The Root & Seed Podcast

Sounds like a dream, right?

No matter what stage of your career, aligning your personal and professional values feels like the path to a fulfilling, long standing relationship with your workplace.  For our more visual and strategic listeners, this feels like a giant Venn diagram, with a juicy middle in service of what’s best for employer and employee. Host Anika Chabra explores the topic of congruence with a guest who is living this reality.  Carol Ann Lawrie credits her Scottish roots, upbringing, and the personal work she has done to become a loyal servant leader and community builder, aspiring to leave the world a better place than she found it. Hear stories of her familial background, how she worked with other leaders to co-found a vibrant community at her workplace and sage advice for those who might be struggling to find their place at work.

About Carol Ann: Meet Carol Ann Lawrie! A passionate storyteller and community advocate, Carol Ann is the proud daughter of Scottish immigrants, with a deep sense of loyalty and support rooted in her close relationship with her brother. Married for over 22 years, she is a devoted mother to her two daughters, Ella and Eloise. Carol Ann works as an administrative assistant and co-founded the Canadian Assistant Committee, leading wellness initiatives and monthly book clubs at Home Depot, where she's worked for 16 years. Her career also includes corporate roles at McDonald's and General Motors Canada. An active volunteer on her local school board parent committee, Carol Ann is committed to making a positive impact while honoring her family's values of respect and kindness.

Know yourself, and then sell better.

When guest Peter Ahn advises tech founders he encourages them to weave their personal story through their pitches and presentations, building empathy and trust with the audience.  In this interview, Peter and Anika dispel the historical stereotype of the salesperson, forging a new narrative and path for effective selling - a life and professional skill they both value.  As a Korean American tech sales coach, Peter uses his 15 years of corporate enterprise sales experience at industry leaders like Google and Dropbox to now help his own clients and community understand that business relationships can be mutually beneficial.  Peter divulges some of the techniques he uses with clients to get them to know themselves better, championing often underrepresented communities along the way.  Learn more from and connect with Peter at decodingsalespodcast.com

What a way to launch a season! In this interview, host Anika Chabra draws a relationship between childhood experience, identity and the professional self.  Guest Michelle Bazargan, a technology executive advisor, conscious leadership coach and author encourages listeners to go inwards, uncover their stories and really get to know oneself in order to show up at work as your true self.  Michelle shares the early experiences that shaped her, provides examples of childhood triggers that show up in work relationships and encourages an abundance mindset as we find our place in the workplace.  Recognizing that corporate systems are slow to adapt, calling for personal responsibility is the change that Michelle wants to inspire in the world, one person at a time. Check out her book “Unmask Your Brilliance. Thriving beyond workplaces designed to hide you” here: https://www.amazon.com/Unmask-Your-Brilliance-Thriving-Workplaces/dp/1962202240/

Season 7 of the Root & Seed podcast is launching on September 19th.  Over the past 3 years we have brought you stories to inspire discovery and celebration of family and cultural backgrounds. You have responded by listening, by giving us feedback and used our physical and digital tools to capture, collect and connect with others in your life. In some ways it feels natural to go where we are going next and we definitely have you to thank for it. This season is about the workplace and community. It's about our colleagues & clients, and how being our true selves enable empathetic relationships and inspire more creativity and collaboration to meet collective goals. We spend so much time in the workplace, often with others who are not like us. Do we really know others? Do we really know ourselves and how our background, stories and upbringing shows up in the workplace?  We imagine a world where  narratives can be helpful to bring out our strengths and gifts as we show up at work and in our community. From authors, to TEDTalk speakers to therapists, our guests this season provide perspective and tools to really get to know yourself by digging deeper.  We can’t wait to bring you another season of Root & Seed.

What happens when Root & Seed co-founders Jenn and Anika get together with mics on to interview each other? Lots of storytelling, advice shared, and reflecting on their Root & Seed journey. For our season 6 finale, on the theme of relationships, they couldn’t help but provide a peek behind the curtain and answer the most asked questions from the Root & Seed community. Everything from how their relationship with the business has evolved, to a look at their relationship with THEIR families, and how their own stories have blossomed. “Ask us anything” style, expect a speed round of info, laughs, and reminiscing. Anika shares what she would ask her mom if she had the chance, what her favourite podcast and community spotlights have been since launch. Jenn shares a revealing story about her father that leaves her with a new perspective on Mr. Siripong’s personality... and as our resident conversation expert she helps us understand how to truly get the crowd talking, especially as we enter the holidays.

If you’ve ever been curious about the behind the scenes of Root & Seed, this is an episode you don’t want to miss!

Is “almost" anything good enough? It sure is for this episode’s guest Brittany Muddamalle, the voice behind The Almost Indian Wife.  As a Caucasian/Romani woman married to an East Indian and now raising multiracial kids in America she is building a life that works for her and her family and in doing so is inspiring others to “meet in the middle” to honour all family tradition, culture and norms. All the while leaving the unnecessary and outdated behind. We cover a lot of ground in this interview from how eating with her hands has become one of her favourite ways to respect their Indian side, to her desire to have her children know Telugu fluently and how replicating her favourite recipe from her Caucasian side makes her heart wish for another Thanksgiving with her grandma (hint, it giggles and comes in many colours). 

Check out Brittany's The Mix Membership https://www.almostindianwife.com/the-mix-membership

Use promo code ROOT&SEED for one month off!

About our guest: Brittany is the voice behind The Almost Indian Wife. She is married and has four kids. Her husband is Indian and she is Caucasian/Romani. She has a passion to help other multiracial families navigate multiple cultures and build a healthy foundation so they can stand up against anything. 

https://www.tiktok.com/@almostindianwife

https://www.instagram.com/almostindianwife/

https://www.almostindianwife.com/

What does it mean to truly represent your culture in a way that is innate, intimate and unique?  Eric Hernandez is a Native American hoop dancer whose love for expressing his culture comes through movement and by telling his story, shedding a light on the diversity within the Native American and Indigenous communities. In this episode Eric reveals his choice to follow life’s whispers and nudges and how the teachings of his ancestors and elders played a part in shaping his present gift to the world. We hear about the process of creating his TEDx Talk and how a role with Cirque du Soleil invited him to dance the way that he was meant to dance. Perhaps most of all we are left with the revelation to be who we truly are - even and especially when faced with decisions at the crossroads of life.

About Eric: Eric Hernandez, a proud member of the Lumbee tribe, is an esteemed Native American hoop dancer with over 20 years of experience. Mentored by Terry Goedel, Eric's skills took center stage as the lead in Cirque du Soleil's "Totem," touring over 17 countries. A recent TEDx speaker, his mission is to challenge stereotypes and spread ancestral wisdom about Native Americans through the art of hoop dance.

Facebook: @nativeric

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nativeric?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Instagram/ericmicha3l.com

Exploring the role that tradition plays in one’s life feels pretty core to the Root & Seed community.  But what role does it play when you have lost a loved one?  And at an age when you just starting to "adult"? We explore this and more with Francesca Saraco, someone who is navigating the world after losing both her parents in her 20s. How food can be a great connector to those who have come before us, transporting us back to simpler, perhaps happier times.  How the honour of carrying forward those traditions is met in a way that is bittersweet.  And how traditions go beyond culture or ethnic background and are simply life traditions.  And don’t worry, Francesca is gracious enough to share her family’s tomato sauce recipe with us, and we will are all better for it. Check out her transcript for the recipe at rootandseed.com

About Francesca Saraco:

It appears there are no conversations with Darius Bashar that stay on the surface and this is definitely one of them. Darius is a creator, yes, and someone who is helping to connect with others in a way that defies media and mode.  From dance to meditation, from photography to facilitator, he is on a mission to connect more intimately, evidenced by one of his many projects "No Strangers". In order to do so, Darius has needed to understand the stories of his past, inviting compassion to seep in and importantly deciding what are his stories to tell and what are his ancestors'.  We go from generational trauma, to question-asking advice to birds in the wild and we are all better for it. Give this heart-led conversation a listen.

Darius Bashar is a celebrated photographer who works with international celebrities, best-selling authors and thought leaders such as Seth Godin, Liz Gilbert, Dr. Shafali, Jim Kwik, Danielle LaPorte, Lisa Nichols and Masai Ujiri.  His work has been featured in world-class publications such as TIME, Apple, Forbes, USA TODAY, Oprah.com and others.  Darius speciality is working with speakers, authors and thought leaders and his signature photography experiences are his HEARTshots™ and Black + White Experience.   In June 2022, Darius launched a new photography project called NoStrangers.art, which explores intimacy and connection, by taking photos of strangers on the streets of Toronto and asking them one deep question.   Darius is also the founder of Artist Morning, which is an international community of artists, creators and meditators. He has led and facilitated over 500 group meditations for thousands of people around the world. You can find Darius on the world’s most popular and largest meditation app, Insight Timer.

Check out Darius at:: www.artistmorning.com

Find him on: https://www.instagram.com/dariusbashar/

We first discovered Mita Mallick on LinkedIn and we're enamoured with her content about making the workplace truly inclusive and inviting for all. How as leaders, it is in fact our experiences at home, our upbringing, our backgrounds that help inform, influence, and inspire how we show up at work. How when a sense of belonging and truly feeling part of a team is fostered, that it actually makes good business sense - something we agree with wholeheartedly at Root & Seed. In this interview, we talked to her about her new book launching the week this episode is launched. Her career in corporate America and how her early life experiences have helped her show up as she learned to show up sometimes despite the best of intentions from our parents and society at the time.

About our guest: Mita Mallick is a corporate change-maker with a track record of transforming businesses. She gives innovative ideas a voice and serves customers and communities with purpose. She has had an extensive career as a marketer in the beauty and consumer product goods space, being a fierce advocate of including and representing Black and Brown communities. Her first book, “Reimagine Inclusion: Debunking 13 Myths to Transform Your Workplace,” being published by Wiley is now available for pre-order on Amazon.