Faces of Antyx: Jeff
To celebrate 1 month of being Antyx’s Executive Director, our #FeatureFriday today is Jeff! In this interview, read bout his journey, aspirations and goals, motivations and ways to give back to the community to get to know him a little better.
Q: First off, welcome to the Antyx team as our new Executive Director! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
A: Great to be on the team. I have worked with youth in Calgary since 2008 starting as a Guidance Counselor in public schools. I then went to work with homeless youth and families through The Mustard Seed and Inn From The Cold as a Shelter Manager and Mental Health Advocate and hold those places dear to my heart. Realizing that I wanted to be on the prevention side of work, I helped run the Cochrane Boy’s and Girls Club before joining my most recent job as Executive Director of Cornerstone Youth Centre for the last 5 years. I love playing hockey and baseball, making music in a variety of bands, kayaking and 4x4 camping adventures, and proudly regularly volunteer at a local animal shelter where I got my awesome dog, Kodiak.
Q: What excites you the most about working at Antyx?
A: I am excited to be with an agency that works across Calgary neighbourhoods. In particular with an element of the arts directly in the forefront. A beautiful medium to work with youth through. I love the community-minded approach Antyx takes to inspiring communities and sparking new passions that can last a lifetime.
Q: What is a good way to give back to our communities?
A: Listen to what that community members are identifying as concerns and strengths. Filling people’s toolbelts with usable skills that can help them get through life’s unavoidable challenges, as well as navigate past avoidable hardships and traumas. Giving them the ability to thrive without paid support and able to identify natural supports of their own choosing in their communities.
Q: What is your biggest motivation?
A: 730 days. I spent 730 days, that’s the last 2 years of high school homeless, couch surfing, and sleeping out of my van. I remember having to memorize when the streetlights would turn on so I could use the light to do my homework. 730 days would have been a heck of a lot longer if it was not for the help of caring adults in my community who stepped up to help even though it didn’t benefit them to do so. I want to make sure every youth has a caring adult there to not only help prevent hardships, but to help get them through it.
Q: What is one of your favourite memories of being a touring musician?
A: Being a sober guy in that sort of wild world made my recall of events very vivid. I think the weirdest memory was playing a festival in Brockville, Ontario called Riverfest. Hedley was headlining and my band was up right after a Hannah Montana impersonator. A group of wild 10-year-old kids all up at the front of the stage still excited from just seeing “Hannah”, and then all a sudden this heavy metal band is playing. I never saw a crowd clear out so fast in my life.
Q: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given that you’d like to pass forward?
A: “Know your role in the goal”. Understanding that your role in other’s wellness plans is up to them to decide, and your role is to do the best possible job you can at the role they asked you to play. Best results come from invited support, not imposed ones. If they asked you for a ladder, you do no good providing them with a hammer instead.
Q: What is your motto?
A: “Be kind anyway”. Mother Theresa and Gandhi left us with a lot of great motto’s and I don’t feel it’s cheesy at all to humbly strive for being as kind as possible. In my younger years, I would hold peaceful protests outside the parliament buildings for homeless rights issues and found I had significantly better results if I treated the politicians I was disappointed with, with respect and decency. A kind whisper is louder than an aggressive shout.
Q: You have your own late-night talk show, who do you invite as your first guest and why?
A: My Dad absolutely. Such a great role model for how you should invest in your neighbour’s wellbeing in order to pay dividends on your own. A mix of Mr. Rogers, Ned Flanders, Danny Tanner, and Tim “The Toolman” Tailor. Truly a TV sitcom dad and hilarious.
Q: You did a Tedx Talk on “Expert Sharing” back in 2013 which was very inspiring! Do you now say “Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk” unironically?
A: It’s one of those funny things where people say that in their lexicon comically, but if you say “I actually did one” it kills the vibe of the whole room as if you just vacuumed all the air out. Not as cool of a party trick as you would think. Sadly.
Q: And lastly, what are your current goals?
A: Professionally is to get deeply involved in the communities Antyx serves so I can best understand where my skills and efforts are most welcome and invited. Then lean in hard to help until they are sick of me. My personal goal however is to try not to jinx the Toronto Maple Leafs 2021 Stanley Cup run. Do you have any idea how hard it is to not wash your lucky jersey when even your dog thinks it stinks?