and I shut down. I'm not very dynamic, and a lot of folks assume that that's For most people, that is a bit unnerving and also overwhelming. And perhaps for some folks, they don't have the knowledge, and they think that I might judge them or or otherwise

Mark Laurie: 10:43

yeah, I came across a really cool technique to get away from the small talk, like, what's the weather like? And it's called high low buffalo, so that you need to ask person, can we play a game? It's kind of fun. It's called high low buffalo. First, we all tell each other, it's a high point in our lives last week, a low point in our lives this last week. And then something that's interesting about your character, I'll go first, and then you give so then they give it to you, and now you've got three threads to pursue in the conversation. Is that cool? I think

Erin McDonald: 11:18

it's I think it's really positive to get to like, to feel like you're really getting to know someone. And I'm fine to talk about hockey or the weather or how the weekend was, but it doesn't in any way engage me. I can find something interesting about most any person once you get talking right. And so something like high low buffalo would be a great way. Improv games are really good for this too, where you just kind of let go of poise and physical presence and you just kind of be. And those are things that I think we could do more of as adults. We could learn to play and learn to relate to each other on different levels than what is socially acceptable, I don't know.

Unknown: 12:26

And

Mark Laurie: 12:26

And social exception make it safe like you, because you need there's, especially today's world where there's so much somewhere in lions or people aren't willing to to have engaging conversations, where we can have opposing points of view, but I'm curious. The thing in TED lasso, it comes across. He says, You've got people, I discovered people aren't curious. If they were curious, they would ask. And there's a whole bit that was just hilarious, and that kind of thing stops. And he says, pretty cool.

Erin McDonald: 12:54

He says, Be curious, not judgmental,

Unknown: 12:56

yes, yes, you've got that down pat. I just, I love that. He said, they always underestimate me, because they figure I'm being judgment. I'm being judgmental. I'm just, you know, they weren't curious. They lacked curiosity.

Erin McDonald: 13:07

I I've worked so hard, and I watched Ted lasso. I love it. I think it's one of the the best shows that's been produced in the past 10 years. And it's, it's so sincere and real. And it's really easy to be judgmental. It is so easy to be judgmental. Why did you do that? And I've really worked hard to practice exactly that, where that moment, where my brain goes why to why, and that's a very simple change in affect that

Unknown: 14:00

puts people at ease and also prevents you from making gross assumptions that you have no data to support why someone does or does not do something maybe wholly unrelated to whatever you think the context is, and I don't think it's fair To assume and so, yeah, be being curious, not judgmental as a way of life is something that I've really adopted

Mark Laurie: 14:27

on that. What are three guiding beliefs that are like your cornerstone of your life? What would those three beliefs be?

Erin McDonald: 14:35

I, I believe in learning for the sake of learning, just following whatever rabbit hole of curiosity you might have. And I really believe that learning and growing intellectually and as much as you can like whatever that looks like for you, whether it's reading books or watching TV programs or listening to a podcast, just expanding your mind, expanding your. the teachings I've learned those valuing of all life is precious, so serving that that all I want to do is mope because, I mean, I've been there and it's hard. Can be really hard. So yeah,

Mark Laurie: 18:41

I came across a couple of my clients one time, and they they had the opinion that think when things go wrong, they deserve a moment period of time, like, like, not hours and days but, but be it an hour to ours, depending on how dramatic it was that they get to mope. I said, I this has gone wrong. I get to be pissed off. I get to mope, I get to be sad. I get to whatever. For an hour. I've earned that. And then the hours up and I'm done. Let's move on. And she says, it sounds insane, and it's, it's a habit, though, is that she, she hits her, she hits an alarm clock, right, the stopwatch, rather. And then she just wallows. She said, I just I allow myself to wallow for only an hour, and then time clock goes off like I leave it behind. I thought it was an interesting approach.

Erin McDonald: 19:30

I practice the same, yeah, in a different way, in my own way, but I've learned that I need to give myself permission to feel the feelings I was socialized as a it

Unknown: 20:17

grants you time to process. You need time to process. When you give yourself, I don't necessarily set a clock and set a timer, but when I've had recently, I've had some pretty difficult times, and in parts of my life that I've always had success in, and that's it's frustrating, but there's also a period of grief, like you're grieving, a set of beliefs that you have to let go, and if I just ignore that need to grieve, then it'll build up and compound, and it'll come out in ways that are maybe unproductive, or It feels more like I'm raging than it is about processing and when some of these recent incidents have happened, I just said to my partner, I'm just gonna take a mental health day today like I'm feeling it, I'm feeling it, and I'm just gonna Feel it today, but I also demand of myself incremental, tiny progress every day. So when I'm in that headspace, I allow myself to be there, but the next day, it's about not dwelling, and it's about saying, Well, today I'm not 100% I still need space to grieve, but maybe 1% of my emotional energy today can be spent on something that's going to help me start recovering, and so that will be something like today. I'm going to make sure I brush my teeth today. I'm going to make sure I make my bed today. I'm going to make sure that I nourish myself with something healthy for food. Those are all steps that I take to help me recover from that moment where I let myself feel those feelings, and it's just one tiny step at a time. That's what I've learned I need for myself. So I don't know if that's universal, but

Mark Laurie: 22:18

there's a whole Chinese or Japanese for thinking that actually this how they recovered from World War Two. Was the kinsin I'm mispronouncing it. What essentially means the small steps, which is how the Americans got in very quickly, is that they they did a bunch of small steps changing, rather than do a big thing, like, Let's build a new plant and do something. They they change the current plants over, and they can suddenly make stuff. Suddenly make stuff. That's how they recovered from Japan, is they made small, incremental change of how they did things, and suddenly this robust society re emerged. So it's a very healthy approach, and it's a more effective approach than the big gestures like where somebody says, Okay, step up and let's swing for the park. And the guy goes, yeah, it's because you're not always gonna hit the park, but if you take a step each time you'll get to the park. I think it's a healthy that's my practice, whatever. That's really what it comes down to is being conscious of your choices, being aware of yourself, and demanding that you function a certain way, like you sit back and don't get lazy about your future.

Unknown: 23:26

It's really easy emotionally when things are hard to to become put yourself in the position of victim, right? And I think we've all been victimized. I don't think there's anyone who hasn't experienced that moment of true victimization, but when we adopt that moniker and own it, as I am a victim, and we don't acknowledge the power of choice, the power of mental fortitude, and for me, I this is funny, but I call it the pop boy ink, and this comes what does that mean is I learned to snowboard in my 30s, and when you snowboard, you spend most of your time on your bum. Because snowboarders are spending most of their time on their bum, like, until you get really advanced, you're going to be sitting down a lot of the time. And when you're learning how to snowboard, when you never skied, in your 30s, you're going to spend a real lot of time on your bum, because you're just not built for this exercise, any of these but every single time I fell down, it was like, in my head, I mentally was like, okay, pop boink and up, and it's just like, it's like, this moment where there's like a little spring underneath me, where it's like, alright, I fell. I got winded. Am I okay? I'm okay, alright, pop boink and up, and you're just back at it. And that's how I try to commit life, where. Like, life is going to constantly, there's going to be waves of stuff that's going to try to knock you down. And I can give up. I can stay on the side of the mountain indefinitely and wait for ski patrol to come pick me up and be like, well, I can't get up. And, yeah, if I'm injured, that is a wise choice. But barring that, it's like, it's my responsibility to and accountability for myself as to how I'm going to get to the bottom of that mountain. And I think of that in all of the challenges I faced in life, it's like, okay, I can lean on others for support. I can ask institutions for access. But ultimately, it's up to me whether I get up or not, and yes, I do struggle when I see folks who are just very willing to just give up, and because it's so antithetical to the way I've approached my life

Erin McDonald: 26:03

and I get it like, I really get it, but it's really hard for me to understand.

Mark Laurie: 26:07

And they become, they become comfortable being the victim and get mileage out of it. And I've encountered those folks that that's after a couple attempts, they discover, oh, being a victims got benefits, yeah, and it does you can, you can, you can milk that, but, boy, there's bigger benefits if you're not. What's the best advice you've been given?

Erin McDonald: 26:36

Oh, well, I have a couple of pieces of advice that just be willing to get up again is, is a big one, and I don't know where that came from. I think I've had that just instilled in me since I was a child.

Unknown: 26:58

The two pieces of advice. I was really close to my maternal grandmother. She raised me for many years, and she was like the one person who understood me as a child, like she's the person that got me. She was my person. And I remember when I was in my early 20s, in my undergrad, my grandfather, her husband was in the hospital. He had had a stroke, and my grandma wasn't driving, and she wanted to go see him, and she had errands and all of those other things. And so I would pick her up and take her to these errands and take her to the hospital. And one of the things that I said, you know, grandma, would you like me to come move in with you? Like, do you need help? Do you want me to stay? And she looked at me, and she said, Absolutely not. I've lived my life. It is time for you to live your life. You need to make choices that are going to be for your life. And that's almost, I mean, it feels selfish, right? But she gave me permission to say no, right? When it, when it Yeah, and I would have done anything for her. I would have, I would have moved mountains. If she had asked me to quit school, I would have but, but she was so aware that if I did that, that it would be changing the trajectory of my life forever, and that she did not want that given where she saw me was was, in hindsight, 20 years later, I'm going, Wow, what a gift that she gave me, when she could have just huge,

Mark Laurie: 28:38

and she's given the gift of sacrifice, because having You in there would make her life a whole bunch easier. I mean, the upside for her with you There is massive, but she's recognizing the downside for you and setting aside her benefits, I guess, to to let you, you know, grow and be you That's amazing, that that is, that's really a deep, deep, profound love for someone to do that.

Unknown: 29:05

And I just, I mean, had such a close relationship with my grandparents, and I have no living grandparents now. My my last grandmother passed a year a year ago. Actually, she was 102 Wow. Literally, she passed a year ago today at 102 and I just think that teachings that I've gotten from my both of my grandmothers and you asked about advice, and actually, I'm not going to give you another piece of advice. I'm going to share other stories of of these women. Okay, because this is, this is what roots me. Both of these women were born in the 1920s both of them were born in Alberta, and the opportunities for young women in the 1920s in Alberta wasn't extensive, right? That's true, yeah. You know, my maternal grandmother was born on a farm northwest of. Edmonton, in a town about today, it's 200 I don't know what it was then, and she was a middle girl of 10 kids. My other grandmother was one of, I think, just three kids, but in Calgary, and my maternal grandmother literally got on a bus from rural Alberta in 1945 by herself at 17 years old to move to Toronto. 19 like she took a ration book with her. Yeah, wow. And and got on a bus in in sangudo, Alberta. It was Greyhound then, and took that across the country, 17 years old. And

Mark Laurie: 30:51

we have to understand that traveling cross country back then is not like getting your car and travel cross country now. That's, you know, it's not a five day trip anymore. That's astounding for 17

Erin McDonald: 31:01

and she moved to Toronto. She made a life there. She that's where she lived the rest of her life. And I just think the power of that person to make that choice, to change their life prospects. Middle girl in a farm family in rural Alberta, in 1940s she was in line to get married and have a farm of her own. She did, yeah, there's a, yeah, my

Unknown: 31:22

it

Mark Laurie: 31:23

it speaks to vision. I mean, like you a belief in South and this, I mean, that's going in the unknown, because real farm rural, it does not have getting that to explore. What is Toronto offer. It's rumors and suspicions.

Erin McDonald: 31:37

She was taken out of school in grade two or three right to work the farm right during the Depression. Yeah, and,

Unknown: 31:46

you know, this is the grandmother that wanted me to fulfill my life's purpose. And like, there was never a choice for me that I was always going to be going to school in some sort of academic I was going to university. I was the first person on any side of my family to get a post secondary education, and it was just really seen as that's your path. And my other grandmother, she became a nurse, and she was a pediatric NICU nurse in she met my grandfather when he was on basic training during the war, and she was a nurse, and they had a little dance where they brought them together. And he proposed to her, but he was about to be sent off to war, and she accepted, and she moved to Toronto to live with his parents. Again, she was very young. I think she was only about 2021, I know very few people who would take those kinds of life chances today and huge risk. Yeah, and the family, like the family exists in Toronto now, because these two women made these choices when I was 24 I had to decide where I was going to do my unpaid internship as part of my post graduate work, and I lived in Toronto, and I thought, well, there's there's museums, there's work in southern Ontario, but it's really competitive, and I don't know how that's going to fare for me, and so I packed up my car, I packed up my cat, and I drove across the country and drove to Calgary, and I've been in Alberta ever since and

Mark Laurie: 33:34

continued. Go ahead. You're truly the spirit of your grandmothers. It runs deep, clearly,

Erin McDonald: 33:45

very much. And so there's this deep independence. And when I think about how I gained my center as a person like what grounds me, it is those two women are my source of strength. If they made those choices And these are tough ladies. These are tough ladies, right? But hearts of gold always,

Mark Laurie: 34:37

oh yeah, you can be both. You can have a heart of gold and the salt of the earth kind of thing, and still, they'll have a steel spine and say, No, this is right, this is wrong, and this is and like one person says, the bird I always love that imagery, but yeah, those the role models that they even from the wide, big things to small things must have been just so deeply ingrained with you that's

Erin McDonald: 35:12

Yeah and, and I think a way of life like those deep sense of respect for Earth and for both of them kept gardens. And I think that came out of the depression and the war era, but they always had gardens. It was like, you know, you turn the soil where you are. where you put the fertilizer water is where growth happens. So I mean, strive and look outward, for for things. But if, if all you do is pine for something else, you fail to see what you have access to in your own backyard, and so that's, yeah, those are important lessons for me.

Mark Laurie: 36:07

Oh, I can see those. Those are really life guiding lessons, like they're they're such a strong perspective as wild. What personality trait do you wish you had? What is something that you would like to have in your kid of personality traits.

Unknown: 36:30

I I struggle with crippling self doubt like and I know in my photographs, it doesn't necessarily come through, and I know in the way that the world perceives me. It doesn't come through. But I wish I had, I wish I had that innate sense of confidence that I didn't have to work at it so hard every day. And I've met people who I just wow. Like, what was your childhood? Like that helped you be that confident, right? Like, because for me, I started learning that self doubt very young, not from my parents but from peers. As a school child, I really struggled for acceptance and neuro divergence that self awareness. Now it's like, oh, that could be part of it, but it made me feel really insecure always, and when I've been successful at different points in my life, it seems like there's always been somebody there that's ready to shut me down, and I get really set Back by that. I find that very painful, and I wish that I had the confidence to just go whatever I'm going to rise, but I internalize that into this a constant voice of negative self talk that I struggle with, and I've been in many years of therapy to help overwrite this narrative that I tell myself in my head, but I just wish I didn't have to work so hard at it, but I also go on it also keeps me humble in some ways, like I think there's a there's something valuable about humility, and I really don't feel like I'm better than anyone else. I think everyone has the potential to be

Erin McDonald: 38:26

their best self, and so I don't mind that, but I do wish confidence came a little more readily.

Mark Laurie: 38:32

Yeah, I can relate to that. The self doubt thing was interesting. One of my friends is a psychologist, and it's this, the impersonator thing syndrome, person syndrome. She says, that's actually a good thing, because what that means is you are in the verge of evolving again, because you're rather than doing something that you're very comfortable in, like seeing the space like so if you're a way to look at that is that if you're in constant self doubt, that means you're in constant change. You're constantly doing things that are your comfort zone, and that's why you're self doubt, because if you're doing the thing that you're good at before, and you stayed there, then you become confident, right? Like it wouldn't, but because you're constantly, uh, raising your bar, challenging yourself, going up, that self doubt is going to come with you like you can't you have created your the vehicle of your own self doubt, because you continue to be curious and grow. That makes sense, well? And growth is uncomfortable, yeah? Like, and so it's the source of self doubt because you aren't too sure what too sure what

Unknown: 39:36

you're doing yet. And I always put myself in those positions where it's like, I want to learn. I don't know this, so I want to know and so, yeah, I'm find myself there constantly. But oh, would that I could have the confidence of someone like, you know, Dwayne Johnson, the rock right, where you just come into a room and you just own your space. I I would really like to be able to do that without i The the self.

Erin McDonald: 40:00

Yes, perpetuating.

Mark Laurie: 40:01

I've talked to these people. I've had these kind of interviews with them, and I've encountered people that I when I first meet them, they are the striding gods of the world kind of thing, right? And then you chat with them, and they go, oh yeah, plagues me all the time. I just, I've got to make a choice to stride. And I'm going, okay, so if you can, if you can have that emotion and still strive, I guess I can find it too

Erin McDonald: 40:25

working at it every day,

Mark Laurie: 40:27

I can relate. What are you curious about right now? What's catch your attention?

Unknown: 40:31

Oh, I so in about 10 days, I'm going to be leaving and I'm traveling to Italy, and I am so curious about what the experience is going to be like. I'm reading as much as I can about the places I'm going, looking at maps. I'm studying both the ancient history, the Roman history, and also the contemporary but the Renaissance history, and trying to place myself in that story and in that context. And so if you really want to know what my deep dive is right now, it's like everything to do with that Amalfi coast on the west coast of Italy, because I'm going to be there, and I just I need to know as much as I can was my current Deep Dive.

Mark Laurie: 41:23

I've, I've taken groups there, and I've been very fortunate with the I arrived there as the great photographer from the Calgary and that means they open doors. They it was, I'll tell you later more about it. But it's, it's really wild. It's, it's really wild.

Erin McDonald: 41:38

Like, don't expect any special doors to be opened for me, but it's, it's a bit of a pilgrimage. I'm going with my father, my sister and my brother in law, and

Unknown: 41:50

my dad's father fought in the Battle of Rome at Monte casino, and so we're going to that Battlefield. And so it does feel like a pilgrimage, in many ways, to return to a place. He didn't pass there. He came back into Canada. He's been gone for 40 years, and I think this is my dad's pilgrimage that I'm accompanying him on.

Erin McDonald: 42:14

So one of the things my friend from Italy told me, it's it's rare for this country and so much has happened. We said, every foot that you walk in Italy, something historic happened.

Unknown: 42:25

This is why I love museums and history, right? Because there's so much rich context. Oh, yeah. And I think, I think my being is an allegory in many ways. And I'm fascinated by layers of meaning. And for me, places on earth with that kind of history. We were in Thailand a few few years ago for a wedding in the north, very north, on the border with Cambodia and China, I believe, and the history of movement of people through that region is fascinating, and you read it in food, because it's like, this is Sichuan food, sure, in Northern Thailand? Well, yes, because people from the Szechuan region came and they co populated and existed, the teas, the the way that stories are told, the way that music and dance unfolds. There culturally is this rich integration of layers of meaning and different cultures over 1000s of years, and we're so young, like our lives are a flash when it comes to Universal Time, right? And I I love astronomy. When I was in Calgary, I worked at the Science Center for many, many years, and my favorite thing was the astronomy component, because just be part of something that's so massive and hard to comprehend and massive in terms of size, but also time. I just want to know and explore as much as I can, and to fill myself up with as much of this richness that we have access to. And for me, that's knowledge and experience. Oh,

Mark Laurie: 44:18

this has been delightful. I've really enjoy chat with you. It's been a very unusual conversation than what we normally run. I just I really enjoy it so much. And great.

Erin McDonald: 44:26

Thanks. That's my brain.

Mark Laurie: 44:29

That's called a renaissance brain. The guy said that I was told one time, when you go to a party, people should populate their party with Renaissance people. So you have people are experts, and they always try to bring the conversation back with an expert in because they very narrow and deep, right? A renaissance person can talk to a shallow depth, like, not a super in depth thing on a wide variety of topics. No matter where the conversations goes, there's a way to an entry point, an exit point for them. And I thought that was kind of cool. And it's just, it's, there's a book I picked up that's got a think. 1000 things the whole page. Each page has got a piece of history and it's written. It's really a neat book to kind of get through to it. But thank you for your time today. It has been a delight.

Erin McDonald: 45:10

Thank you, Mark as always, a pleasure.

Mark Laurie: 45:13

For my listeners, as usual, in the bio, you'll have some more in depth of information about Aaron and some insights and thank you so much. Thank you.

Unknown: 45:25

This has been fascinating women with Mark Laurie join us on our website and subscribe@fascinatingwomen.ca fascinating women has been sponsored by inner spirit photography of Calgary, Alberta, and is produced in Calgary by Lee Ellis and my office media.