Episode #20 – Being The Change You Want To See In The World – Featuring Thomas Le
Welcome to the fascinating mind of Thomas Le. We met in third year university. Thomas was getting his MBA and I was still a young party animal. We stayed in touch when moved he to Saskatoon a couple years ago to take Law at the U of S.
I’ve always looked up to Thomas, as you’ll hear, he lives his life for others. An amazing role model and truly a person who will change our world for the better. The more Thomas’s in our world the better off we all are.
I think he has one of he best Twitter bios: “There are no barriers to life than discovering your talents and believing in them enough to nurture them. People have ‘Special Abilities’ not ‘Disabilities'”
Running time: 34:44
In this episode:
- Who is Thomas Le?
- Where his family is from (Vietnam) Where he grew up (Regina, Saskatchewan)
- He has a degree in Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Regina
- He has a passion for helping people with disabilities, he’s made it a major part of his life
- Thomas began volunteering over 10 years ago with the Summer fun program with the Saskatchewan Abilities Council, it’s what inspired a more fulfilling life for him.
- He worked on one of the most advanced engineering projects in Saskatchewan, the synchrotron research facility and remembered not getting the same emotional charge he got from volunteering. His destiny was inevitable, he couldn’t fight it.
- He founded “Engineers Without Boarders” in the engineering faculty at the U of R
- He founded the “Best Buddies” program at the University of Saskatchewan.
- He’s a major part of a project developing a disability law centre for people with disabilities that helps encourage equality when it comes to people with disabilities and the law.
- He also helped found the “Community Outreach Committee” which has seven subprograms under it.
- I ask him why does he do it? He could be working anywhere right now but instead he’s giving a large portion of his time to volunteering. His answer is awesome.
- He says at one point you “Stop the what if’s and just start doing.”
- What is the slowest evolving industry in our country? I thought education, he says law.
- I ask about what he thinks of education.
- About how school is administered; “even if it’s our best model, that doesn’t mean it should be our only model.” Brilliant.
- We talk about a philosophical point of view on equality and inequality. Thomas talk about John Rawls thoughts on equality.
- Michael Sandel from Harvard Law school, Justice: What’s the right thing to do? (watch this, it’s fascinating)
- Did you know that 70-80% of the enrollment in Ivy League schools are first born or only children? (watch the video)
- We need to get out from behind the “vale of ignorance”.
- What inspires him and how he learns.
- Why he seeks out what scares him the most.
- Identifying your upper limit problem. From: The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
- Sometimes you have to lean into the dip (a book by Seth Godin)
- We talk about implicit biases and the social knowledge construct.
- Most of our biases are formed by the age of seven, children are in fact a different form of genius before the age of seven. See the Ted talk Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies
- Dan Pink (author of Drive and a Whole New Mind) on the surprising science of motivation (Ted talk)
- What Thomas is working on now.
