About Geoff Gauthier
On his second journey with the BCIT Student Association, Geoff Gauthier takes enhancing the quality of student life seriously.
As the Publications Manager running the Link newspaper in the early 2000’s, Geoff had an amazing opportunity to work with closely with students, finding out what they need and what they think, and that experience shaped and defined his need to help them wherever he could.
Fast forward a number of years and a new opportunity to lead the group responsible for delivering student life programming as the Director of Marketing and Communications was too wonderful to pass up.
Geoff is curious and attentive. He’s listening to his students and adapting to their needs and he’s making the necessary changes to provide them with best experience possible.
Connect with Geoff: Email | Instagram | Linkedin
Listen Now
Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.
Resources Mentioned
British Columbia Institute of Technology
British Columbia Institute of Technology – Student Association
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
The Transcript
**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.
Sam Demma
Today’s special guest on the High Performing Educator podcast is Geoff Gauthier. On his second journey with the BCIT Student Association, British Columbia Institute of Technology, Geoff Gauthier takes enhancing the quality of student life seriously. As the publications manager running the Link newspaper in the early 2000s, Geoff had an amazing opportunity to work closely with students finding out what they need and what they think, and that experience shaped and defined his need to help them wherever he could. Fast forward a number of years, and a new opportunity to lead the group responsible for delivering student life, programming, as the Director of Marketing and Communications, was too wonderful to pass up. Geoff is curious and attentive. He’s listening to his students and adapting to their needs, and he’s making the necessary changes to provide them with the best experiences possible. I hope you enjoyed this enticing and exciting conversation with my good friend Geoff, and I will see you on the other side. Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host and speaker, Sam Demma. Today we are joined by my good friend, Geoff Gauthier. Geoff, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. I appreciate it.
Geoff Gauthier
Hey, you’re welcome. Thanks for having me, Sam. This is wonderful.
Sam Demma
I always like to get started by asking people a big question. What made you the person you are today? Where do you come from?.
Geoff Gauthier
That’s a huge question. What made me what I am today? Yeah, you knwo what, I’m gonna answer your question with a question as I normally do. I’m not even really sure, man I’m freezing up already haha.
Sam Demma
Well where do you come from? Tell me where you come from.
Geoff Gauthier
So I’m from British Columbia, Canada. I’m like mainly from here. I’ve lived here for the vast majority of my life in various places from the lower mainland through the interior, traveled around a bit. Yeah, I think a lot of it is like, what brought me here? I question that constantly. Why do I do what I do and how did I get here? Right? And I was a journalist before all of this, and now I work for a student association in British Columbia. So naturally, I am a service-based person. I like to make sure that people are doing well. And I think that just sort of manifested in how I ended up here.
Sam Demma
Did that come from your parents? Were they of a service mindset or teachers in your life or coaches?
Geoff Gauthier
Or where did that mentality come from? I think probably teachers and coaches. My parents were, I mean, we all have our parental things. I don’t want to speak ill of my parents, but they’re young and challenging. So, my parents were both like 20 when they had me. So, I have relatively young parents. And when you’re 20, I don’t know, you’ve been 20 recently, you know, you don’t really know a lot. And so when you have a child, like, you just do your best to try to like push and encourage that. And like, I know, my dad was a big hockey fan and he pushed me to really hard to like, and my brother to be, you know, to be hockey players. And like, we, we tried our best and you know, you get so far and skill can only take you so far. And then it’s just a matter of other things. Right. So, yeah, I mean, I don’t know if my parents were, my mom is kind of a service person and I think she’s gotten back to those roots, but you know, it was the 80s and 90s and things were different back then. So there were like other avenues and ways of pushing. So I just think I just learned it from watching other people and just like recognizing a need to help others and like ensure success of other people. Right. Like, you know, I can be of service elsewhere, then I do what I can to do that.
Sam Demma
I have a phrase, I say, we can’t lean on ourselves. Sometimes we have to lean on each other. And it’s something that I encourage not only students, but also educators to realize. When there’s a new teacher in a classroom, you don’t have to know all the answers, but you have to be willing to reach out to people in your life to find them, you know? And there are people that want to support you. You talked about watching people in your life and that’s what taught you about service. When I think about the people I’ve watched, one person that comes to mind is my grandfather who came here with nothing and worked on a farm during the day and then did an overnight shift at GM to try and provide for his family, my dad growing up. And he would get boxes of squash from the farm job he did during the day. It was so much produce that he couldn’t eat it or just use it at his house because there was way too much. And instead of just throwing it away, he would put it in boxes, drive around the city, and drop it off on people’s front porches. And he was an individual in my life who taught me the importance of trying to be of service and live that life of service. You mentioned it might’ve been like teachers or coaches. Can you think of any specific person that you think had a really big impact on you?
Geoff Gauthier
It’s funny, man, you mentioned your grandfather and I was thinking about my grandfather. He passed in 2015 or so. Oh, geez. And it was on my mom’s side, and like, but he was, so maybe not necessarily serviced, but he taught me a lot of really valuable life skills. And he was like, kind of had the most impact on me when he passed, it was pretty hard for me. But he, like, it’s the simple things that I remember him teaching me that made me want to teach other people the things that he taught me. So he taught me, he would take me camping and he taught me like how to chop wood and build a fire. And it’s not like, it’s very simplistic, it’s very rustic, but he taught me this basic act of like how to create warmth for people and how to create a comfortable environment out of nothing, right? So it’s like those little pieces. So now I can teach my son how to build a fire and then he’ll be able to teach his friends and family how to build a fire, right? Like there’s all these things that, it’s a very simple act, but it’s like that knowledge, that passing on of knowledge is like a huge thing. So yeah, you mentioned your grandfather. My grandfather was kind of a similar background, came here, was literally born on a, he was born in Canada, but he was born on a latitude and longitude line. There was no hospital, right. He was born on a farm in Saskatchewan.
Geoff Gauthier
Right.
Geoff Gauthier
So, so yeah, he like, he grew up with that, that same ethic of like, you know, you came from somewhere else and you, you, you know, help your community and you, you build that community and you make that happen. So like, he was a big influence on me. I think I had, I had a couple of coaches and I had one teacher along, I had an art teacher in grade 11 and grade 12. She was really influential on like getting me to explore not like what other people were doing, but what I felt like I needed to do. And I think that was a big push. Yeah. Shout out to Mrs. Byfon Schmidt if you’re around. Yeah, she’s rad. So yeah, she like, she just encouraged me to follow an artistic path, which I hadn’t considered before because I was so like into sports and like competition. The artistic side of me was there and she was kind of nurtured that and pushed that out. So those were two kind of really big people in my life that pushed me to learn a bit more about myself and also how to teach others how to do that same thing.
Sam Demma
That’s so awesome. I think the arts get overlooked so much in schools that people disregard them as a potential pathway and also as an opportunity to explore yourself. I think art is such an amazing form of self-expression and I was recently listening to a book by Rick Rubin and it’s like all about arts and you may have actually heard of it. It came out recently. Yeah. And he was talking about the importance of appreciating everything around you and I was on a walk while I was listening to it with headphones in and he was talking about appreciating nature and I just started like looking around and I was like, the world is art, art’s everywhere.
Sam Demma
You know?
Geoff Gauthier
Beautiful, everywhere you look is gorgeous.
Sam Demma
It just forces you to kind of pause. The cool thing that you mentioned about your grandfather is all the activities he did with you, like teaching you how to cut wood and how to go camping, those types of things, they’re all an investment of time. I think investing your time in other people is how you build relationships with them. In the classroom, with students? Like how do educators build relationships with kids or how have you done it in your life so far?
Geoff Gauthier
Yeah, so it’s awesome that you mentioned that. I mean, the biggest thing with everything that I do in my life right now is as you discover as you get older, everything is about relationships, right? So like if I’m selling a sponsorship to a third party person outside of my organization, I need, it’s not like, hey, give me money and I’ll make you, I’ll put your name everywhere. You gotta like talk to them and you build that relationship with them and you build trust and you build a community and you understand each other’s needs. It’s not like, you know, if I’m gonna ask you for money, I’m gonna need to invest some time in getting to know you, getting to know your company, getting to even know your people. Here at the office, it’s the same thing with my employees, with the people that I work with. You know, I talk to them, I know them. I know everybody’s name in my organization. I know a little tiny tidbit of information about them. And I think this comes from journalism. Because I had to keep a lot of names and notes about people, or I had to keep them straight. I need to know my contacts, who’s who, what do they do, and know a little bit about them so that I can know who they are and like have that relationship with them. So I know everybody’s name, I know a little bit about them. I know if they have a dog or a cat or a kid or what they like to do on weekends kind of thing, like a little bit, a little bit about them. It may not, it might be, some of it might be surface, but I can say hello to everybody, including like the, the staff that do the cleaning. Like Habib empties our garbage cans, but he’s still a person and he’s a human and he has a story. And I ran into him in the community, ran into him at the mall by my house. And I was like, Hey man, how you doing? How are you? It’s, it’s always weird to see somebody outside of their, you know, their role that you see them in every day. And I was just like, dude, you live in my neighborhood. And we got to talking and he lives in the neighborhood with me. And I’m like, this is great. Like, I just, I know people around, right? And I’m going to be, I’m a person who’s in a position of power within my organization. I’m going to be in the community. People are going to talk to me and there’s value in making those connections and knowing those people and being able to keep talking to them. I think that’s like a hugely important part of growth as a person and also like an important part of being a community member.
Sam Demma
And it takes that extra step and effort to really get to know somebody, even if it’s not their whole life story and a thousand details, but a couple of small things. I love that nugget. I think educators should treat that aspect of their work like a journalist and take notes and get to know people in their classrooms. I think that’s a really good piece of wisdom and advice. Yeah, it’s super important, man.
Geoff Gauthier
It’s helped me so much in my career, just being able to know people and being able to talk to people on a one-to-one basis and be like, hey, how’s your son doing? Or remember, like, you know, and time goes by so quickly, you’d be like, hey, how’s your son doing? Oh, he’s married and he’s gone off to Iraq. He lives there now. Whoa, holy crap. He was like 12 when I met him. So, you know, yeah.
Sam Demma
So you mentioned that you grew up in competition. Yeah. You know, hockey was a big part of your childhood. You then had this amazing art teacher who kind of poured belief in you and it challenged you to explore different pathways. Where’s the gap between like end of high school to where you are now? Like what did your educational journey look like that brought you here?
Geoff Gauthier
I just, that’s wonderful. So I took a year off after high school because I was-
Sam Demma
Me too.
Geoff Gauthier
Yeah, right? I was like, I was gonna do, so I was playing hockey. Yep. I find that that sort of stopped being a thing, you know, like right around that timeframe, but like 18, 19 kind of thing. Yeah. I’m like, I need to like figure out what I’m gonna do with the rest of my life. It’s not going to be playing hockey at this point, so I’m going to have to figure out what to do. So my dad, I started apprenticing as a plumber for a little bit after high school, which was interesting. I was like, I don’t want to do this. I got my hand stuck in a pipe full of effluent. I’ll use effluent as the word. And I couldn’t get it out, and I had to get somebody to come and cut my hand out of the pipe. And I was just like, oh, I need to do something else. I’m like, I washed my hand a million times and it smelled for like a week. And I was just like, I gotta do something with my life. So I’m like, I’m gonna go to university. I’ve kind of always been interested in journalism. I wanna do that. But I started off, I did a bachelor of arts degree in professional writing, and then went on to fast track a journalism degree. And then I ended up working at BCIT in the early 2000s, and I did a diploma of technology in desktop publishing while I was there. And so like all of my education background comes from basically journalism and print media. And as you know, and everyone else knows, like I used to work at a newspaper and print media just started dying. Newspapers just stopped being a thing that existed. I have all this knowledge in my head about how to like build print processing, and it’s like pretty much useless at this point. So I had to figure out like, how am I going to make this work? And I got a job with a company where I started doing communications, like press releases. I’m like, I’m a writer, I can write. There’s one thing I can do really well, it’s writing. And I wanna be the best at writing, I’m gonna try and work on this and become a really good writer. So I’m gonna like, I’ll write press releases for this company. And then I just got some lucky opportunities in that company where I got to do press releases. I also got to do like machinery installs, which was kind of like a thing that I did on the outside. So like it was a company that does like mining, whole cycle management, whole cycle management. It’s like a tech company, but everybody, it was a small company at the time and everybody did everything. So I was writing press releases. I was creating marketing materials. I was like building computers and like drawing icons for software. It was like, it was a pretty cool, I got to blend my art and my writing and my journalism skills, like all into one thing. And it just sort of blossomed from there. And I just kind of got good at marketing. I got good at like knowing what, build relationships with our customers, know what they want, provide them what they want, really listen to what they’re asking for and giving them those pieces.
Geoff Gauthier
Right?
Geoff Gauthier
And it just sort of, it just blossomed out of that. And I got really good at it. And just, just out of habitual practice. And I’m like, and then that desire and that want to be really, really good at something, you know? So, yeah. And then I, I ran into the executive director, former executive director, weirdly in a liquor store in Coquitlam, I was buying some wine. I don’t really drink anymore, but at the time, I was with my family and I bought some wine and I ran into her at Liquorsworks. She’s like, what are you doing these days? And I was like, oh, I’m working in marketing for this mining company. And she’s like, oh, interesting. And she’s like, we just got to chatting. And it was like, again, I’d made that relationship with her when I worked here the first time, right? And when I worked here the first time, I worked as a journalist. I worked in the publications department. Sorry, I totally glossed over that part. When I worked at the BCIT Student Association the first time, I was in publications. I produced a newspaper. It was the early 2000s, they still existed then, for the students. And I learned about how to be of service to students. And then I was like, I gotta go. I was in my late 20s, early 30s, and I’m like, I gotta go get in the real world and become this, like get some real world experience. And that’s how I managed to get like into that marketing department. And then ran into the ED, talked to her for a little while. And then a couple of months later, she phoned me up. She’s like, hey, why don’t you come back and have lunch with me at the student association? I was like, oh, okay. And like just dumb old Jeff, like not picking up on any cues. I’m just like, oh, okay, sure. I’d love to come for lunch and hang out with you. Cause we’d gone for lunch before in the past. I kept that relationship alive during the decade that I wasn’t here. And, uh, you know, like we went for lunch every once in a while, like it was like every couple of years kind of thing, right. Just to catch up and say hi. And cause she really inspired me to like become who I am as well. So that’s another story I completely glossed over. And anyway, I came back and she’s like, yeah. And she, she had her HR manager with her and they’re like, this is what we’ve been doing with the SA since you’ve been gone. Here’s this new thing that we’ve done. Here’s how we’ve expanded. Here’s all this stuff that we’ve built. I’m like, oh, this is all really amazing. I’m like, I can see the potential of how we can use this to get the students just looking at them. It’s so cool. Then we’re sitting down eating lunch and she’s like, so what would you think about coming back here to work? I was like, what? When I look back on it, it’s so funny because it was so obviously and clearly like a recruitment thing. And I just was like not picking up on it. I was like in my, the prime of my career, in my other job, I was doing really well. I was like, but the problem with that other job is I had traveled a lot. Okay. And this, and so I was like missing out on my son growing up and missing out on seeing my wife. And I’m like, I’m always gone. I’m always at conferences. I’m always in other parts of the world and I’m doing other things, which is kind of cool. But you know, I was, I was gone a lot. So she was like, you want to come here and work in marketing? I was like, yeah, you know what? I was nervous, but I took that step because I trusted her because she’s treated me well in the past. So I came back here and then this is, I came back, I’ve always felt while I was at the other job that instead of like making somebody rich that I’d never met before, I could like come back and help students. I can come back and make a better life for students and make like, I remember how difficult it was for me in university. And I just was like, if I can make a couple of students’ lives better, that’s way more fun than making somebody else get another yacht, who I’ve never met, right? It was one of those things. We ended up, that other company, we ended up getting bought out by a major corporation. And so it ended up being kind of like, I don’t know, this doesn’t really work for me anymore.
Sam Demma
The meaning and significance wasn’t really there.
Geoff Gauthier
It changes, it changes, right? So I needed to come back and I needed to do something with students and then I’ve been here now for four years and I like, three really tough years, but we’re getting back on it now, so.
Sam Demma
You mentioned that that individual who was the director of the school had a really big impact on you and helped you pivot. Like, what did she do for you that made a really big difference?
Geoff Gauthier
So, she asked me a key question and I’ll never forget this because this is like when I was when I was younger, um, I had a manager who was not so great who who was in who worked here and then you know I don’t want to speak really about that but but like The ed app she asked me a very poignant question. She’s like, who do you feel accountable to? Because we were talking about management and like not feeling like I I can trust this person and not feeling like this person is helping me develop my career or meaning to help students in any significant way. And I said to her, I’m like, I’m accountable to the students of this school. I’m accountable to the students of the school. And it wasn’t a thoughtful answer, I blurted it out. And I think that was that moment where she’s like, okay, this guy, this guy actually cares, cares, and actually like believes in this and actually wants to like progress and make things good here. Right. And then, and I shortly after that is when I quit and I left and I went to the other company, but, but yeah. And so I think in the back of her mind, she had that thing where like, we had this relationship where she knew she could trust me. And she knew that if she brought me back here, I would be that person to like help students, to really push the organization to want to do that. And like now I’m in a position where I have that ability and it’s taken some time, but I’m like, I’m getting there now. I’m getting there now. It’s so obvious you’re passionate about the work that you do. I can feel it coming out of you as you’re talking. You’re like, you’re an intense dude. I’m like, I know, I know. Oh, it’s the best way possible.
Sam Demma
You mentioned through university, you kind of had your own challenges. What are some of the things that you’re striving to help to support students now at BCIT that you think would have been valuable if you had when you were going through university?
Geoff Gauthier
So this is the challenge with working in a university setting, it’s like figuring out what most students want.
Geoff Gauthier
Right?
Geoff Gauthier
So when you work for a student association, we’re a non-profit, right? And we’re here to help all students, but the people that you hear from are the students who are sort of the least, yeah, the most engaged and then the least advantaged. Right? So we’re not hearing from the, the middle students are content and they’re happy. So we hear from the students who have many challenges and we hear from the students who have, who are the most engaged with us. And it’s weird, man, you see it, the most engaged students are the most advantaged students.
Geoff Gauthier
Right?
Geoff Gauthier
And the students who have the most challenges are the most disadvantaged students. How do I make that middle ground work for everybody? What can I provide? What kind of services and programming can I provide that helps these people out? So it’s always a challenge to put those two pieces together. And that’s like the hardest part of this job is to like make that balance happen. It’s easy to cater to the middle students. It’s easy to like give the right programming and the right messaging to the middle students. It’s much more difficult to A, keep the engaged students happy, and B, keep the, oh, A and A1. And like, where can I step in to help make everybody’s lives better, right? And when you make someone’s life better, sometimes you make somebody else’s life worse. Or in perception, it’s worse. So, yeah, that’s a tough question, man. Like, I’m just doing my best to try to like, make sure everybody has a good time at school, and is able to make it through here. Because like we don’t provide any education at the association. We provide student life. We provide value and we provide services for free to help people get an advantage sort of while they’re here and then also get them out, right? So they have an advantage over their competition when they get out. And as someone who comes from a background in competition, every possible advantage I can give you to beat out the competition in the future, I’m going to try to give that to you. That’s awesome.
Sam Demma
What events have you, or has the organization, association run in the past that you think achieved some of that goal of catering to the middle, the most engaged and the less advantaged, and really had an impact?
Geoff Gauthier
Yeah, this is a weird question. I mean, you know how things have kind of gotten with the world.
Sam Demma
I guess COVID was weird.
Geoff Gauthier
It was, man, and like I’ve been working, so I started working here again in 2019.
Sam Demma
Okay.
Geoff Gauthier
It was June of 2019. Jeez. So I had like six solid months of like doing really cool programming for students and then we’re all of a sudden everybody’s working from their house. So we’ve just kind of been kicking it back in. But one of the, it’s like I think to like one of the events that’s kind of cool that we do that appeals to my nerdy background where I can kind of help it help out and figure it out. We do a hackathon for the the school of computer studies students and so we’re able to kind of leverage some of my mining contacts to have a company come in and provide data sets to these students who create these sort of virtual businesses and virtual business ideas over a weekend. So we put teams from different schools into or we create teams from students in different schools. So like you get some business students, some marketing students, and some design students, and we put them all together on a five or six person team, and then we give them data sets, and they, over the weekend, they work to create a business plan out of these data sets, or like, and like this is a fun thing for me to like put on for students, and it really only appeals to about 100, 150 students, I’ve said, every year, but it’s, it’s one of those events that like I look forward to it every year. It’s a lot of work. It comes in January, like right after the holiday season. And all my staff’s like, oh, you gotta do that. It’s gonna be such a, it’s so much work. And I’m like, it’s so much work, but it’s so much fun. And yes, I get all excited about it. And what ends up happening is I pair some businesses who are looking for talent, and then I provide them with students who are exceptional within that field. And we get data from those people, we get sponsorship from those people that gives us money to be able to provide more services for more students.
Sam Demma
Right?
Geoff Gauthier
That’s awesome. So it kind of combines, it puts everything in perspective, it puts everything into like what I do, into like a kind of a microcosm of like what we’re trying to achieve here. So that’s why I love that event so much. I mean, you know, you come here and you can feel the excitement and the energy on the Friday night when they start. Everybody’s in the great hall, they’re outside, there’s a buzz, they’re like all excited. Some of them are meeting their team members for the first time. They’re people that, you know, at BCIT we have a very short school year, it’s two years, and they’re in and out really quickly. It’s like you don’t meet everybody, and then all of a sudden you’re paired on a team with a marketing person and a designer and some business and computing students, and you’re like, all right, you all never met, now you gotta work together to create something awesome. And out of that, and then there’s several teams, and so they compete. So I get my competition out of it too. I see my students strive and they want to work and they want to be the best and they want to figure it out. And then on the end of the weekend, on the Sunday, they’re judged and they’re awarded prizes and possibly job opportunities coming out of that. So if there’s something I can provide like that for students that like, A, gets them in front of employers, gets them into a mode where they’re competing to be their best, and pushes them to like work hard and work together and work in a team environment with people they’ve never met. I’m building growth, I’m building challenges, I’m building connections and I’m building relationships. Not me, but you know, my team. I said that, it’s very egocentric, I shouldn’t say me. Our team, our school is building, the event is really building that. And it’s not just me that’s doing it, it’s a combined effort from everybody. But it gets me excited when we do stuff like that, right?
Sam Demma
Is that one of those hackathons where everyone’s in the same hotel, they basically sleep in the same room?
Geoff Gauthier
In the great hall at our campus. They’re like out there, yeah, they stay overnight, they just work all weekend. Sometimes they leave, sometimes they come back, and we roll out like a buffet table. We had a taco bar one year that was really popular. We rolled out a taco bar. Everybody was stoked about that. So we try to feed them and keep them interested and keep them here. And they work really hard all weekend. It’s a satisfying thing for the students to do too. They really get to contribute in a way that’s meaningful and create something cool. And so if I can, I need to do more things like that with other schools and try and figure out ways I can make that happen as well.
Sam Demma
Well, that also facilitates new friends, right? Even if they’re from different schools, you might become friends with someone that you’re gonna talk to for the rest of your life.
Sam Demma
Yeah, totally.
Geoff Gauthier
The weirdest thing happened too, like I coach youth soccer. My son plays soccer and he’s wonderful. He’s a great midfielder, plays really well. I got my team the other day, like on TeamSnap is our program we use. I got the team, there’s the roster sitting there, and I got two new players on my team this year, and one of those players, I was like, this kid looks kind of familiar. And I click on him, and I look at his parents, and I’m like, The parent is one of our key sponsors from the institution who sponsors our hackathon. No way. Yeah, it was like this super weird thing. I’ve never met this kid before. I didn’t even know that she had a kid. And now I’m like, okay, cool. So now one of our key sponsors for hackathons child is on my soccer team. So I’m going to have to be on my best behavior at all times. So yeah, it’s just really, man, it’s funny. And this is what I’m talking about, about how the community thing works, right? How these weird things happen, where you’re in a community, your community, when you work at a school or an institution, is pretty tight-knit. I know people, I’ve known people here since 2001. I’ve met people here when I started working here in 2001 that still work here, that I still interact with on a regular basis. That was 22 years ago, Sam. Wow. Yeah. I still know people, right. And like I’ve gone away and I’ve come back and they’re like, Oh, Hey, you’re back. And I’m like, yeah, I’ve been here for four years. I haven’t seen you yet. Yeah. It’s pretty funny. It’s a big place too.
Sam Demma
Right. Well, it sounds like the funny coincidence finding out that, that athletes, parents, or someone that you knew, that starts from being curious and like exploring a little bit, you know? And you seem like someone who leads with like curiosity. Where does that come from? Where your curiosity stem from? That has been forever.
Geoff Gauthier
That was dangerous when I was younger. Serves me well now that I’m older. Man, I think that’s the journalism part too. I can’t stop. I’m not a very chill person. I think we can discuss that. I like, I remember when I met my wife when we were initially dating and I was like, yeah, cool, I’m chill. She’s like, you’re not chill at all. You’re like zero chill guy. And I’m like, oh, I’ve always thought I was really chill and relaxed, and you’re not relaxed at all. You’re like very high strung. And then so, so I’ve accepted that. And with being high strung, it becomes being curious. But what I have to be careful about is going too far down that rabbit hole, right? Like, I love, I love being curious. I love to know things. I love to know a lot as much as I possibly can. Like you, just even meeting you and listening to you speak, and I’m like, well, I want to know Sam more. I want to get Sam to my university. I want to hang out with Sam. I want to know this guy. I want to talk to him a little bit. I just needed to make that connection with you. I’m like, tell me more about you. And we talked in person for a while afterwards. And I was just like, you’re an interesting person. And I think through journalism, I found a lot of interesting people. And everyone has this really cool story to tell. I haven’t met anybody who’s boring, right? Like people will go, I’m so boring. I’m like, okay, well, tell me a little bit about yourself. Like open up a little bit and let me hear about what you do. Cause you’re not boring. Everyone is inherently interesting. Everyone has a story or something in their background that’s fun or funny or exciting or traumatic or whatever. But whatever the story is, you’re going to have something to tell me. And I wanna know about that. I wanna know who you are. I wanna know like why you do what you do. And I know that’s why you asked me to come on here. You’re asking me those questions. And I’m sitting in back of you. It’s fun. For me, it’s fun. And I know for other people, it’s not fun. And so I’ve gotten old enough now to recognize when people are uncomfortable when I’m asking them questions. So I just back off and I’m like, okay, cool. I get it, right? But like, I used to push, like, you know, no, come on, tell me. Every time I’d find the quiet person at a party, I’d push that person to talk. I wanna know more about that quiet person. Because like quiet people always have the most to talk about if you push them hard, right? Loud people, man, you know what I’m about.
Sam Demma
I hear it all.
Geoff Gauthier
Yeah, I will tell you my life story in a podcast in 15 minutes, and no one cares. But the quiet people, they have cool stories. They have the best stories to tell because they only speak when it’s important for them to speak. So yeah, anyway, so I used to do that, but I don’t push as hard anymore on people. I let them kind of naturally open up to me. I build that trust with them first, right? If they want to talk to me, they’ll talk to me. I don’t need to be a and push them about it.
Sam Demma
I hear you. Yeah, I think the, I’ll make an addition to the importance of curiosity, like genuine curiosity.
Geoff Gauthier
Genuine curiosity, yeah.
Sam Demma
That’s like the, I think that’s the key because even if the person is shy, they feel like the question is coming from a place of love and like really wanting to know more about them. So they’re even a little more encouraged to talk. And I think you do that really well. Like, you seem very curious when you ask questions. And even I remember when you approached me in the hallway, I was like, ah, I feel really like acknowledged by this guy. And I would like to get to know him a little more. And so you talked about the beginning service and wanting to help students. And not only do you do stuff with, you know, BCIT, but you do a lot with COCA for people listening who don’t know what COCA is, like let’s give them a little quick snippet of what it is and what got you involved.
Geoff Gauthier
Oh man, okay, so COCA is the Canadian Organization of Campus Activities and I’m the West, one of the Western Regional Board Directors. Congratulations. Thank you, yeah, I filled in for a year, for like half a year kind of thing, or like eight months, and then I was re-elected this year to keep working with them. And a COCA is an organization that like, I didn’t know anything about it. One of the former directors phoned me up just doing their kind of annual drive to get more members. And they’re like, Hey, you used to be a members. And I’m like, I don’t know anything about this. What is this? And so he guided me through like what COCA is. And I’m like, this is beneficial to be a part of for us to learn about what we can provide for students. I would never have met you if it wasn’t for Coke, right? And like all the people that I work with on the board are all fantastic and they’re all high performers. And I think that’s what, you know, you talk about the high performance podcast, man, these are all people that work extra hard to make things happen for for other people. So like, I’m working at BCIT, I coach youth soccer, I dedicate my time to the board of directors. Like, I don’t, I don’t do a lot.
Sam Demma
I don’t eat. I don’t have time.
Geoff Gauthier
But yeah, I just, it’s kind of this never-ending cycle and I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t do those things. Yeah. You know? And like, and it provides me with these wonderful opportunities to meet folks like yourself and to like, see what is out there. And it feeds my curiosity and I get to know more people and I get to make those connections. And now I don’t have just connections in BC, I have connections all across Canada. So within the universities, like in the university service spectrum, I have connections now and it’s beautiful to hear from them the challenges and the triumphs that they have as well. Right, and see how similar they are and I can learn from them. And I can, you know, I talk, Crystal Ben from St. Clair College, they have, she told me this story about how they have like an eSports coliseum, or like, not a coliseum, but like an arena on their campus. And I’m just like, what? You gotta be kidding me. We have an eSports club here, and if I told them that, they’d lose their minds. They would just go, they’d be like, they have a whole arena for this? Like they have a dedicated space for that. And I’m just like, man. So I’m like, how can I bring that to BCIT? How can I bring that here? How can I, like, how do I make that work on my campus? Right, or I hear from, and that’s like on the other side of Canada. I’m like, how do I do that here? Right?
Sam Demma
I love that.
Geoff Gauthier
I want to know.
Geoff Gauthier
Go ahead.
Sam Demma
I love that it’s not, oh, we can’t do that. Like the first question that pops in your head is how? How can we bring that here? How can we do this? And leading with that, I think so often the thing that holds ourselves back is not other people’s opinions of us, it’s actually our perception of ourselves or our perception of what’s possible for us. And I think removing the words can’t from the vocabulary and focusing on the how and approaching things like challenges, not problems, is such an impactful perspective to hold. And yeah, it’s cool that you just like, that’s your default, it seems like.
Geoff Gauthier
I’m gonna tell you a quick story about that. It’s only been my default recently. I have had to work very hard. I’m a Gen X. I came up skeptical. I worked as a journalist. I had to like, do I believe this person? Is this person lying to my face? Are they credible? How do I fact check this? I didn’t trust anybody for the longest time. And I’ve opened my heart to trust and I’m trying to change my mindset to eliminate can’t, won’t, done. And working in this environment is super challenging because there’s no money in, we’re a non-profit and there’s like, we’re, you know, so how do I create enough resources to build? Right? We don’t have this resource. Don’t tell me we don’t have it. Tell me how we can create it. Yeah. Right? I get that we don’t have it. I’ve seen the budget lines. I know what it looks like. I understand there’s challenges. What could we do to change that?
Geoff Gauthier
Right?
Geoff Gauthier
And I’m just like, and if I instill that in the people that I, it’s so easy to say, I can’t do that. It’s so, I can’t do that. I won’t do that. I’m not going to do it. Right? No, no, we’re not going to do it. No, we don’t have the money. Yeah, that’s so easy to say that. It’s way harder to go, is there a way we can make that work? Is there something that we can do? Is there someone we can partner with? Can we build a relationship with someone who can help us do that?
Geoff Gauthier
Right?
Sam Demma
Like- Can we call that athlete on the soccer team’s dad?
Geoff Gauthier
Yeah, exactly, right?
Geoff Gauthier
Like, hey, I know a guy in the community who might be able to help us. Yeah, that’s another thing too, right?
Sam Demma
I got a person.
Geoff Gauthier
I got a person for that.
Sam Demma
People always say,
Sam Demma
when one door closes, another door opens, added like an extension. When one door closes, another door opens, but there’s always a human being standing behind that new door opening it for you. Exactly. That comes back to your whole point of relationships. And understand that person and know that person and take your time to understand
Geoff Gauthier
Maybe why they opened that door for you. Yeah. Is there a reason for that? And like, can I open a door for them if they did that for me? Would I do that in the same position?
Sam Demma
Well, maybe there’s a person listening to this that would love to open a door for you or would love to get to know you in the hope that you might open a door for them. If someone is listening, an educator, and they just want to send you a message and appreciate you for taking the time to share on the podcast or ask you a question or just connect, what would be the best way for someone listening to reach out?
Geoff Gauthier
Oh man, probably a text message. That’s like the only thing I answer now. Man, I don’t post on social media. Like I have an Instagram handle, it’s @mistergoats. It is pictures of my kid, my cat, and my motorcycle. And my family, and that’s really it. I’m not really active on social media. I’m on Blue Sky, I’m on Blue Sky now. I misspelled my name when I signed up, so it’s @mistetgoats.
Sam Demma
That’s awesome.
Geoff Gauthier
And you can’t change it, because it’s a new platform, so I’m over there if you want to look me up, Blue Sky Social.
Sam Demma
I can include your email and show notes as well, if that’s okay with you.
Geoff Gauthier
Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you can email me anytime. ggauthier@bcitsa.ca. They’ll be in the show notes. Man, I don’t know. That’s how you get ahold of me. That’s the best way to get ahold of me. I don’t, I’ll give you my phone number too. You can, people can text me. That’s the easiest way to get ahold of me. And I’m happy, I’m happy to chat. And if you have like, if you want some ideas or if you want to share ideas or you want to get to know me a little bit, I’m totally open to that. Always good to connect with people wherever I can.
Sam Demma
This has been an awesome conversation, man. Thank you for saying yes, despite not knowing what the heck we were going to do.
Geoff Gauthier
I appreciate you. I trust you, Sam. I trust you. And you’re a wonderful person. I know I’ve only known you for a few hours, but man, you make that connection. Like there’s something about this guy that makes sense. I just, I love that. And I appreciate you having me on. I hit my table and shaking everything, sorry.
Sam Demma
You’re good.
Geoff Gauthier
Thanks again. Everyone, podcast rule, don’t slam it.
Sam Demma
Thank you, Sam, thank you.
Sam Demma
This is awesome. This is awesome. Geoff Gauthier. Right on.
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The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education. By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators. You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.
