In episode 53 of the Get Hired Up podcast, I have the pleasure of speaking with James Baxter. James is an award winning Canadian sports writer, political journalist, bureau chief and entrepreneur. Interviewing James was both fascinating and intimidating for me, given his experience in Journalism, Media and politics. But what impresses me most about James, despite his successes as a nationally recognized community and business leader, is his generosity, humility and kindness toward others. I hope you enjoy the show!

James Baxter is a public affairs communication philanthropist and business leader having served as a journalist covering international trade, economics, health care, energy and climate change and North American politics. Recognized among his peers as broadly networked among global governments and news organizations. He is also known as a leader who turns ideas into action. James is the founder of Canada's first purely digital political news service, iPolitics—known for its independent, nonpartisan and real time coverage of Canadian politics (later acquired by Torstar in 2018). James served as a principal reporter for First Nations and Meti for the 18 month negotiations with federal, provincial, territorial governments and five national indigenous organizations. Following decades of single party governments, James actively led the transformation of news coverage in Alberta, Canada, serving as the Bureau Chief for the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. James received Harvard University's prestigious Nieman Fellowship, which the university says represents the world's most accomplished and promising journalists and some of the world's greatest thinkers, deeply committed to youth sports, healthy living, community, and the performing arts. James was a key contributor to the $10 million campaign for Ottawa Ashbery College Center for Science and Innovation as the chair of the college's foundation. James joins us today from Ottawa, Canada.

James, welcome to the Get Hired Up podcast!

James Baxter

Hi Maureen, thank you very much!

Maureen Farmer

It's my pleasure. So, there's lots of wonderful topics to cover, and where should we start? I would love to get a sense of how you got into journalism and how it led you to becoming an entrepreneur. And then I'd love to talk about how coaching has informed your leadership style.

James Baxter

Sure, I'm happy to talk about all of that. The way I fell into journalism was hereditary. My grandfather was a journalist and he kind of fell into it himself. He was injured during the First World War and convalesced on the like a lot of Canadian soldiers convalesced on the state of Lord Beaverbrook. And they struck up a conversation one day and and Lord Beaverbrook said, Well, when this war is over, why don't you come and work for one of my newspapers. And so my grandfather fell into journalism and had a lot of success. And that led to my father, who grew up in England, but moved to Canada, shortly after the Second World War, also being a journalist. And so when it came my time to think about careers, my father had died while I was a teenager, most of his friends who had been journalists or had been around journalism, said that they thought I, you know, I would fit naturally in that world. And so that's what has in many ways informed my or led me into coaching because it was really the not directly my father's influence, but his friends and former colleagues who had coached me along through my teens and 20s, and made me the journalist and the person I am. 

Maureen Farmer

Well, that sounds like a wonderful, I mean, it's very, very sad that your father passed away when you were a teenager, at such a young age. But it sounds as though there was a great team of support, backing you as a young person.

James Baxter

Absolutely, yeah. My father's former boss, a man named Paul Deacon had asked my mother, if there was anything he could do for her. And she one point said, 'Well, no, I'm I'm doing well, but could you maybe guide my shiftless son.' And so he did. And he was, he was a wonderful mentor. And then, when I went to university, I tried my best to play football at university and stuck around for a couple of seasons more around the team than on the team, but got to know a number of the coaches there. And again, just that sort of leadership that that kindness that was often there...it's sometimes cruel kindness, brutal, yes, but it was still kindness. And I think that has informed how I have lived my life. Whenever I see a young person who needs an extra hand, sometimes they've you know, their parents or are struggling or one parent has died, or is it or is ill. And there are times when it's really important and quite easy for an adult to step in and, and just give that extra little helping hand.

Maureen Farmer

It takes a community to raise a child, I firmly believe. My children have certainly been recipients of a community, a very caring community. And I'm a firm believer of that.

James Baxter

I shudder to think where I might have might have ended up without it. I was asked, I remember a college recruiter asked me what what was the most important thing that happened in your, in your childhood? Normally, they get fairly benign answers. And so I think the most important thing that ever happened to me was my, my father's dying when I was 15. And it because it made everything really stark at that moment, it's not a good way to be sometimes because you start to think in terms of, well, I have only myself, you know, and you become quite walled in, and that you become very focused on making sure that you are employable. And that you're, you're not taking undue risks. And so you missed out a little bit on on childhood. I think I did, I certainly look back. And so I'm grateful for the people who did step in and kind of shake me back into into the realization that my father's misfortune would not necessarily be mine. And I've managed to, I managed to get out, you know, get on through life and got a wonderful family and I've had a good career. I'm having a good career. I think that's at least in part due to some important interventions at a young age.

Maureen Farmer

And I think what you're talking about there really falls into the category of resilience. And, you know, I didn't lose my father when I was young, but I lost my 17 year old brother when I was 21. And it really, you know, had a huge impact on my outlook and, you know, the focus on family In struggling, I think every young person struggles at the best of times, but when there is a traumatic loss, I think it's amplified.

So in terms of career, I know the listeners are going to be very interested in your journey through, you know, your world in journalism, and launching and being the founder of iPolitics. I'd love to know a little bit about that journey.

James Baxter

Okay, well, it's like most of the journalists working today, I came into the business at a time when it was already beginning to struggle, you know, the greatest days of journalism were in the 50s and 60s and probably early 70s. And from that point on various recessions and the emergence of other advertising vehicles, and more recently, the development of social media has greatly affected the ability of these these organizations to cover all the things they want, they want to, but so I was on the very depends who you talk to, I'm either the last of the baby boomers or the first of Gen X.

Maureen Farmer

Yup, I am the same. 

James Baxter

Right on. So, all of the good...and in journalism, particularly, seniority matters a great deal, and a lot of them were union shops. And so the only way to kind of get ahead in journalism was to you get noticed with good stories, but the only way to get good stories is to get seniority within your news organization. And it's so it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a vicious loop. And I came in at that time, a lot of lastin first out layoffs. And so the journalists of my era got used to, to jumping ship, you move from the only so almost impossible to move up within an organization. So you moved, you moved out, when you saw opportunity at at arrival. And you know, that leads to a fairly uncertain life for the first 10 or 15 years of a career while you're establishing yourself. I came out of university failed football player and I was excited to become a a sports writer. And I started with the Associated Press in New York, upstate New York, and then moved to the Montreal because as a, as a city reporter, where everybody started and then got handed the what seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime from Quebec, or two, which was starting an English language newspaper in Montreal, to cover hockey and baseball. And as a 20...I forget how old I was...24 year old I think I could not have asked for a sweet...

Maureen Farmer

A sweet gig!

James Baxter

Pretty sweet gig, it was a lot. And, you know, I was writing 234 stories a day sometimes. But it was, it was a lot of fun. And but I also realized, you know, somewhere in there, that there's more to life than Pucks and Pucks and baseballs. And so I began to steer a course more towards business and political coverage. That was a little bit out of necessity, Quebec or paper closed, and I had burned my bridges at the Montreal Gazette, which meant I had to start again in another city. And that wasn't as easy as it sounds. So I went and did an MBA, a part of the frustration of seeing the Montreal Daily News close, it also prompted me to to become interested in business. And so I went back and did a Paillard MBA for the media business. 

Maureen Farmer

And that was Syracuse University? 

James Baxter

Yup, Syracuse. And I had a new of this program and so I didn't have to look too far I moved in to an apartment, down the street from where I'd be apartment I had as a as a senior in undergrad. And so it was just a natural sort of extra year, but it opened my eyes to the business and more importantly opened a part of the resume. That got me into different opportunities within the news business. And I went to a large publisher in Toronto McLean Hunter, which was a little Little did I know it was about to be acquired by Rogers. But I worked there on the business publication side for about a year year and a bit, which was amazing immersion into into business. And so I always had the bug from there. I jumped into political coverage in I did get back into the newsroom. There was a an event it was the Oklahoma City bombing. So I'm trying to place that so But but But 1995 I think, and I just remember watching it unfolding on television and thinking I should be in a newsroom. I just felt this overwhelming need to be back in the newsroom. So I began charting a course back I checked with some of my former colleagues and editors, and found one who was willing to take a chance on me and I ended up in Ottawa where I worked briefly in Ottawa as a legislative assistant to a member of parliament, a former newsperson John Godfrey. And he had been the editor of the Financial Post. And so we didn't know each other, but we knew of each other. And he was he was a wonderful introduction to the BloodSport of politics. So he always said that, you know, it's just, it's just moving from one sport to another. It was it was yeah, if you look at it from that standpoint, you could you could really make it like, like sports writing, that for the better or for worse for democracy. And looking back, I don't know if covering politics should be covered like a sport. But we think that's where we all are these days. And that then took me on the journey to start it as a Parliament Hill reporter, moved over to run the Alberta Bureau for South of news or Canwest as it became and which is now post media. It's evolved several times. And it was tremendous. i We had four or five wonderful years out in Edmonton, my children were born there. And we had a great life. And then the Nieman fellowship came, one wouldn't pass it up. It's the best way to spend a midlife crisis. Just to go back to the university and...

Maureen Farmer

What an opportunity hey?

James Baxter

Yeah, around all these young, brilliant, people. It's just so much fun, and just recharged the batteries tremendously. And at that point, we were right at the start, if you think of a roller coaster, we were just about to head off the steepest part down into the destruction of the news business as we know it. You could see Facebook and Google were revolutionizing people consumed news. The old newspaper was to go extinct shortly thereafter. Again, the newspaper as we know it, news was on demand was curated by by robots. And things were changing very quickly, as a group, a number of the Nieman fellows we were 30 odd, about 15 from the US and 15. From elsewhere, a cohort of a small group of us probably a dozen or so began really focusing on the future of journalism. And I took a particular interest in the future of journalism and democracy. And spent a bunch of time in Washington with people who were doing really interesting things. And there was Real Clear Politics, there was another group called Talking Points Memo. And then there was politico which was, you know, which is now this incredibly big, behemoth in political coverage. But it was at the time, it was still a fairly small the idea of two young guys, they're young, they're the same. We're all about the same age. So we're not young anymore. But but we were, you know, they had left the Washington Post with much the same concern as I had, that the Washington Post is going to, as as they know, it is going to struggle. And you know, what, what is the next model, and they really invented it with a $50 million investment or promise of investment from the Allbritton family. John Harris and Jim Vandehei. Started politico, and I, and they were wonderfully gracious in allowing me into, to see what they were doing, ask questions, to borrow their ideas, liberally, and, and so when I came back to Canada, I was looking, you know, we the Harper government was in it was promising to cut the CBC, the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star were having all of the same problems that many news organizations were having with advertising, and being cannibalized by Facebook and Google. And I was asked by a friend, yet another mentor, who said, Well, you know, now that you've got this great education, what do you and your batteries are recharged? What do you want to do? Or who do you want to work for? And I said, I'm not sure I was this eloquent at the time, but I said, I don't think any of these guys are going to be here...

Maureen Farmer

Right, and can you disclose who the mentor is?

James Baxter

Sure. I mean, he's, unfortunately he's not with us anymore. His name was Mike Robinson. He was the founder of Earnsciffe, which was a lobbying firm in Ottawa. Very well connected and we had both served on the Ashbery College Board. He was the chairman of the board. And he had brought me in as a longtime alumni or alumnus he brought me in and there's a cautionary tale. I think he brought me in in about 1998 And I haven't left yet.

Once I think I graduated in 1987 was brought back a decade later or there abouts and not been allowed to go since. It is it's really fun. And it's a great, it's a great school. But So Mike, he was a great guide and said, Well look, I said, I said, I'm not sure any of these guys are going to be here or any or at least in the form as we know them. And he said, Well, what's the answer? And I said, Well, there's these guys in Washington who got created this thing called politico and it's pretty cool. And he just looked at me and said, I think you know what you have to do. And that said, the political model did not fit seamlessly into Canada. I've learned some very tough business lessons.

Maureen Farmer

And what would one of them be? I'm just curious, the difference? Is it scale?

James Baxter

Scale was part of it. And the appetite for political coverage at the national level is not the same as in the US. But no the biggest difference is the CBC. This publicly funded behemoth doesn't exist in the US. And so I didn't recognize them as a competitor...

Maureen Farmer

CBC?

James Baxter

CBC. But they proved to be more than a competitor. I testified a few years later, after we launched, that I had under-appreciated them, but that they were...I referred to them as as a T. Rex, that was still, you know, devouring everything it sees at its feet. They didn't take kindly to that. But it's proven true. I mean, they, anytime they've seen a startup that's having some success, they then tried to create their own, they have their own skunkworks operations, and they would create their own competitors.

Maureen Farmer

Well, just for the sake of the listener here, who may not know what iPolitics is, tell us a little bit about the model, and how it serves business.

James Baxter

Well, I'm going to first say that the the politics that exists today is very different from the one that we initially created back in 22,009 2010. And very different as well, from the one that was sold to Torstar, which in turn has had new ownership. And, you know, so it's gone through several iterations or evolutions since since starting. But the original idea was that as budgets were being cut at the Toronto Star, and Globe and Mail and others, that it would be obvious that everything would shrink, the sports section would shrink, the business section was rink, and the political coverage was would shrink. And for a niche audience that is interested in particularly the sort of the nitty gritty of not politics, per se, but government regulatory issues, the evolution and debating of bills, how important legislation gets moved along First Nations was something that very few people were covering, right, effectively back in the early 2000s. It was covered locally, and occasionally stories kind of would creep up into the national psyche, but not not very often. So I, you know, along with the team, we sort of identified about a dozen areas that really weren't getting great coverage, and but that somebody would be willing to pay for and it was definitely there it was, you know, finding a price point for it. getting word out getting trusted, trusted, getting trusted was was harder than I thought. Again, there's not, you know, probably naivete more than anything else. I kind of thought of, we build it, build the Field of Dreams model. If we build it, they will come. They came, they would sample. But the other thing we missed for the first year or two was how easily pirated we would be.

And so people were just scraping and putting us into their clippings files in Ottawa. And it took us quite a while to get to public works, to say, Hey, your your government employees are just stealing our stuff. It's not that I don't think they knew they were stealing it. That was sort of just what people did. And paywalls were not sophisticated enough to block it. They are now but Public Works eventually came around and agreed that, you know, the readership was there and bought a bulk subscription for the whole federal government. Some of the provincial governments did the same and that that became a major part of how we went forward. But we also began doing what again, a lot of we were the first to be doing them but now lots of people do them but events and speaker series in Ottawa, the politics newsroom, which still exists is now also the Toronto Star Bureau is this wonderful warehouse space in the Ottawa market area, and we would have talks in recent options in there. And we developed a series of ancillary revenue lines that allowed us to invest in reporters. Again, the scale was never there for Canada the way it is in the US. And a couple of years ago, the all Britain's $50 million investment was sold for going to say a billion Wow. Two years was an incredible, incredible amount of money. It was a little, a little jealousy. And I do occasionally sit up at night and wonder if I had managed to get, you know, get that big investor, would we have been able to do the same here?

Politico has since moved into Ottawa and has become has really taken over a lot of what I politics use to do. You know, I think it's great. I have a lot of time and respect for that organization. I think they've revolutionized political coverage. They recruit excellent people, they develop them...

Maureen Farmer

Just like you did James!

James Baxter

Well, again, I took the model out somewhere...it was one of those days where I was, I was listening well, and I heard Jim VandeHei and John Harris, both say, you're only as good as your people. And I was very lucky, I have a couple of great friends that that journalism schools around Canada and particularly Carleton, and they were quick to say, you know, you should hire so and so. And likewise, they were saying to their students, to use a sports, a sports ism, you will get playing time at AI politics that you won't get at the CBC, I was very happy from day one, that we became a feeder system for great talent, talent. And when somebody left when somebody left and it was time for them to go, I no one was happier for it than I, you know, they got there, they were able to pursue their dream. When somebody left early, I was always a little down in the mouth because of it only because...

Maureen Farmer

You likely saw their potential where maybe they didn't...

James Baxter

Yeah I think that's probably in most cases. And it sometimes comes off as well, I wanted the payoff for that time of training. But it wasn't, it really wasn't that. It was that I became invested in their careers...

Maureen Farmer

Just like the best coaches do. And I think that that sort of has woven its way throughout your career. As an observer, you know, that that collaborative mentor, coach, a leadership approach that we talked about earlier, in his call...

James Baxter

I think a lot of who I am, is...has come from my time initially being coached by...I had some wonderful football coaches who you knew they, they wanted you to be successful, because if you were successful, the team was successful. Rare are they, at least in my life, have rare have been the coaches who kind of that are portrayed in movies that, you know, they treat you like a piece of meat, I've had very good encouraging coaching, both in sports and in my career all the way along. And I think I sought that out too, you know, where I did see a manager who I who I wasn't getting, you know, learning from or getting protection from or whatever, I quite quickly move, move on from that situation. And again, I was explaining that you often in our business, you got used to jumping ship, because that was the only way to move ahead in most news organizations.

Maureen Farmer

How many people are on your team when it was acquired by Torstar? Or how many did you start with? How big was your newsroom?

James Baxter

Well, where did we start? We started with probably about a dozen, you know, initially we were three people myself, fellow named Jim Anderson, who was a well known political person in Ottawa, and a very web savvy fellow named Adam mero, who has had many careers in the tech world since I politics and he but he really was the visionary of the platform. And he brought in a programmer and an artistic director who's still in the business. I hired a couple of my former colleagues who had been bought out from various jobs within post media. Yes, because by then we had post media had been created from Canwest and quickly said about adding each giving each each one of the older the mature journalist giving them someone young to work with and to mentor along and and so that was the model. original plan was to only do reporting no columns that evolved. So we started adding column nests about a year in and so at our peak, we were about 24 people. I forget where we were when we sold I think we were probably by then, once it became apparent that there was going to be A change of ownership and I was exhausted. I mean, it was pretty evident, I think, to everyone in the newsroom that were in the, in the entire operation that I was I was suffering...

Maureen Farmer

Because it was over a period of time...what 10 years?

James Baxter

About 10 years from planting the seed to, to exit. And it was everything you hear about entrepreneurialism is true, it's your you're never off. They are 20 hour days, even when you're sleeping. Oh, yes. And I was exhausted. And I still have some regrets. But I had young teenagers at the time, and I was missing, they're growing. They're growing up. And this everything sort of came to pass, I knew I had to go out and get another investor to sustain us. And to take us to the next level. We were hovering in a in a gray zone where we were too small to be able to do the things we wanted to do but not not big enough yet to begin taking up more space take up more of the psyche, in in Ottawa. And in the political and provincial capitals. That was our big focus. We knew we needed to start covering Ontario and Quebec and Alberta, British Columbia, and to try and get more people freelancers or staff writers in the in the provinces. And so it was just time, it was the right time for me to pack up. And so I think a number of the journalists saw that began to plan their exits, you know, and then they jumped to they went to global television, they went to the Globe and Mail, they went to CDC. And I was just not quick to replace them. Because I never wanted to bring somebody in on a false promise, knowing that I was going to be handing the reins to somebody else. I thought it just made sense that that we do it that way. So probably when when I handed over it was about 16 people maybe I'm guessing.

Maureen Farmer

So, in terms of you know, your experience that I politics and all the people you brought along with with you and helped develop into, you know, experienced journalists and so forth the transition out of AI politics, that must have been a huge decision, a huge transition for you, I would think or you were ready, you've just said so that you were ready. But still, after 10 years of bringing this baby into the world. And now it's time to let go...

James Baxter

It was honestly...what ensued there was disheartening. There were tremendous number of layoffs. And then people were let go in retrospect, I was sorry. I was sorry. I sold it. It was time I needed to but at the same time, knowing now what what happened. I'm still a bit heartbroken over it. For me personally, I knew I was going to take six months absolutely off. I needed to decompress. I needed to decide, am I still a journalist? Am I ready for a second or third act in life. And funnily enough, one of the first things I did that was entirely consuming, but I auditioned for a play at the auto a little theater and got myself a modest role and just loved it. It was a complete escape from everything I'd ever done before.

So this was brand new?

James Baxter

Well, since high school. 

And it was just, I have a son who at the time was 11 or 12. And I was trying to teach him resilience. So we both auditioned for a musical, he got apart and I didn't, which is perfectly deserved. He was very good and cute as a young performer, but I thought it would send the wrong message if I then curled up in my fetal position and never did it again. So two weeks later, there was there were the open auditions for this play at the auto a little theater. And I said, I'll go do that. And as I say, luck lucked into a part and it was as it was not 16 hours a day consuming but it was in terms of consuming my my passion and energies it was it was great and open the door to a lot of new ideas, new people in journalism, and in the political world, you meet a certain group of people and and that's your circle, I found a new circle, I found an entirely new circle. And then they were fun and naughty. And just completely, you know, there was just so much joy in the process and joy I hadn't felt in a long time. So I've stuck with it. Now that was very hard to do through COVID But I'm also using my business side to help the organizations. I'm on the board of the musical theatre group of the Orpheus society. I hope I helped them somewhat as they have navigated through the COVID and now post COVID Getting our audiences back and still involved where I can be with the auto, a little theatre and hope maybe someday there'll be a play I can I can do again. So that's part of, you know what I've learned in my, in my journey, it's really easy to keep your eyes down on your desk at the entire time and forget that there are lots of really interesting fun people in the world who do things that have absolutely nothing to do with with your day job. And I will look for more opportunities with that. And I have tried to also pass that message on to my kids to, to very their interests and to not give them up, you know, to not become singularly focused on on things,

Maureen Farmer

Right, I think that's being a well rounded human being and citizen. I think it enriches your life.

James Baxter

And to bring it full circle, this year with my kids now often university, my wife signed me up for the Canadian ski patrol. And again, a whole group of new people, and it's, you know, it's outdoors, it's, it's energetic, you're helping people you're meeting lots of people both within the within the organization, the ski patrol organization, but also just people on the Hill you right up in the chairlift with, you know, with with strangers and who are all happy to talk. And it's really has been, for me, particularly coming out of COVID, where I was all too happy to spend weeks not isolated, or just spend weeks isolated at at a cottage and that to get back out and re engage and feel part of yet another new community.

Maureen Farmer

I think most of us have felt that way during COVID. That that hermetic kind of lifestyle, it's the transition out of that can be a little bit daunting.

James Baxter

So, this was my first failed retirement. I guess I was about a year into the post I politics phase of my life. And I received a phone call from the National Chief Perry Bellegarde. We had been helpful to each other's careers over the previous few years, where I needed to understand what was going on in First Nations files. And likewise, he, you know, he would want to know who who makes various decisions around town and, and so we had gotten to know each other, and he phoned me up and said, I've got a problem, I've got this virus that seems to be on its way here. I have 634, remote First Nations, they don't watch the CBC, they don't read the Globe and Mail...

Maureen Farmer

That is representing like close to a million people? 

James Baxter

Well about half a million in those 634 First Nations. But then there's another 400,000 or so who are not on reserve, they live in Toronto, live in Vancouver, but are still First Nations and are obviously worried about their family members and their home communities. And he said, you know, how do I get credible information to them, because we're at a time when there was a lot of disinformation, a lot of fear. And so I was able to take a lot of the digital knowledge I had gained through through creating my politics, and bring it to bear with the AFN. And for the first part of the pandemic for the first nine months or so, until the until the vaccines were available. First Nations did very well there in terms of compared to the average, the general population in terms of deaths and hospitalizations, in part because they really, were being very careful and following a lot of the public health advisories that we were able to get them from the AFN...

Maureen Farmer

And that's what the then National Chief sought your services for...is getting the word out to these remote communities...

James Baxter

In ways that they could use it. So, he had you know, he's tremendously well networked, he would create videos...it was largely videos, but we would also send infographics through his network of local chiefs and an elders and they would in turn, send it into their communities through Facebook and and email delivery. So the reach was astonishingly good and and fast and you know, and so it was really an unmitigated success if that's the right way to use the word. And as I say, until the until the vaccines were available. First Nations really did well to avoid given the number of elders who live within families with for generations often under one roof. That was a tinderbox for mass infection. A lot of them also live, the housing is substandard, there's a lot of tuberculosis and lung, you know, lung damage from that. So, it could have been disastrous and it was not. And so it was really a wonderfully uplifting way to use some of the skills I had from journalism, and to work in a partnership with a truly visionary leader. He was an excellent, an excellent leader, who, as I say, saw this coming and looked for answers.

Maureen Farmer

Indeed, yes. I guess we're coming close to the end of our time together, James and I, again, we'd love to continue this conversation, but time doesn't permit. But I do have a couple more questions if it's okay. So, in your career so far, what has surprised you most?

James Baxter

Wow. I guess what has surprised me most is, for the most part, the goodness of people. Journalism is not something that is necessarily gets a good reputation. And it often exposes you to some of the worst in in people and in society. But in that you also have a real opportunity to meet people who are doing interesting and important things and they go on some very often, or unheralded. I think, you know, whenever I need to take a step back and reset my own thinking, that's where my head goes is that you know, not everybody. Not everybody is out for themselves. Not everybody is awful. And in fact, you and you start doing that you realize, in fact, not many people are awful. And most people aren't out for themselves. They they really are wanting to be part of something good and bigger than themselves.

Maureen Farmer

I'll drink that Kool Aid, I believe. I believe that to be the case as well. The last couple of questions I Well, the last question I have actually is kind of a bit of a fun question. We are compiling a list of restaurants from around the world. And and so I would love for you to share with us your favorite restaurant, whatever it may be. And what we are doing is compiling a list that we release every Christmas time...

James Baxter

In New York, it's a guilty pleasure...I think it's still called Ellen's Stardust Diner, where the waitstaff are all out of work Broadway actors, and they sing, they take turns singing to the audience, it's crowded, it's very enjoyable diner food, and there's always a lineup out front. And it's just the joy...the joy in there is always wonderful.

In Ottawa, there are few things I love more than sitting beside the canal. They've changed the name to 1 Elgin, but it used to be the National Art Center Cafe. At the back of the National Art Center. In the summertime, there's a patio there that's right beside the canal. And it's a great place to have lunch and watch the ducks swimming in the canal.

Maureen Farmer

That's lovely. I've been there. It's just a lovely, lovely spot. I've not been to the place in New York, but it's definitely on my list for when I go next. So So James, I know that you're a friend to many and serve others. You're a management consultant, you would advise how can somebody reach out to you if they would like to have a conversation with you?

James Baxter

I have been amazed in the you know, by the recent evolution of LinkedIn, LinkedIn launched and I thought it was a good idea. But it really wasn't much more than a sort of bulletin board for me, you know, if I wanted to find somebody, but it has really evolved in the last couple of years for me and for people in my world as a valuable tool for getting information about yourself out regarding your thinking, professionally. I find it's a very useful tool. So, my LinkedIn is probably the best way.

Maureen Farmer

That's James Baxter on LinkedIn. We'll make sure that we have that link in the show notes so that people can find you. James, it's been an absolute pleasure hosting you today on the Get Hired Up podcast. Thank you so much!

James Baxter

It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Maureen. And thanks for all you do. For me and for all of the people I know you've helped.

Maureen Farmer

Thank you so much. That's awesome.