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In May, 2021, Zita Cobb became the first social entrepreneur inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. As a social activist, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2016, for her hand in revitalizing the community of Fogo Island.
Above all these accolades, Zita Cobb is a community builder. After a fast-paced career in the technology space, Cobb, retired in her early 40s before founding the Shorefast Foundation in 2013, based in her hometown Fogo Island, in Joe Batt's Arm Newfoundland. Shorefast has a mission to create a diverse economy on Fogo Island through a variety of social businesses, including the Fogo Island Inn, a luxury hotel, outfitted by local craftspeople, and featured in international media outlets like National Geographic, GQ, and CNN.
In this episode, Eric Janssen speaks to Zita Cobb about entrepreneurship for the purpose of more than just profit, asset-based community development, why community is important and how one can build it - All of which seem incredibly relevant in an age when almost two thirds of millennials feel disconnected from community (a sixth not knowing their neighbors names), and almost 70% want to be more active participants.
The Entrepreneur Podcast is sponsored by Connie Clerici, QS ’08, and Closing the Gap Healthcare Group, Inc.
Transcript
Community-centric entrepreneurship with Zita Cobb of ShoreFast
SPEAKERS
Eric Janssen, HBA ’09, MBA ’20
Zita Cobbs
Eric Morse
You are listening to the Entrepreneur Podcast from the Western Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship Powered by Ivey.
In this series, Ivey entrepreneur and Ivey faculty member Eric Janssen will anchor the session.
Eric Janssen
Zita Cobb can be described in many different ways. An entrepreneur having been inducted into the Canadian business Hall of Fame in 2020. A social activist having been made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2016, for her hand in revitalizing the community of Fogo Island. But in addition to that, and perhaps above all else, she's a community builder. After a fast paced career in the technology space, Zita, retired and early 40s. She stopped just in time to catch her breath before founding the Shorefast Foundation in 2013, based in her hometown Fogo Island, in Joe Batt's Arm Newfoundland. Shorefast has a mission to create a diverse economy on Fogo Island through a variety of social businesses, including the Fogo Island Inn, a luxury hotel, outfitted by local craftspeople, and featured in international media outlets like National Geographic, GQ, and CNN, and is frequented by high profile celebrities and politicians. This is not just any hotel. Built by Newfoundland born architect Todd Saunders, this hotel is a work of art sitting atop a mound of jagged rocks, and is consistently ranked as one of the top hotels in the world. In this episode, I talk to Zita about entrepreneurship for the purpose of more than just profit, asset based community development, and why community is important and how you can build it. This episode is particularly relevant at a time when almost two thirds of millennials feel disconnected from the community. A sixth don't even know their neighbors names, yet almost 70% want to participate more in their communities. Please enjoy this masterclass in what might be the future model of entrepreneurship with Ms. Zita Cobb.
Student Introduction
Fogo Island Inn is a reflection of the island's culture. From the quotes to the food. Every object inside the inn carries a piece of the island with it. The twenty-nine, one of a kind rooms were all hand built by Zita with her image in mind. A place where people could go and immerse themselves in the surrounding nature. Forgetting about material things and reminding himself what's truly important. To further her contributions to the community, Zita donates 100% of the operating surpluses at the Fogo Island Inn, back to Fogo. The Inn is currently ranked as Canada's number one hotel, and the third best worldwide. Please join me in welcoming the founder of this amazing venture. Zita Cobb. I know you've had a lot of introductions in your day, Ms. Cobb, but what do you think?
Zita Cobb
I know. I think that's got to be the best one ever. That's really cool. And I can see some product opportunities and then placing people in the rooms like that. I mean, you could have actually laid on the beds and be like a real Goldilocks. I love that. And I didn't miss the Alan Doyle at the beginning either. You took note of that that's a person that's a personal playlist. Yeah. Oh, he's so he's such a great human. I mean, good musician, too.
Eric Janssen
So if you don't mind, I wouldn't mind starting rewinding way back. So a lot of the students in the class are 20 to 22 years old. Where were you when you were their age? What were you up to?
Zita Cobb
Well, let's see. I left Fogo Island, when I finished high school in 1975, and I came to Ottawa to study at Carleton. And yeah, I graduated from Carleton when I was 20. So when I was 21 to 22, I was working in Calgary in the oil patch and mean that is another thing that defines us Newfoundlanders, right. We all work in Alberta at some point in our lives. So I did right out of university.
Eric Janssen
And how did you decide, a lot of students right now are sort of wrestling with what the first step looks like. And they build that up a lot in their mind. So how did you decide what the right first step was for you right out of university?
Zita Cobb
You know, I, I don't know that I wasn't been all that strategic about it. I just want to start. I'm sure you'll feel the same way. But the most important thing, but the first step is that you take one. Any step. And it doesn't have to be the one that's going to define what you'll do next. But I arrived in Calgary in the fall of 1989. After having actually it's a longer story, but my roommate and I University bought a used Ontario hydro van for $800. One of these things that, as they say, burn more oil than gas and decided we were going to go and see North America. All of it. And I'm not sure if we saw all of it. But we saw an awful lot of it. And the van broke down on a big hill, near Cochrane, Alberta, on the way into Calgary, if anybody is from that part of the world. And so we thought, well, we better get a job because her mother wasn't gonna send us any more money. And I had none. So we looked for jobs. Can you imagine in '79, in Calgary, which was boom time, you really just had to be kind of show that you were alive to get a job. And so I started working at Texaco, which was called the ugly sister for a good reason to I might say, and, and then I stayed there's I mean, there are a lot of it was such a crazy time of you know, they used to say that most people change jobs three times a week at that point, because there was such competition to hire people. And so I moved from Texaco, I stayed longer than a day, I think I stayed a couple of years and moved to shell. And, and I really realized very quickly that, in fact, it was a moment like this. You're all studying business, I think, right? Yes. Okay. Um, I was doing oil and gas accounting. And when I was at Shell, my job was to do the final month and close so we could send the financial statements to The Hague, which all sounds very glamorous. But really, what it comes down to is you're there at two in the morning, standing in a whole bunch of cubicles, you're the only one left you will meet a net cleaners have arrived, to get this thing set off on time. And I looked around me and I thought, wow, if I stay here, for, I don't know, five years, and I was sort of in the center of the shell tower is is a fourth and fourth. And I was in the center of the big grid of cubicles. I thought if I stay here five years, I could get, I don't know, 10 feet closer to the window. And if I stayed 10 years, maybe I would get within a foot of the window. Now if I really stayed, if I was really lucky, I'd get an office next to the window. And I thought, This is not how I want to spend my life. I don't want i and for what, and that's what I would say to anybody starting out a career. You really have one, ultimately, one currency. And that's your time. And the most important decision we make every day is what the heck you're going to do with that time. And certainly don't wish it way, but don't waste it away doing something that doesn't mean a lot to you. So I started working for tech companies, small companies. And yeah, then I took another step and another step.
Eric Janssen
So laddering up from starting a small tech company laddering up to progressively larger and larger, and you ended up retiring.
Zita Cobb
Yeah, I never really, I never wanted to join a big company again. But they just kept growing underneath me, in a way. I mean, we were her. Yeah, and I, I come from a long line of people who die young. And so I always assumed I'd never lived past 40. And actually, I think that's a good posture for everybody to adopt in a way because you don't waste any time. And so I really wanted to retire as early as I could. And then the biggest decision, as I said, is what to do with your time. And it's one thing to join something. And it's another thing to start something. And I and I always kind of knew I want it to go home and do something at home. And so I retired at, I think I think I overshot a bit, maybe I was 42. I spent some time sailing, and then I went home. So we
Eric Janssen
had a class on the discussion really focused for a lot of time on. Do you go like crazy when you're young to set yourself up for the rest of your life? Or do you try to maintain some semblance of balance throughout the entire thing? Not that one is right. Did you choose one of those paths? Were you were you balanced throughout your 20s? And 30s? Or did you just go like crazy with the goal of trying to retire early?
Zita Cobb
Yeah, that's, uh, I mean, I don't know if I'm a good example. Because I'm probably not very balanced at all. But you know, I also didn't spend the life doing things that I didn't enjoy. And I think I think there was balanced but not within any given week or day, for sure. I never failed to take vacation, and I never failed to travel. That is such an important part of what we do with our time. Because if we don't shift our perspective, I think we just end up looking at the same wall without realizing that's what we're doing. So I But yeah, I don't Yeah, certainly I don't, I never assumed I was going to live long. So I just figured I had to fit it all in and fitting it all in means, you know, you've got, you've got to read all the classics, I don't care if you're studying business or engineering or what it is you still have to read Shakespeare. I mean, otherwise, how would you be a well rounded human?
Eric Janssen
So you squeezed and squeezed in a full life into your by the time you were 42? And then started your second act? At that point?
Zita Cobb
Yes. And you know, that was I was always kind of second in the rankings, you know, I was the chief financial officer most of my life. So I, you know, the person who took the heaviest fire or heat movement and the CEO, and CFO. And to start when I started, I really realized it's a big difference being the CEO, compared to the CFO, a really big difference involves a lot less sleep. And it's Yeah, I mean, I, I enjoyed both roles. But I think it worked, because I always worked in really close teams. I mean, I'm not a believer that entrepreneurs are people that are born once every 10 years on a blue moon, and that they are exceptional in some way. I think entrepreneurs are just people who choose to be anybody could make that choice.
Eric Janssen
Even being entrepreneurial in your own life, or in a bigger Corporation, even if you're not the person who started the company.
Zita Cobb
Exactly, exactly. being entrepreneurial means looking at what is in front of you. And deciding that it can be better, it can be done better, it can be approached better, and then having the energy or carry enough to say I even though I don't quite know how to make it better, I'm going to dedicate myself to that. And you know, this is the other thing is when you actually commit yourself to something. The world always moves with you then, but the world doesn't move with dabblers. And so many of the people who say me Yeah, you know, I tried that. And it didn't really work. Like Yeah, well, you dabbled.
Eric Janssen
Didn't go all in. By dabbling. You mean they didn't they didn't commit. They didn't give up. They didn't sacrifice they didn't go all in on the thing.
Zita Cobb
Yes. And no, the first bit of friction that was like, well, that's really hard. You know, and and that's fine. I think it's a perfectly legitimate thing to dabble. Add a few things till you find what you are willing to commit yourself to. But you'll know the difference when you're in when you're in it.
Eric Janssen
Yeah, so part of that is finding something that you may be true that people dabble in things that they aren't passionate about, because they're just trying things out. But when you find the thing that you're passionate about being willing or able to go all in is that what brought you back to fogo I asked sort of in a roundabout way because I'm from a smaller town. Left flew the coop. It didn't say that I'd never be back. I did end up coming back but wanted to get out of dodge. wanted to explore You're in some of the world and then did end up sort of gravitating back home but didn't always have in my mind that I would be back. Well, what was the story for you did you know you'd be back at Fogo Island eventually?
Zita Cobb
I don't I don't know that I knew it as explicitly as that. But you know, I am as a newfoundlander. And this is very common for people from Newfoundland Labrador, we never really leave home. And home never really leaves us like it is a geographically it's a very powerful place. And it it digs into you and holds on to you. And so I always have a had a relationship with home, I always went home, I don't think I missed a year to go home, no matter where I was working. I think what I became passionate about wasn't that I became passionate about home because I always was what I became passionate about, was doing business in in different ways. And realizing, you know, that we have been on this wrong minded kind of globalization for more than 50 years. Thank you, Mr. Friedman. And it has caused the near destruction of human communities around the world. That's what I became passionate about. And so I thought, What am I in a part of my career in the, you know, when jdsu interphase was growing leaps and bounds, I saw a lot of this up, you know, I really, I was buying companies all around the world. And it matters, who owns what, I don't know, Eric, if you want to talk about ownership and all that at some point in our conversation, but I started to realize we're not going to have a human community left. That's intact. And, and even the one I came from which people for, you know, the people who settled on Fogo Island, came in the 1650s from England and Ireland. And, you know, community is everyday work. It's an it's a thing you do. Even Fogo Island, which you know, people have fought for for centuries was was imperiled. And so I thought no, there has to be a better way to do business. That is doesn't destroy community. And that's what what does our work is really about.
Eric Janssen
And where did you did that insight sort of build throughout your career? Or was this something that came to you when you gave yourself the space to think about it when you were, you know, quote, unquote, retired?
Zita Cobb
No, it built as I was saying, because my career was in a way corresponded with what I call this wrong minded globalization, you know, companies were changing hands, by the minute. And companies were mostly seeking short term profits and moving manufacturing plants around the world. Oh, it's, you know, it's 10 cents cheaper over there. Let's move that lice now. And this kind of treating place like it's a some kind of a casino, because every time a company gets up and leaves or closes plants, places harmed by that people in that place are harmed. Yeah, so I think I just saw enough of it that I started to feel, I think I'm a part of the problem. Hmm.
Eric Janssen
And that there was a better you could envision a better way, or you didn't know what it was, but you knew it wasn't what you were seeing?
Zita Cobb
Exactly. I know, I you can envision a better way and a better way, actually, sometimes the answers are behind us. You know, some of the greatest companies in the world are companies that are family owned, and have been for generations, some of the great European companies are actually owned by foundations, because you know, you have families that couldn't figure out how to pass it on to the next generation, maybe there wasn't the next generation, maybe they didn't like the crowd, they saw coming after them. So they, you know, put the company ownership into foundations. And, the goal of those foundations is to keep those companies healthy for the long run. So they serve the places that they are in. And I think we are in a way I don't know if you follow what's going on with the Business Roundtable in the US which is kind of a beginning of a new kind of new kind of contract a new kind of relationship between corporations and communities and, and places but I'm encouraged by a lot of that we have to make it happen. It just doesn't have to be this kind of zero sum game with you know, very short term focus. I mean, we know the destruction that's been done not just to, to culture, but to nature. You know, the world is almost literally on fire, and I'm sure that hasn't escaped your notice. No, and what a what a huge
Eric Janssen
goal, or what a huge thing to try to look at and change. And I think what you've done is starting a business is hard. changing people's minds is hard. What you've done is monumentally hard. Where did you start like when you you you took some time you had the space you were something wasn't Revenue the right way, but the way that business was done, it's not sustainable. Where did you even start to make change in the way that you envisioned?
Zita Cobb
Well, first thing I did was go home. And I started what really turned into a seven year conversation with people on Fogo Island. And many, many I knew, but many I didn't, because I'd been living and working away for 30 years at that point. And I think people understood what we wanted to do was build another leg on the economy, but do it in a way that's respectful of the they inherit assets that are there. And yeah, the first thing I did was get myself educated about asset based community development like what is that? Because typically, what happens when a community gets into trouble, you know, income to help or people and you know, what's what's wrong with all the people you know, we don't have much education we're poor, we, we know we don't have good health, all these litany of of liabilities. But nobody ever built a future based on what they don't know and don't have. And so when you really learn to do asset based community development, it's like somebody turns a big light on in your head because you can actually see what the community has, what do we have here mean a lot of people looked at a place like Fogo Island and want to say there's nothing there. When the quarter almost all gone and the population is aging and the young people have all left and on and on and on. But if you have the eye is because it's everything starts with with that you have to believe something is possible, of course, but if you have the eyes to see, you ask these questions, these are basic questions of asset based community development. What do we have? Surely we must have something. Okay, what do we know? Do we know anything? What do we love? What do we miss? Mr. Can we do about and as soon as you get to what can we do about it? Well, now you're already kind of starting a business really. And in the introduction, you were talking about the scholarship program and kind of this challenge from this woman in the community that said, you know, can't you do something to make jobs, you're just paying people to leave. Now, Fogo Island doesn't have a university, Newfoundland does, of course, but so people who want to get a university education, have to leave home, and not everyone's going to come back. And maybe it takes some as it did, in my case, 30 years to come back. But I think that education is important, but not everybody on Fogo Island wants or needs to get a university education either. So it's how do we create meaningful employment, dignified employment for people, and, you know, like communities have done all kinds of, you know, projects around well around the world and around Canada, like call centers, all kinds of things to try and create economic activity. And and I'm not here to say that any of it is bad as long as it's not polluting, I guess but, but I think there is a real chance I don't know if have you studied, you know what it's called now regenerative economics, you know, it's it's sort of beyond sustainability. Sustainable means please don't do your business in a way to break things. regenerative means do it in a way that actually makes things better. And so if you come at it in that way, and you say, Okay, if we're going to we started with art, because arts about knowledge, and hospitality, and hospitality, because fogo Islanders are culturally predisposed to great hospitality. And so how do we practice that in a way that actually strengthens culture, which is, you know, you're talking about we made all the furnishings and furniture for the end? Well, that gave us a chance to put what we know, because we were both builders always still are, and textile artisans always still are. And so by giving a demand for that, and giving a showcase for that, well, now we have more people building boats, and making quilts and hooking maps and knitting and all that because there's a need for it. I mean, it's kind of, you know, relevance of knowledge through use, as opposed to going out and buying bed coverings from someplace far away. Why would you do that? And and I think, what is happening, and I think COVID is actually, in some ways, making us more aware of the local. And I think what, and I'm not advocating a world in which everybody just retreats into some kind of awful, nationalistic kind of posture. What I'm advocating is what Gilpin Lim who was most remarkable man who unfortunately died too early, he was an urban planner. And he said, we have to figure out how to create a global network of intensely local places. And so it's a it is about Schumacher was right, small is beautiful. And Schumacher didn't mean that everything in the world has to be small. What he meant was you get too big by making a whole bunch of smalls and networking them together. You know, I've never believed that maybe this is like, you know, not revealing My generation has been so different from yours. But you know, when I was your age, people were talking Oh, you know, I'm a global citizen. That's that's bs respect. There's no such thing as a global citizen, nobody can love the whole world at one time, you can love a place at one time. And the way you get to a strong world is placed by place, and then networking them all so that we have intelligent commerce, we have intelligent exchange of ideas. And, you know, Never better than now, because we have the telecommunications technology to do some of this, that we couldn't do before. And so I think this question of how do I belong to the world? Well, I need to belong, or I need to belong to myself, first thing to belong in my own body. And then I need to belong in my local, whatever that is my local community, and then I belong to my regional and so on, that's how I belong to the world. I have no idea how I got there, Eric. Well, this is, this is at the beginning of that.
Eric Janssen
This is what this is what I was hoping for this is great. So I'm challenging the original conversation, when I reached out to you was that my wife and I are, we are passionate about community. And you are very outspoken about the importance of community. We are also the people who've moved around a lot. And I've traveled a lot. And I'll be honest with you, I don't know where home is right now I'm in a physical space called London, in my basement. We don't see a lot of people nowadays. And I worry that with my desire to see different places and give my kids different experiences, that the you know, soup kitchen won't have volunteers and that I won't know people and that my kids will never have a place that feels like home. So I worry about that?
Zita Cobb
Well, I think, and I have traveled and lived in lots of places as well. I think that starts with understanding a community is a physical, tangible, geographic place where you happen to be with other human beings. So if you're going to spend, I don't care if you're only spending four months in Toronto are where wherever you are at any moment, you are part of that community, even if it's not a forever, time, and community is a place, start with all Don't forget, it's not an people talk about online communities, there is no such thing as an online community. There are online networks, and they are hugely important. They are not communities, if your house catches on fire, you need the person next door to come over and help you. And so I think and community is it is a very complex adaptive coalition. If it was properly understood, it's a place that humans come together, to just to fight to compromise to muck along together in in some kind of shared understanding of fate FA t about how the future is going to evolve in that place. And so my relationship with Fogo Island has evolved over the years, I finished high school there. And then I was mostly gone. But I participated in the community when I was able to be there. And so I actually gave a talk once in a big city. And someone said to me, at the end of the q&a, they said, Well, you know, you're really lucky because you know, you live in a place where there is a community. And I said, Well, where do you live the moon? And he said, No, no, I live in the suburbs now and I said, Well, okay, do you know the people who live next door? No, he didn't. I said, Well, that's easy to fix. Right? Here's an active community go next door, say hello, my name is Eric, I live next door. If I can be of any help to you, this is my number you can reach out to me get to know people that is making community. And for the time you're there how I mean, I think good to teach your kids how to participate community is made by participating. And so we're for the time you were there, wherever you are, show up. Give us your time.
Eric Janssen
It's funny I have a company in the Home Security business. We did surveillance cameras and alarms and those sorts of things for residential and commercial. And of course I had the most secure home in the neighborhood right. My house was decked out with all the equipment that I could get. And yet there was a time where I went on vacation and I left my garage door open and it my neighbor, Peter, local lawyer, involved in local community theater, came over hit the button and shut my garage door for me. All the technology can't trump the physical human just caring enough and trust Actually, we had such a relationship. He lived across our alley that he was comfortable enough to poke his head in say this looks weird that their car's not here. I'm actually going to try, close the garage door. It's just a small action but it really made me realize like when I saw an article, that's something like 90% of millennials actually don't even know their neighbors names. We need neighbors still. You can't out technology needing people?
Zita Cobb
You know, it's a question of friction. This is that you cannot. And I think that is the danger of technology. And of course, you know, JDs unifies a company I spent most of my career with we made little optical devices called WD m wave division multiplexing. They are the enabling optical bits for the internet. And, you know, we used to dream, you know, work for career contributing to the creation of some kind of a Gora that, you know, people are going to be together with each other in new ways, which is a little bit true. Now what we hadn't anticipated. Were the platform monopolies that were actually going to manipulate and control our our very lives. But that's another story. I think that and the thing about the internet or being online, it is frictionless. I mean, we're together here for a short time. You know, I don't have to worry too much that Oh, gosh, now I have to call that fellow back. Because, you know, he, he's expecting me to pick up his kid or whatever it is. Community takes a commitment. And it's, and it's relationships take commitment, human, real human relationships are sometimes a pain in the butt. But that is where actually, richness lies. And the quality of anybody's life is the quality of their relationships. And the quality of our relationships is the quality of our attachments. And I think our most important attachments start with place, and you can be attached, I feel actually quite attached to more places than just Fogo Island. But I mean, when and all the places I've lived, I have formed a relationship with those places. As a, I don't know, it's kind of a habit. I think it's a Newfoundland thing. It's like maybe we're just nosy and you want to know who's next door? And, and of course, when you pull a thread and I you know, I see Andrew there and I want to know who are you when and What's your story? Well, my life just gets better from that, like i think it's seeing each other for what we are, which is enriching, like choose always is hard because it has more friction, it's hard to choose the real over the hyper real. I mean, he'd been off on the couch with a steady diet of Netflix doesn't demand a whole lot of us doesn't give us much ultimately, either. It's pretty unsatisfying.
Eric Janssen
Do you know why people follow you, you did a really hard thing. You start at a really hard thing. But there's of course, a team behind it. I tried to do some digging and talk to some people, they have some theory, I talked to Todd Saunders.
Zita Cobb
Oh you talk to Todd
Eric Janssen
I know that you still keep in touch with him almost on a weekly basis.
Zita Cobb
Like what a wonderful human!
Eric Janssen
Why do you… How did you get people to follow you? or Why do people follow you?
Zita Cobb
Um, I actually I don't know. Did you find out any answers to that? I don't know. I think that maybe they feel sorry for me, I think oh, my god, she's taken on such a big thing. I better help her. And that's fine. I take that. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's, uh, I think the way I look at things is I try to understand I have this ability, I think, than I think it comes from my father to zoom in and zoom out. And so, and we all can practice this, which is zoom into the smallest possible element, you know, and I and I talk about cauliflowers a lot, if you think about a cauliflower so when I left Newfoundland, I went to Ottawa as I said earlier, I had never seen a cauliflower because we could grow everything we ate, but we never grew cauliflowers and I got a job as a part time job working at Goldstein's IGA on elegant Street, not about anyone's motto, and outcomes along my cash. One day comes this thing I've never seen colleagues. And so if you inspect the cauliflower, you start to realize that it's a fractal, right? It's a beautiful pattern that repeats and repeats. And at the time, I was just starting to study business. And I had witnessed the near loss of Fogo Island as a place because of the industrialization of the fishery. And I and I came to understand that Fogo Island is one tiny little floorhead. And otter was a bigger format and Tron was a bigger format and Mexico City is a bigger format and keep going but all of these florets are this where we live. They're all held together by the stem that makes the cauliflower and there's one cauliflower and we all belong to it. The important part and this is what kind of this epiphany I had at Goldstein's IGA in 1975 is the stem has two jobs to do number one job is hold us all together. Number two job bring nutrition to the Forex and I read and a part of that nutrition is economic nutrition. And I realized that what was happening was in the fishery for sure is that the companies who were Operating those monster ships that were off our coast, they were depriving Fogo enough economic nutrition by just basically stealing all the fish and taking them away. And, and so when I talk about zooming in and zooming out, we call this cauliflower thinking, be able to, for everything you're going to do or contemplate doing or are doing, think about the impact on the hole, think about the impact on the floret that you're in and think about how does that affect all the other florets? How does it affect the cauliflower, and I think this questioning, always by zoom in, zoom out, I think that that is something that when you practice doing that, it's just like some kind of a brain shift. And so I think when people start to work that way, it's kind of addictive in a good way. Because then you can't stop seeing what you see, you can't stop seeing. You can't, I mean, you could be very willful and make a choice to live in a silo all of your own, it's gonna be a lonely place.
Eric Janssen
So what is? Well, they had, there were some opinions. I know that you and Todd have a very, you've stayed in touch, you have a really it sounds like a very tight relationship. And he said, when he he gets a lot of, he gets a lot of calls nowadays from people who wealthy people who want beautiful things built. And he says no to pretty much all of them. And so your your I don't know how you first got in touch, but your contact with him was was different. He connected with you as a person. He connected with the mission of shore fast. And he connected with I think it also aligned with his personal, why he want he really cared about the place. You know, it wasn't it was there was you there was the mission, and all of those sort of checked out. But he also had and wanted to get personal meaning of being part of something bigger than what he was working on. And so that that's I think what originally drew him in.
Zita Cobb
Yeah, and I think, and it's something in what you said, also, if we and I keep coming back to ‘you only get to decide what to do with your time, that's the most important thing... If you're working on something that is for you and about you. Really? Why would you do that when you could put your time into working on something that is bigger than you, something that will go on beyond your life? That is like such a fulfilling thing. And I think that's why people are drawn to the work on Folkwang because it's it has, it has a purpose that started long before I was born and will never end. And you know, I the way I'll give you an example, the way we hired TAs are taught for people that maybe don't know, Todd Saunders is the architect of the Forgotten men and other studios on the island. So when we were thinking about, okay, we're gonna hire an architect. And beauty is important. Design is important. Design has the job of beauty and aesthetics. Generally, it also has the job of helping us carry the past, because things can help us make meaning. And I think what we're all questing for in some way is a deeper kind of materialism. I mean, if if the things we're buying are just transactions like Google, you might imagine that Jeff Bezos is not my favorite human. Because he is setting us up for a life of transactions, not a life of relationships, if everything we bought, had some meaning, because you understood where it came from, who made it, why we why they made it where the money goes, then your life will be richer. And so architect like when you're going to put up a building in a city or a town somewhere, and too many have been put up in with reductionist thinking does, what's the cheapest thing I can throw up? And without thought to, you know, how long is it gonna last? Or how's it going to affect the people that walk by it or drive by it? Is it going to be beautiful? Is it going to make people's days better? Or is it just going to be some piece of crap that actually makes our lives feel meaner and more shallow? Like, you shouldn't think that kind of bad real estate development, I think has such a corrosive impact on our psyches. Anyway, when we were starting. So I think thinking about architects, the typical thing you do is you go out and you ask a whole bunch of architects to give you a proposal. Well, that seemed like the wrong thing to do. Because what I really wanted to do is to find someone who cared the most and had the most talent. So start with cared the most. It would have been good to have a Newfoundland architect because I thought they would understand the culture more and they would feel the burden of getting this right. Because Can you imagine if we had built something on Fogo Island, that was crap, like our ancestors we get to the grave and wring our necks. So I was really struggling with this because Newfoundland's A fairly small place for half a million people on a good day. And not that there. I just hadn't found the architect I wanted I was on an Air Canada flight. And this is a here's another lesson, life lesson; always read the in-flight magazine. And so I pick up the in-flight magazine, and I saw a little photograph, like a tiny little picture with a caption that said, and it was a beautiful little wooden building. And it said Newfoundlan-born architect, Todd Saunders. I hadn't, I'd never heard of him because he never practiced in New Zealand, he studied at McGill. And his practice has been in Norway. Okay, this one I knew right, then that was who we're going to hire. And I don't know if he told you this, we never had a contract. Because he had a very simple design brief. I mean, he understood that he was doing work for a charity, and so be responsible, and I trusted him to be responsible. And he was, I also didn't expect him to work for nothing. He's got kids to feed and all that too. And but the design brief was, you have to figure out how to express in contemporary architecture. But we have learned in 400 years of clinging to this rock. And so I think is so important for cultures to adopt to modernity. I mean, so many incredible human cultures have been left behind because they haven't made the adaptation to bring the essence of it forward. And architecture can help with that. And, yeah, he, I actually went to Norway, I visited some of his projects, it was pretty clear that even though we'd never done anything of this scale of this, he was a he was really quite young. He said this quite young. But it was a it was a big risk. And I know if you haven't seen the film strange and familiar, it's really worth watching. Because you see, Todd, when you see Todd Nye fighting a lot, which is not a bad thing. And you see him struggle with the enormity of this project.
Eric Janssen 37:02
It was a great watch. My wife and I watched it. I want to see this is about the students on the call. So I am going to save about 15 minutes for them to ask some questions. So Arnica, this is your cue to start sorting. The ones that are the most popular are getting uploaded. But zita, while she queues some of those up, the students who seem to take this, the way that I'd sum up this class is sort of everything that you didn't learn in business school in business school. So this is a very different class that attracts a very different type of students, we do a lot of work on personal development and figuring out what motivates you as a person and how to make you good before you take on whatever's next. Any knowing that these are the types of people that are going to take big swings, and are probably more entrepreneurial minded, any advice as they just get their career started?
Zita Cobb
Yeah, we were talking about passion a little bit earlier. And I'm sort of making a new book on passion, a lot of a lot going on about passion these days. I don't think I'm, who is the guy that wrote the book that's got a word that you're not supposed to say? Like, like, f blank, blank. This is, there's a book about this, and it's in a career now. Ah, I forgot his name. So I know, I know what you're talking about. But yeah. Anyway, he says, in a different way, basically, that passion is not something that overtakes you while you're lying on the couch. passion comes from doing doing doesn't come from passion. Well, it does. But it doesn't start nothing starts with passion. It's everything starts with doing something. Because we are. Well, for sure we are the sum of all that we've done. Each and every one of us is better than the worst thing we've ever done. But we heard a sum, like in other words, I really believe Okay, I didn't get that right. We got to be better tomorrow. But we are the sum of what we do. And yeah, and I think it's about doing my my father was all about that you are what you do. And I think when you do things, passion grows, it can't not. If you're using your time, wisely.
Eric Janssen
That's great. Great, great advice. So I'll turn it over. I'll turn it over to student questions. Do you what's being upvoted the most there? First, we're gonna hear from Tierney.
Student Question
Perfect. Well, first off, thank you so much, Zita for taking the time to speak with us today. You're a huge inspiration to young woman like myself. So thank you so much. On the break, I googled you and read that you hope your addition, the short, fast foundation signals a change in focus across the country. So my question for you is in a world full of Amazons and Facebook's. Do you ever foresee a world where businesses can shift priorities to have a social focus? I know you alluded to it when discussing that, that roundtable in the US and then additionally How can we as consumers and hopeful future business leaders spark that transition towards triple bottom line accounting.
Zita Cobb
I do believe Tiernay that company's can change, will change. But the change starts with you and me. And I was on a talk a little while ago, and I was recommending a book, which I'm going to recommend that book to you right now. And the book is called the “Third Pillar” by a fellow. He's an economist. His last name is Rajan on his name, his first name has a really long name, but he calls himself Ragu; Raghuram Rajan. I think it's based in Chicago now, uh, he may have been the economist for the IMF. I'm not exactly sure. But anyway, the third pillar, his premise is, society is based on three pillars, government, business, and community. And, like, we talked about this earlier, that when we hollow out the pillar, or call community for putting us all in trouble, and the business really can't succeed, and nor can government in anything we do, none of the climate change initiatives are going to work unless they land where people live and get uptaken. Anyway, I was recommending this book, and then someone said, Well, I'm gonna get that I get it. I have it by tomorrow. And I said, How are you going to get about by tomorrow, we're in a friggin pandemic! “oh, I'm gonna order it on Amazon.” Just a second, didn't we just spend an hour talking about community and the importance of local business and the importance of where the money goes? You are not ordering it on Amazon. Jeff Bezos will change when we stop buying stuff until he changes. He could get up tomorrow and decide to turn Amazon into a social business. It can still have a for profit motive, and I do believe that capital deserves a return - all of that. But he could run it as a social business, meaning cognizant of the whole cauliflower, making sure that like, for example, what if you wrote an algorithm that's that promoted things close to you? and promoted small producers? What if he did that? It could be a game changer. I still don't think you should buy on Amazon. But he could run it. And so could Walmart. They could be run a lot more responsibly toward people and planet than they are. But we are the ones we can't buy from them and then complain about them. I'm not saying you do that, Tiernay. So I think and I think there are business people that do care, and are willing to make the turn, we just have to stay with them as they make the turn. I mean, you know, the whole idea of fast and cheap is deeply seductive. And that's what he knows. As much as I want you to read the book, I think it's perfectly fine if you wait a week to get it.
Student Question
Thanks. Thanks so much for coming up found the pieces on community that you talked about. Very interesting. My question was, let's see. Basically, just Can you expand on the impact of globalization on community and well being? The second part of my question was, can we have the benefits of globalization while maintaining community? And what would the change look like that's that that would be necessary in order for that to happen.
Zita Cobb
I think that if we see the world as a whole construct of bores, and I know in business school, we get taught a lot of you know, it's an either or decision. I don't see the world is either or I see the world is and, and I and and when when I like if what I'm feeling is an hour, that tells me I need to go down a level that I'm working at the surface. So I think it's an ‘and.’ And I think that kind of localizing the global is the process we’re going through. I think it depends on if you/we just want to talk about commerce for a moment. I think if we are buying if for the sake of bed covering because we've been talking about if we are by if I need to buy a bed covering and I am living in a place, which is actually pretty skilled at making bed coverings, although they're not the least expensive bed coverings in the world. I should buy a bed covering from there. Now on Fogo Island, I let's say I want to buy, I don't know an electric stove. Hmm, I'm probably not going to buy it from the local and I as I said, I'm not all about let's be nationalistic. And so I think the amount of things crossing oceans needs to go down it needs to go down for the climate. If nothing else, it needs to go down so that we can stimulate local economies and so I think we need to be more thoughtful about what's moving. I think we need to have trade agreements that that have more to do with an intelligent planning of, of who's best at what and where and how things should flow, as opposed to companies that are just chasing around the planet to get cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. I think that globalization, less so I've talked about commerce, but let's talk about knowledge and, and, and sharing of ideas and collaborating together. I mean, we are facing such enormous challenges as human beings that can only be solved together. And we need to belong together in the big cauliflower to do that, I really believe that we need to strengthen some of our global institutions. And even though they've come under lots of pressure from wrong minded politicians in recent years, I think these are really important ways of collaborating. And so I think it's we just need to be more sensible about and think about, what what we're buying, and how we're participating in the world. And it is one world it's one cauliflower, but it's got to be made up of healthy little florets. So I think it's an end.
Student Question
Hi Zita. Thanks for coming in. So this question is along the same lines as Tierney's question about Amazon. But, you know, I agree with you that Jeff Bezos will change when people stop ordering from him. But given that a lot of people probably will never stop ordering from them, and maybe not enough to make a difference to them. What do we do about these like mega corporations, if anything? Or is this mega Corporation dystopia just our future?
Zita Cobb
I don't I don't think it is, I think, to back to Rajan’s book, a column that says the society is made of government. I mean, the pillars of society, government, business, and community I and you start to see it happening. I think governments need to wake up and realize that they are they have allowed citizens to be served up to these giant monopolies without creating any buffers. I mean, I don't mean we do live in an unfiltered, unbuffered, highly networked world, I think we need some buffers. And just as I don't think it's okay for governments to serve citizens up to industrial food companies that serve us non-food, and it's cheap, cheap, cheap, and highly addictive. I think government has a role in that. And I think we're beginning to see government's wake up, it's not going to be easy. There's a great Canadian designer, Bruce Mao, I don't know if you know his work. He's from Sudbury, another beautiful community. Anyways, Bruce, he's in Chicago these days, I think. But he said, you know, the people that we need to regulate in to the question you're asking around platform monopolies. He said, they operate like liquids. And the people who are trying to regulate them operate like crystals. And this is a problem. And I so I think government needs to mature to its real job. And I think we are going through a technological revolution. That is really at the beginning. I also want, I want to ask some very fundamental questions about technology. I still haven't figured out why we're working on driverless car, like what problem are we trying to solve? What's the problem? I think we should be working on electric cars. And, and this whole idea that we're going to use technology and displace, you know, human effort, and for the people, and we on this call are probably among them who think “oh, wow, you know, who cares a truck drivers don't have jobs. You know, we're educated people that's not got anything to do with us.” AI is going to replace mental labor. So as my father would say, when the fishery was collapsing, he said, Well, what are we gonna do with us all? drown us all in the harbor? So I think we need to really have a big think about technology. And I think government has a role to play there as well. Why are we working on a driverless car? Does anyone have an answer?
Eric Janssen
Oh, you're getting your volunteering, participation here. Hands are going up. So that's a street that one is rhetorical and try to make the best use of our last four minutes here, maybe Arnica. Let's get one more question.
Student Question
Thank you. Hi there. Zita Thank you so much for talking to us. I'm kind of an st just like you, I think it's super refreshing to hear a perspective that supports architectural beauty, beauty in general, rather than the indistinguishable Mcmansions we're kind of used to hearing about. So kind of keeping with that theme, what's the story of the art piece behind you? It's beautiful. Are you familiar with the the painter or the Creator, etc? What's the story there?
Zita Cobb
It's so funny. You asked this question, because I'm not at home today. I'm actually in Toronto. And I'm in a friend's apartment. And normally, I've been able to tell you everything about this art piece. But my friend whose apartment isn't his love, and his his apartment is also a big fan and purchaser of art. But I'm What I do know is because I think it looks vaguely like Newfoundland. No, but you think, anyway, it's a Cuban artist. And and he was in Cuba and bought the work there. It's really a remarkable piece. But that's all I know about. I'm sorry, I'm but I'm glad you asked about art because it lets me say a thing about art. If you don’t have a meaningful relationship with art, please make one. Because it's a different way of seeing and knowing. And you know that quote by Mark Twain, “it’s not what you don't know that's the problem, it’s what you think you know that just ain't so.” Art always shifts what we see. And the job of artists is to question and point to things that you wouldn't see as a business person, or I wouldn't see as a business person. And if you don't understand it, that's fine. Live with it. And live in the questions. I think it just makes us function better, because it appeals to us as humans, beyond just our brain. You shouldn't trust your brain too much, because there's a whole body that has knowledge too.
Eric Janssen
Zita, you've been incredibly generous with your time. Is there anything that these future, you know, next generation of leaders can do to help you help Shorefast help us? What’s your ask of us?
Zita Cobb
I would say pay attention to the smaller places in the world. Because the path we're on, we're all going to be living in that kind of Yonge and Eglintons’ of the world. And not that we don't need great cities. But great cities need great rural places, too. And I think that we can use network effects to link the smaller places to medium sized places with the cities in a way that it's not one or the other. I mean, when people I really get upset, and people talk about the urban rural divide. I’m like ‘what divide?’ We need each other. And there will be times in your life that you will choose to live in the city and there will be times in your life, you'll choose to live in smaller places. So just think about as you do your work. What can we do? What can you do? It doesn't mean that you got to move to hog wild and start a business, it could just have to do with how you do sourcing. It has to do with how you travel, pay attention to those places, and there's a richness there.
Eric Janssen
We'll see that thank you so so much for your time. We really appreciate it. I think Arnica will turn it over to you for one last word from the class.
Students
Yeah, I think Kyle's actually going to give us the last word. Go for Kyle. Yeah, thank you so much for your time today. Zita. You've shared a very unique story with all of us. And I think all 60 of us are going to walk away from this class with some new perspectives to think about for a long, long time. So as a small token of our appreciation, we'll be making a $40 donation to shore fast and we hope every little bit can help go a long way on Fogo Island.
Zita Cobb
It absolutely does kind of Thank you. It was nice to sort of meet all of you and who knows, maybe we'll bump into each other out there in community world.
Eric Janssen
Thank you so much Zita, we appreciate it
Zita Cobb
Thank you. Take care. Bye bye.
(Music Plays)
Eric Morse
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