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In French, work or job translates to travail and travail stems from the word tripelium,

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which was a medieval torture instrument consisting of three sticks to which you were tied in

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order to receive a beating.

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Needless to say for many cultures, working meant suffering.

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But nowadays, things are different.

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There is a variety of jobs out there with different levels of pleasantness.

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Still, it is rare to come across people who are truly passionate about their jobs, who

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find meaning in their job, the kind of job that aligns with your most deeply held convictions,

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a job that makes a difference, a true positive impact in the world.

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My name is Ryan, this is The Vegan Report and if you are vegan and looking for that

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kind of job, then this episode is for you since we will be talking with Ben Bramman,

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the founder of veganjobs.com.

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Ben, welcome to the show, thank you so much for being here.

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Well, yeah, definitely.

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Thanks for having me.

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So, my first question for you, Ben, is what is veganjobs.com?

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Well, it's an employee, I like to call it an employment hub that allows any vegan organization

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or company or even household looking for say a nanny or a dedicated personal chef to post

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a job and receive applications to the job or just list their email address if they want

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people to reach out directly to them or link to the, say they have an application process

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they want to send people through, they can just link to that and filter people through

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that.

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On the other side, it allows candidates or really anyone, it might not even necessarily

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be looking for a job, sort of how LinkedIn is, you might be employed but you create a

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profile in hopes that you might end up networking with others.

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And so, it allows vegans to create a, to join as a candidate and post a profile on which

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they can list their skills and their job history if they want and their resume, which is only

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accessible like their actual resume files, only accessible to employers that I've hand

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approved and so they can be fairly confident that it's not something that's just publicly

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available.

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But there's limited information that others can see and I hope to, I guess, configure

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different ways for people to hide and show more information on.

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Currently it defaults to hiding a lot of information and so it's a little bit limited.

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People can put, I think, an introduction and currently I don't believe you even link to

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your social media profiles.

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I don't think that, I could be wrong, I should probably know this.

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It's changed a few times but I can discuss why.

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But yeah, so anyway, it allows employers to find these people in the candidate database

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and for people to list themselves for these employers to be found.

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The first question that springs to mind when I hear you say that and explain how vegan

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jobs net com functions is, do you need to be vegan in order to apply to those jobs and

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do you need to be a vegan company or organization in order to post a job offer?

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Is it a requirement or is it more like a preference?

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Since I can't actually police everyone 100%, I guess I could probably read it to you.

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When someone goes to register as a candidate, you're speaking of first of all, just the

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candidate side, correct?

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Sure.

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Let's start with the candidate.

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It says we're a niche job site that works to support vegans.

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We help match individuals with like-minded companies and organizations that identify

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with and share enthusiasm for the vegan lifestyle.

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What does vegan mean?

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Vegan means not consuming or manufacturing something with animal meat, flesh, organs

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or animal secretions, milk lactations, eggs or other bodily fluids such as a bear's bile,

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wearing an animal skin or exploiting animals for entertainment.

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Examples include aquatic species, seafood such as fish and shellfish as well as insects

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such as bees, honey as in parentheses.

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It says why be vegan?

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Click here and it's a website that has more information.

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What if I'm not vegan?

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Please use one of the thousands of other job sites on the internet.

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If you're interested in a specific job, you could of course reach out to the employer

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by way of their website and be honest with them that you are not vegan but came across

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the job on a Google job search or VR website.

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I like that transparent approach.

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Yeah.

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I do ask a question when they join.

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Please share a sentence or more about your vegan story such as what brought you to a

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vegan slash plant-based lifestyle.

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This doesn't need to be perfectly written.

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It's only seen by admins.

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That's true.

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I'm the only one that sees that.

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They can of course post something on their profile that's similar or the same thing.

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It's just part of the process.

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You can see how it might help weed people out that might not even know what weed vegan

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is.

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They just came across the site or a job posted somewhere.

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I guess it's going to be interesting how AI influences that.

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I used to be able to just read someone's story if I was curious how authentic they were.

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But that's a whole separate conversation.

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How AI is impacting a number of things with the employment industry.

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Before getting into that, what about the employer side?

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How do you select employers?

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Initially I reached out to quite a few to let them know about the website.

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It's really just word of mouth.

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Perhaps a number of them just searched vegan jobs assuming there's a website, a vegan

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jobs board and come across it that way.

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On that page when they join there's similar requirements I guess that are outlined.

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I could go ahead and read that too.

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I suppose it's easier than trying to recall all that it mentions.

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So it says, give me one second.

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Our site is for vegan oriented companies slash organizations and vegan job seekers.

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Vegan jobs.com sets itself apart from other job sites by being a purveyor of only vegan

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employment opportunities and candidates.

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This means your products should be all vegan and your company should be related to veganism.

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Specifics along with some other restrictions include one, we accept companies that only

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offer vegan products, no animal derived ingredients or animal testing.

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Vegetarian restaurants for example that serve eggs or dairy are not posted.

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If however you're shifting your menu to vegan and you need a vegan consultant for example

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or otherwise have a unique situation, please send us an email.

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Job postings involving multi-level marketing referrals slash affiliate marketing are not

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allowed.

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This includes, and I list a list of, there's several multi-level marketing companies that

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happen to have mostly vegan or all vegan type products but they're not accepted.

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Like supplements things.

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Yeah, a lot of supplements.

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Juice Plus is one.

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Regana, Tropic, Zikja, Airbon.

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So not all jobs are posted.

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Examples that may not be accepted include certain supplements that make unproven medical

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claims, spiritual slash metaphysical claims such as animal psychic services, remote healing,

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etc.

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And if you're unsure of a unique situation, please contact our friendly team and there's

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a link there to email.

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And so yeah, I do occasionally have the restaurant reach out saying we're not vegan.

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And yet we're going that direction and we're looking for a vegan chef.

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And I just will put a note in the job post explaining that the person will not, the chef,

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potential chef will not be working with vegan or with animal ingredients but they might

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currently be in the kitchen as they transition.

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That's a question I'll ask the employers.

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Are they expected to work with any animal ingredients as that transitioning chef or

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are they just the new vegan chef working that side?

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So yeah, so there's certainly allowances made for things like that.

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It's been tough.

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I shouldn't say tough.

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There's so many vegan restaurants.

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It's incredible that I don't feel too bad reading out the ones that just have say everything

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but a milk option on the menu for their coffee or something like that.

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And I'll say, I'm sorry, it's just the established these rules.

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And have you considered all these plant based milks that you could trial instead?

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And I said, please come back if you happen to go all vegan.

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And so yeah, that's kind of describes that process.

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Again, I love the transparency aspect of your work.

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And I also like the fact that you're creating the job offers.

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By the way, it's not just job offers.

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There's also lots of volunteering opportunities that we should mention.

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Correct.

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Yeah, definitely.

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There's quite a few.

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I've got some history in that myself.

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So I've seen how as a volunteer, you can overextend yourself.

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And there's definitely nuance there where I've learned over time, one of the lessons

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I've learned is that there's people that may kind of stretch and potentially get into a

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territory where they're almost exploiting an opportunity maybe a little bit.

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And even though they might have really good intentions, but maybe it's not so much a nonprofit

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as more of on the commercial side.

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And they're hoping they'll be volunteers that are eager to help run their social media,

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for example, yet ultimately they have a business they're developing.

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And so things like that, I don't accept unpaid internships unless there's clearly a compensation,

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something of value given that if they are actually enrolled in something where they're

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meeting, they're allowing that person to obtain certain credits for school and things like

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that.

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There's some exceptions there.

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But most even in those cases, the people will be compensated monetarily to a degree.

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And so yeah, it's definitely involved.

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I didn't quite realize what I was getting myself into when I started the website.

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It began just, I was naive in thinking at first even I knew I'd least have to improve

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employers, but just even allowing employers freely post jobs whenever I quickly realized,

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no, I really have to hand review each post because sometimes there's some big mistakes,

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including things that may or may not violate employment law.

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Once in a while I'll have a restaurant, some little pop shop that will mention they would

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prefer a female waitstaff, something like that.

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And I'm like, you really can't ask that.

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And you need to correct this.

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But otherwise it's just sometimes errors that are made.

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There's even an error in the link to their Twitter account or their Facebook account

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or a typo.

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And there's really great posts.

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You can tell they've really put a lot of diligence and effort into their job post and others

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that it's as if they spend five minutes just typing it out really fast and hit submit.

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And I'll actually, I take the time to format it a little bit, maybe bullet point some things

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and then let them know I've done that just to make it easier to read.

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I do wonder though, should I just let them post what they post and that might be revealing

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to candidates?

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Maybe this person's not, this employer's not completely organized.

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But so there's some balance there.

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I'll help a little bit, but I don't reword things necessarily other than maybe fixing

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a typo or two.

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And I'll separate a jumbled mess into paragraphs and that sort of thing.

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But yeah.

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Well I realize how thoughtful you are in this project.

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And that is something I wish more job boards or job hubs or anything out there.

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I wish they would be on the side of the job seekers and do the work of filtering out.

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Because as a job seeker, you don't know where you're getting into.

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Like you said, there are so many crazy companies and bad organizations out there and the way

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they show themselves publicly is not always a good reflection of who they are.

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And often your values might not be aligned.

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So yeah, you have to take all of that into account and I guess as a job seeker, you have

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to spend so much time researching the companies behind the job offers.

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And you're left on your own device, I guess.

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Yeah.

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There's yeah, that's very true.

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There's you reminding me that occasionally there'll be a startup, you know, someone I've

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seen many apps come and go or social media networks that have tried to launch.

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And those type of jobs will, you know, and it's one thing if they're willing to, you

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know, well compensate whoever they're bringing on to develop their app or their website or

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be their social media person or, you know, that sort of thing.

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Sometimes people are looking for co-founders even.

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And I would hope someone getting involved in being a co-founder would do due diligence

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and also just to realize that it's a little bit of a roll of the dice with startups.

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But it's yeah, it's interesting because there's it's not that prevalent, but there are occasional

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jobs where I don't I can't take the time to truly research the person behind it.

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Although I do have to for startups, for example, if there's no established website and history,

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I have to know if they're real.

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And so I'll investigate a little bit the person behind the company, ask for links to their

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LinkedIn profiles and Facebook accounts and message them on there.

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And usually there's some track record online that they're a vegan in the community and

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have been involved in some things once in a while.

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There's not enough and I'll turn it down.

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But at the end of the day, I don't know this person, how dedicated they are to this new

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startup and how well they're you know, they might have a really good pitch for people

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to join in.

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But so it's a balance where I feel some responsibility, obviously, in filtering things.

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But I hope that people take you know, I realize and I realize people have to take you spend

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a good amount of their time checking into a company or maybe even asking the founders

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some questions themselves to gauge how serious they are and that sort of thing.

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So yeah, when friends go to job interviews, I always tell them, you know, it's not just

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about you and you performing at that job interview, you also have to look at them critically and

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wait their questions and their attitude.

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Yeah, for sure.

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Yeah, there's I've met I've been being quite a while and I've met all sorts of unique characters

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that have had startup ideas or just different started organizations, you know, half hearted,

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well, not half heartedly, maybe the hearts in it, but they don't realize what they're

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getting themselves into as the as the founder.

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And and they've never gone to, you know, the school for this.

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They're just and some people are really great at it naturally.

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But others are very disorganized.

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I've I've volunteered volunteered for a few of those.

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And yeah, well, at least I know if an organization is looking for a volunteer and they're taking

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it, you know, looking at it as a job and they're posting like a something that looks like a

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job offer for a volunteer position.

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I know there is some thoughts behind it, that there is a strategy and they're thinking about

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the place of that volunteer and how many hours they need to spend on certain tasks.

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I much prefer that kind of professionalism than a nonprofit where, you know, it's more

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of like, oh, come and I'll give you some tasks and then I don't know, like maybe in a few

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weeks I'll give you more.

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And it's just disorganized and they don't really know how to manage their volunteers.

239
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Right.

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Yeah, I won't I won't name a group I worked for, but I've experienced exactly that where

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I tended I was actually running their website as well.

242
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And that's all I was going to start as all I ever intended to do.

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But I quickly realized they were in over their head and I would start asking questions because

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I wanted to see see their initiative succeed.

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And and and I started even when they would then would onboard somebody I would I would

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introduce myself and and and sometimes reveal that they should ask some questions, some

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certain questions just to give them a heads up that yeah, that that that we don't that

248
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the group doesn't necessarily know it doesn't have their whole act together.

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But and I guess what I'm saying is I've revealed I've seen people join an organization and

250
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yet get way in over their head.

251
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Not they just want to help with a thing or two.

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And like you said, the next thing they know, they're they're given tasks that take hours

253
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on end and the person delegating that task has no idea what's necessarily involved with

254
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that.

255
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And so I've tried to bridge that gap a little bit and in my own experiences.

256
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But and I think that's that's helped with the job site to a degree when it comes to

257
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maybe weeding out certain jobs.

258
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Yeah, and I'm I'm saying this because I'm thinking about the well being of the volunteers.

259
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Ultimately, it's so hard on your mental health to be like way over your head, like you said,

260
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with so many tasks, and then you can't quit because you have this guild, you know, what

261
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are they going to do without you?

262
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:49,800
Right, right.

263
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:50,800
Exactly.

264
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Yeah.

265
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I know that feeling such a horrible like mental trap that you just found yourself in.

266
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Yeah.

267
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Right.

268
00:23:00,120 --> 00:23:03,400
Yeah, it can be it can become like a bad relationship.

269
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:04,400
Exactly.

270
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Yeah.

271
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:07,920
So let me tell you a story.

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Last summer, I visited the Vegan Festival of Montreal, and I decided to invite a few

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entrepreneurs to appear on the show.

274
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And then to my surprise, most of them were not vegan.

275
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And yes, and if you look at you know, their website and their messaging and their pitch

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and all of that, you would think they are vegan.

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But they really not.

278
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And then you know, they look at my my show and they see all the episodes on ethical veganism

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and animal rights and you know, interviews with people who are hardcore on that side

280
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of things.

281
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And they just get very shy and just, you know, decide not to appear or not to be interviewed.

282
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Were you like when you opened Vegan Jumps that come?

283
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:13,240
Were you surprised by maybe the number of vegan companies that are not vegan in their

284
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employees and even maybe in their attitude, maybe for them veganism is just, you know,

285
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a strategy or something like that, just an instrument, a tool to reach a certain audience

286
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and make money.

287
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:34,320
It's not doesn't have anything to do with the ethical aspect of it or their personal

288
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values.

289
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:43,600
Yeah, there has definitely been a few.

290
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It's always nice when there is like an about us type page that where the founders, you

291
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:57,160
know, just explain their their vegan story even and that's usually a good indicator

292
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:01,440
that someone is in it for the right reasons.

293
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And they mention animal rights or not just maybe, you know, and there's jobs that are

294
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:14,040
accepted that are just more appealing or just more focused on the plant based message, I

295
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:18,040
guess you should say, or I could say.

296
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And that's fine as long as, you know, is there is they stick to that.

297
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:27,840
Where was it going with this?

298
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:37,080
I don't know that, but yeah, if I it's definitely a huge thing indicator to look for is the

299
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:42,400
story behind the company and the founders.

300
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:51,600
And there's been there has been a one or two that I've I kind of learned a lesson on that

301
00:25:51,600 --> 00:26:01,040
there was excuse me, there was a search engine optimization firm that that worked with vegan

302
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:05,840
organizations and some big names when they by the time they had posted, they had a little

303
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:11,760
bit of a resume and portfolio on who they'd worked with.

304
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:20,160
And I later learned that they were probably just exploiting the fact that, you know, the

305
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:30,920
vegan organizations happy to is it's the you know, happy to work with or give extra attention

306
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:39,400
to I guess extra consideration to a company that yeah, that touts that line, where I think

307
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:45,320
these guys when I at the end of the day, they were just the founder themselves, I found

308
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:48,960
out later wasn't vegan.

309
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:54,320
And they had really great messaging and had this I think it was the portfolio that convinced

310
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:58,720
me early on that, you know, but it's like, has anyone really looked at these guys, you

311
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:03,640
know, it's one of those things where everyone just maybe goes based on.

312
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:10,080
Yeah, their credentials, but has never truly looked at the company.

313
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,440
And it is an interesting.

314
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:17,600
It's it's just it's interesting to think about because it's, you know, ultimately, you do

315
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:24,160
there's like the you've probably heard the term like the veg economy, the vegan economy,

316
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:30,000
that it would be you don't want a firm that's like SEO firm.

317
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:36,120
It's it's one thing if they're specialized maybe in helping vegan companies.

318
00:27:36,120 --> 00:27:42,380
That's one thing they've maybe really honed how to help them with search engine optimization,

319
00:27:42,380 --> 00:27:43,380
for example.

320
00:27:43,380 --> 00:27:45,520
But and there's probably value there.

321
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:50,120
At the end of the day, you really do want to be paying them maybe thousands of dollars

322
00:27:50,120 --> 00:27:54,360
and they're spending that on vegan products themselves or putting it back in the vegan

323
00:27:54,360 --> 00:28:02,520
community through, you know, visiting restaurants or purchasing vegan goods and and and just

324
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:03,840
supporting vegans in general.

325
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:09,000
That's the whole idea is to there's probably other others out there that want to do search

326
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:10,560
engine optimization.

327
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:17,480
And as a career and and they just if they're truly vegan, the the idea is to, of course,

328
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:20,920
support them over the millions of others out there.

329
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:29,200
So yeah, I've definitely I've definitely come across that.

330
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:30,200
Of course.

331
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:38,040
I mean, as a client, as a consumer, I'm not looking to, you know, do a purity test on

332
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:43,160
the various businesses out there who brand themselves as being vegan.

333
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:46,560
As long as the product is vegan, I'm OK with that.

334
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:52,080
But then it's a whole other thing if, you know, you present yourself as if you're an

335
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:58,420
ally of a political, social, social justice cause.

336
00:28:58,420 --> 00:29:01,640
But really, you're just here as a business.

337
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:09,000
And if the opportunity rises, you will change your business plan and, you know, dump those

338
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,160
vegan products for something else.

339
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:12,160
You know.

340
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:18,160
Yeah, you're reminding me that this particular company, they actually mentioned they give

341
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:21,000
like they gave like 10 percent back to animal causes.

342
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:22,480
And that's, you know, another huge.

343
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:23,480
Oh, wow.

344
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:24,480
That's great.

345
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:32,880
That's normally, you know, a check in the plus side in considering them as a job board

346
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:40,400
and as a candidate or as an employer, maybe seeking their B2B services.

347
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:46,680
But at the end of the day, anyone can say that they could choose a charity and claim

348
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:51,400
that as a, you know, as a selling point.

349
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:58,440
But that's just that doesn't necessarily mean the other 90 percent of the money is going

350
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:06,120
towards vegan options in their life or just supporting that, you know, a vegan in general.

351
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:15,400
And I like the idea of helping lift kind of lift all vegan boats, you know, in the tide

352
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,160
of this rising movement.

353
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:26,680
And and and yeah, it certainly it's it's nice when companies I've seen a lot of companies

354
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:32,320
also choose the they'll choose a non vegan just because it's quick and easy.

355
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:40,920
They'll go to, you know, a gig gig worker work website like Upwork or one of those.

356
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:45,400
And even some of the organizations I've worked with have gotten posters designed that way.

357
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:48,600
They don't necessarily want to take the time to create a job post.

358
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:53,320
You just want to get it done like that afternoon and that sort of thing.

359
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:58,000
But there's.

360
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,160
And so I think there's a little bit of balance to some of that.

361
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:15,080
But yeah, it's just the prevalence of non vegans in this culture that that shocks me

362
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,720
before, you know, starting this podcast.

363
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:19,200
I did not know about it.

364
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:26,320
I had a false impression of how the vegan business world looks like.

365
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:30,320
And you know, true discussions and interactions.

366
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:33,760
I just discover a whole other reality.

367
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:42,400
You know, I had I recorded an episode with and found who has launched like a Christmas

368
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:49,200
vegan Christmas market in Montreal, but also in New York, I think, and in Toronto.

369
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:55,800
And she was telling me that in the first editions of the Christmas market, there were those

370
00:31:55,800 --> 00:32:04,760
non vegans who own vegan companies and they would come with coats made of feather and

371
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,560
boats boots made of leather.

372
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:14,200
And then she would get complaints from the vegans that visited the event like, who are

373
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:15,200
those people?

374
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:19,480
You know, how come they're selling like vegan products and they're talking like if they

375
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:27,080
are vegan, but they're wearing this brand new like coat made of feather.

376
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:34,440
So yeah, it's just shocking that the prevalence of it and bit like the hypocrisy to.

377
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:39,120
Well, yeah, that's that's that's disheartening to hear.

378
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:40,840
I've seen a little bit of that.

379
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:48,360
I can't recall exactly that sort of thing where you can you can spot someone just based

380
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:49,680
on what they're wearing.

381
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:57,120
It's identify them as an imposter and they've just they're piggybacking on the movement

382
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:04,960
and how how charitable we are as vegans towards each other and and we'll go above and beyond,

383
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,640
which, you know, to help others out.

384
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:10,320
And it's it's like the secret sauce.

385
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:17,840
I felt like early on with some of the websites I'd launched even before vegan jobs.

386
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:28,600
And it was the most any vegan organization or podcast, anyone's willing to to help out

387
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:32,880
and give you some exposure, whereas in any other industry, you're just kind of lost in

388
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:38,160
the sea of, you know, maybe it's it's say it's fitness or something, which obviously

389
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:44,840
is crossover there with vegan stuff, but and plant based lifestyles.

390
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:53,520
But the there's definitely yeah, I always I always thought of it like as it was just

391
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:59,040
of all the things I could get involved in, it was one of the easiest to network in, find

392
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:00,560
good people.

393
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:04,480
But then, yeah, I think people got hip to that, it seems.

394
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:08,880
And they started exploiting it to a degree.

395
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:13,400
And yeah, yeah.

396
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:20,040
I also want to address something else you mentioned, which is there are many employers

397
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:27,760
who are into like the supplement, the marketing schemes, the pseudo science stuff.

398
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:33,360
And it's also very prevalent in the vegan community.

399
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:42,400
You know, this is why I don't platform people who talk about veganism as a diet, because

400
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:50,520
then they start talking about also, you know, the name studies and talk about the benefits,

401
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:51,520
nutritional benefits.

402
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:53,000
And I'm not a nutritionist.

403
00:34:53,000 --> 00:35:02,040
I'm not a physician, even if I was, I don't know if I would be competent or have the necessary,

404
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:06,940
you know, critical skills to understand what they're saying.

405
00:35:06,940 --> 00:35:11,480
And I doubt that they understand what they're saying.

406
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:20,240
And you know, it's why do you think there is this prevalence of pseudoscience and, you

407
00:35:20,240 --> 00:35:24,640
know, dieting culture around veganism?

408
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:34,080
Yeah, I guess it's like a catch-22, I think.

409
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:39,000
It's like that trifecta, the whole right aspect, the ethical arguments.

410
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:45,080
And when I went vegan anyway, I realized what I discovered, it wouldn't at the very least

411
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:48,600
be unhealthy for me that could potentially be beneficial.

412
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:55,280
I was like, my God, like, not only is this, I've realized this isn't really a sacrifice.

413
00:35:55,280 --> 00:36:01,960
And once your taste buds shift that you're doing, you're not exploiting animals.

414
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:08,080
But on top of that, it's, there's potentially some health benefits.

415
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:15,520
And it's, but it's easy to, I think it's easy to over extrapolate from studies.

416
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:18,760
And I know there's been a whole rash of studies.

417
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:23,880
I don't know if they've, if any of them have been related to plant-based nutrition, but

418
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:28,280
you've probably seen in the news, there's so many number of studies that have been,

419
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:33,160
in hindsight have been poorly designed and then pulled.

420
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:39,160
But you don't want something, I like, I'm definitely an ethical vegan.

421
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:47,160
And I worry that if people ground themselves or they come to veganism through the nutrition,

422
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:51,620
but don't make the shift that, yeah, they very well could someday just read another

423
00:36:51,620 --> 00:36:57,440
study or have an influential person talk to them about, you know, going keto or something

424
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:58,440
and how that worked for them.

425
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:03,960
And the next thing they know that the, they're convinced of that diet instead.

426
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:12,640
But yeah, there's, it's, I think it's, I've seen, I've been vegan for about 17 years now.

427
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:19,360
And I've seen it go from when there was like one ice cream in the store, zero protein powders

428
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:27,280
to zero cheeses and to this exploiting, exploding selection that we have now where it's almost

429
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:30,080
like every week there's a new vegan ice cream, right?

430
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:36,320
And it's clear that it was this huge exploding niche.

431
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:40,560
I didn't even realize it at certain times how fast it was growing.

432
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:48,360
And I guess everyone, there was a number of, it just became ripe for exploitation, for

433
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:53,400
jumping on the bandwagon for companies.

434
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:59,280
And I think because vegan, the nutrition stuff we know as a society, I guess the supplements

435
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:04,440
is like a multi-billion dollar industry and what is the diet industry as well.

436
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:10,880
And so it just became another hook that, a marketing hook.

437
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:17,900
And I think because it appeals to not only vegans, maybe, the food options and supplements

438
00:38:17,900 --> 00:38:25,840
or some of the diet programs perhaps, but non-vegans who just think that they hear vegan

439
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:36,440
is a healthy option or a way to lose weight or fix your diabetes and something like that.

440
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:43,360
And it just seems like there's so many angles to it that can be worked that it's just, yeah,

441
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:50,520
they're very ripe for just marketing exploits, for sure.

442
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:57,680
And I'm a big skeptic of some of the nutritional things, nutritional claims that are made and

443
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:05,280
supplements and I certainly take some supplements, but yeah, often you'll see things, there'd

444
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:10,600
be study, a product and they'll tout the scientific-backed research.

445
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:16,400
And you dive into the study and it was just some one-off study that maybe they even paid

446
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:21,640
for, but the findings were, if you really look at the percentages of differences between

447
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:29,800
the two groups, the control group and the group taking their product, it's maybe a 5%

448
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:33,760
better whatever.

449
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:38,800
And they'll claim that as, or even if it's 10%, but maybe they p-hacked the results and

450
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:47,440
selected for certain things, certain outcomes after the fact.

451
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:49,960
And so you really can't trust any one study.

452
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:54,760
It's more of an aggregate of data, it seems.

453
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:59,960
And I think it's real promising, the nutritional studies for things like heart disease and

454
00:39:59,960 --> 00:40:00,960
such.

455
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,240
I'm certainly hopeful it'll help me.

456
00:40:03,240 --> 00:40:05,560
I have some of that in my family.

457
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:06,560
Yeah.

458
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:12,440
Well, it's interesting because everything you're seeing is backed by everything you're

459
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:22,320
seeing and which is inspired by your experience as a 17 years vegan, long-time vegan, is backed

460
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:24,200
by studies.

461
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:31,520
I'm thinking about phonetics and the multiple studies they have conducted examining closely

462
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:41,320
vegan advocacy and they say clearly that yes, health is more, it's easier to hook someone

463
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:49,400
on the health argument, but then they should be exposed to the ethical argument because

464
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:52,320
if they're not, they're going to quit.

465
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,600
They're not going to stay vegan.

466
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:59,960
Yeah, it becomes, it definitely could be a fad for some people.

467
00:40:59,960 --> 00:41:07,320
Yeah, phonetics, they're one of the organizations that I think recently posted a job.

468
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:11,760
And yeah, I've looked at some of their data.

469
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:20,800
It's interesting too, examining, you get into the whole debate of, of welfarism versus more

470
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:27,120
abolitionist approaches to things and that's a whole other topic.

471
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:39,240
But yeah, I like looking at data and, but with some caveats for sure.

472
00:41:39,240 --> 00:41:44,760
Since you mentioned it, if listeners want to check it out, phonetics is currently looking

473
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:50,420
for a people and operations director.

474
00:41:50,420 --> 00:41:55,120
So what about the perspective of employers?

475
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:59,020
Why do they need vegans?

476
00:41:59,020 --> 00:42:07,080
Like if I want to recruit a manager, why should that manager be vegan?

477
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:16,000
Normally, like that manager should be good at their job and have great skills.

478
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:22,720
Why should we require them to, in addition of their skills to be vegan?

479
00:42:22,720 --> 00:42:30,000
Yeah, I think in a lot of cases, there's certainly going to be exceptions where you have a vegan

480
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:35,480
that's, you know, not the, that doesn't turn out to be the best choice at the end of the

481
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:43,880
day, but, and maybe even compared to just a really go-getter, non-vegan that still maybe

482
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:51,800
has their finger on the pulse of the, of the lifestyle and the, you know, the industry.

483
00:42:51,800 --> 00:43:01,080
But for the most part, I think vegans have, because they have a, they're hard in it and

484
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:04,560
they, and have had a lot of experience.

485
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:09,600
Certainly when you, I think when you go vegan, you really dive, at least you dive, you dive

486
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:15,880
head into every little aspect and nook and cranny of veganism and, you know, everything

487
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:21,760
from watching DVDs to reading books and lots of podcasts for me, especially early on.

488
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:28,160
And you really get your, you know, your finger on the pulse of, of the movement or just on

489
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:33,280
how to live vegan in this, this, this non-vegan world where you, you feel like you wake up

490
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:40,480
in a world of, in a different world, like an alien world where there's exploitation

491
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:45,600
every which way you look, every commercial, it just happens to, you know, it's just everything

492
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:52,880
at the grocery store and just people celebrating over, you know, just dead animals in front

493
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:58,520
of them as they watch a football game or even your local humane society, maybe having some

494
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:03,120
sort of hot dog eating contest or something ridiculous like that.

495
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:10,960
And, and so I think we, because we wear that lens of seeing the world through vegan eyes

496
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:18,360
that we bring a unique perspective that might be quite beneficial for an organization or

497
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:27,920
a product company when it comes to maybe their marketing or, or just helping with the cohesion

498
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,360
of, of, of that team.

499
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:34,760
I think having that in common is very helpful.

500
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:39,640
And certainly, you know, it's definitely easier now.

501
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:44,800
I would say maybe 10 years ago, it'd be absolutely amazing if you came to work and all the food

502
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:49,040
options were vegan if your organization happened to help feed you.

503
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:57,520
But nowadays it's a little bit easier maybe to, or definitely to, to, to quickly bring

504
00:44:57,520 --> 00:44:59,400
your own vegan options to work.

505
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:08,840
But yeah, the, there's, I think there's quite a few factors that come into play that where

506
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:12,560
selecting a vegan is quite beneficial.

507
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:18,740
And then I think they'll go, you know, they certainly people can burn out and that sort

508
00:45:18,740 --> 00:45:26,000
of thing, but you'll probably get a lot more enthusiasm out of, out of vegans that are,

509
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,880
are interested in, in what they're doing and helping animals at the end of the day, especially

510
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:38,080
if it's, if it's, and certainly if you're an organization that is taking ethical stance

511
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:48,240
and is, is for example, you know, an, an advocacy, an animal advocacy group, you certainly want

512
00:45:48,240 --> 00:45:52,000
people that are walking the talk, you know, especially when it comes to educating the

513
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:53,480
community.

514
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:58,880
And, and I know there are people that will come to those organizations, just they're

515
00:45:58,880 --> 00:45:59,880
not quite vegan.

516
00:45:59,880 --> 00:46:01,680
They haven't just been able to make that switch.

517
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:07,680
This, this, I'm thinking of people I knew 15 or say 10 years ago, maybe when there weren't

518
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:12,000
something, like cheese was, was the last hurdle that I couldn't get over.

519
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:16,840
And nowadays I would hope that they would, they would just be able to select one of the

520
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:22,800
gazillion cheeses out there, but, and even find that at a restaurant they're eating at,

521
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:26,680
but I, where was I going with that?

522
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:31,360
That I think there are, you can definitely maybe gauge if someone, even if they're not

523
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,880
quite vegan, but you know, they're going to end up there.

524
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:40,080
I've seen some animal rights organizations be happy to take them on because they're going

525
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:47,160
to expose them to things that will probably get them all the way.

526
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:54,720
And certainly when you, you know, when you're around people, you end up, you know, if you're

527
00:46:54,720 --> 00:46:57,800
around vegans, you're going to, to learn how to be vegan for sure.

528
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:03,280
Or see, see exemplified in front of you, people living that lifestyle very easily, like it's

529
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:05,840
second nature.

530
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:07,600
I absolutely agree.

531
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:13,240
And that's why I like events like the vegan festival or the Christmas market, because

532
00:47:13,240 --> 00:47:20,480
you can, you're exposed to real life vegans, you know, not social media vegans, and you

533
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:26,760
can speak with them and see that, you know, they're not the caricature that they're often

534
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:28,800
portrayed to be.

535
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:32,240
And that's also the approach I decided to adopt with my podcast.

536
00:47:32,240 --> 00:47:38,560
You know, I'm open to welcoming guests who are not vegan, even though this is the vegan

537
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:46,880
report, as long as they're comfortable talking about why they're not vegan.

538
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:54,400
And maybe this is a way for them, you know, an entry to learning more about veganism and,

539
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:59,400
you know, being influenced in a way.

540
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:12,640
Yeah, I, I've seen, I've seen, I was involved in meetup groups for a while.

541
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:19,400
I haven't been as much recently, but I've seen a lot of people that just are curious

542
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:24,920
and show up to things like that and festivals for sure.

543
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:30,960
And I've watched people that have, were vegetarian for many, many years, for example, and then

544
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:38,280
became the biggest vegan advocates when they finally made the switch and never looked back.

545
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:44,120
And yeah, as I was mentioning earlier that people should certainly consider maybe someone

546
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:45,120
who's not fully vegan.

547
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:50,480
I was realizing my, my job board, for example, won't accept them, but I did have to kind

548
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:55,080
of set a bar somewhere and it becomes this huge gray area.

549
00:48:55,080 --> 00:49:01,240
The second you let people that, you know, as you can see, it's not, I'm not, you know,

550
00:49:01,240 --> 00:49:07,760
I'm not policing people necessarily, but it's, it's, it's kind of a way to discourage those

551
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:10,040
who aren't vegan from joining.

552
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:15,760
I mean, yes, you're right, because your audience are vegans.

553
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:18,000
It's different, you know, even my podcast.

554
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:22,200
I'm speaking to vegans, not non-vegans.

555
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:26,280
And there are expectations with that kind of audience.

556
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:34,840
So it's different than an organization that is doing outreach to the public in mass.

557
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:40,640
Because I, you know, if I invite someone who's not vegan, it's because I think that that

558
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:51,880
person could bring something more to the conversation to fellow vegans, which is rare, you know,

559
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:57,640
but but it's a different audience, you know, it's a different mission and you're talking

560
00:49:57,640 --> 00:49:59,000
to different people.

561
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:06,240
So I understand that eagerness to truly filter out the non-vegan employers, because that's

562
00:50:06,240 --> 00:50:12,840
the expectation of, you know, a job seeker, a vegan job seeker who is visiting your website.

563
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:13,840
Right.

564
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:14,840
Yeah.

565
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:25,360
And I've seen, and the interesting thing is I've noticed that what I've worked, you know,

566
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:30,720
at 10 years, maybe after being vegan, working for organizations like a festival, when you

567
00:50:30,720 --> 00:50:38,480
have fresh vegans come in that are newly vegan, you're reminded of the way they, how you first

568
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:42,120
saw the world and how you've maybe become slightly jaded or something.

569
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:47,720
But they bring this fresh energy and there's something that maybe even hiring people who

570
00:50:47,720 --> 00:50:54,120
are newly vegan will have a new perspective or a perspective you may be lost over time

571
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:55,520
as a longer vegan.

572
00:50:55,520 --> 00:51:05,040
If you're the owner of a company and yeah, they're not as misentropic as the rest of

573
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:06,040
us.

574
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:10,720
Right, right.

575
00:51:10,720 --> 00:51:18,440
Something else we should mention is this is open to people from all around the world.

576
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:25,140
This is not something for, you know, only you're based in the US, but this is not something

577
00:51:25,140 --> 00:51:31,320
only for people in the US or in North America or even in the Western world.

578
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:39,000
There are opportunities of vegan jobs and being a vegan volunteer all around the world.

579
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:48,760
And with, I guess, the advent of remote work, you can easily choose a job that is vegan,

580
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:52,760
that aligns with your values, but is somewhere else.

581
00:51:52,760 --> 00:51:55,840
So can you speak to that?

582
00:51:55,840 --> 00:52:00,480
Yeah, there's, I love seeing jobs that pop up in, say, Croatia.

583
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:07,680
There's a new vegan restaurant that's popping up and, or, you know, of course it's, there's

584
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:08,840
quite a few companies.

585
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:12,400
I'm trying to recall some offhand, but Germany is really huge.

586
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:20,760
And of course the UK, but there'll be little countries that I maybe even hadn't heard of,

587
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:27,920
and, you know, there's a vegan restaurant popping up there or a local animal rights

588
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:31,000
group that's even better to see.

589
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:36,320
And so yeah, it's absolutely, absolutely everywhere.

590
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:40,800
It's always, it's also neat when I see a job local in Tucson up here, there was, there's

591
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:44,400
a sanctuary that recently posted a job and I happened to know them from the past and

592
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:47,560
I was like, hey, it's me.

593
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:59,160
And I've, what I've thought about too is there was one in Hawaii early on when I was running

594
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:03,960
the site and I was like, wow, if I ever wanted to visit Hawaii, now I've got a connection

595
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:04,960
there.

596
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:11,720
I can reach out to them, but there's, yeah, there's, it's so great to see.

597
00:53:11,720 --> 00:53:21,760
I was just reaching everywhere and it's, there's, there's probably some challenge where I could

598
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:22,760
make the site.

599
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:28,120
I think a lot of people do use translation services if they need, but some people there's

600
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:30,240
there's a ProVeg will post there.

601
00:53:30,240 --> 00:53:37,280
They're based in Germany, I believe, not fully, but primarily, and they'll post jobs in German

602
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:43,080
and English and yeah, they've got quite a lot going on.

603
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:50,400
They're one of the larger groups that have, that have, yeah, there's a lot going on and

604
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:56,720
they've, they've, they've hired for a lot of positions and yeah, so it's, it's prevalent

605
00:53:56,720 --> 00:53:57,720
for sure.

606
00:53:57,720 --> 00:54:04,160
And it's great to see that people there's, there's for example, Croatia, I think obviously

607
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:09,260
they would can maybe find someone local, but when they post on the website, there there's

608
00:54:09,260 --> 00:54:15,360
opportunity for like a vegan chef to go travel and work from there.

609
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:19,840
And they'll, they'll discuss that some of the travel arrangements that would be provided

610
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:24,840
and how wonderful it is to live on the beach here and that sort of thing.

611
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:32,320
And so there's, I think it's one of the bigger jobs that opens up travel opportunities.

612
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:36,640
And then, yeah, of course there's a lot of remote jobs, especially after COVID.

613
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:41,520
I saw a huge drop in jobs immediately and then they just came roaring back and most

614
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:45,320
in a lot of the, or a lot of remote positions.

615
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:49,400
And then in that case, you can work from anywhere as long as someone will specify that they

616
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:51,920
prefer you to be in their time zone.

617
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:56,840
And I give a little tip on that when you, you post a job where you, you list remote,

618
00:54:56,840 --> 00:55:02,260
but if you want the person to be in the UK along with you, you put in UK in parentheses

619
00:55:02,260 --> 00:55:07,840
afterwards or wherever the region is.

620
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:12,200
But some are open to wherever, because it's maybe not necessarily a time constraint thing

621
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:15,080
or time of day thing for them.

622
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:21,920
It's if they're doing some sort of work that's just behind the scenes, but.

623
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:31,280
And I share your enthusiasm at witnessing that veganism becoming more and more global

624
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:36,440
because it's a universal message of compassion.

625
00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:42,920
Every culture can relate to the vegan message, I believe.

626
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:49,880
And it is inspiring to see vegan initiatives in places where there is, where the state

627
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:55,400
of animal rights is truly horrendous.

628
00:55:55,400 --> 00:56:05,720
I interviewed Whispers Red, who opened a sanctuary in Serbia of all places.

629
00:56:05,720 --> 00:56:10,400
And I thought, yeah, genius.

630
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:16,360
We have enough initiatives in the West and Western world.

631
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:24,000
We need to do some outreach in places where they never heard about veganism, where animal

632
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:28,840
exploitation is just normal and never questioned.

633
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:36,080
Yeah, it's definitely a culture shock when you see examples of, say, like a wet market

634
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:41,880
and things like that, where to us it's so hidden at our grocery stores where it's wrapped

635
00:56:41,880 --> 00:56:49,160
in saran wrap and there's a little happy piglet on the front or something, an idyllic

636
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:51,760
farm and people don't give it a second thought.

637
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:57,080
But then where there's exploitation directly in front of people, they see animals crammed

638
00:56:57,080 --> 00:57:01,480
in little cages and you can just pick it up and bring it home and pluck it and butcher

639
00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:02,480
it yourself.

640
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:13,080
And it is a fascinating thing to me that it's so in their face and ingrained in their culture.

641
00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:21,240
There's certainly maybe a different approach to how, in a way, I guess, it's always, well,

642
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:25,520
I'm being reminded of a great documentary, Peaceable Kingdom.

643
00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:28,760
I don't know if you've seen that one, but it's about people who grew up in four-age

644
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:36,080
clubs and farming communities and befriended animals, became their best buddies living

645
00:57:36,080 --> 00:57:37,480
on the farm.

646
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:40,800
And later they were expected to, of course, slaughter these animals or turn them over

647
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:42,200
to slaughter.

648
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:49,920
And I wonder if it opens up opportunities for people to see animals in some cases, as

649
00:57:49,920 --> 00:57:56,360
there might be a good angle, as they can see the personality of some of these animals that

650
00:57:56,360 --> 00:58:03,300
they're using and make that jump to maybe they're not quite so different or exactly

651
00:58:03,300 --> 00:58:09,080
the same as companion animals, as are the dogs and cats we love.

652
00:58:09,080 --> 00:58:11,000
And yeah, it's interesting.

653
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:18,200
I like to discuss companion animals, dogs, and when I talk to non-vegans and it's part

654
00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:22,920
of my explanations of why I'm vegan.

655
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:30,440
And I guess in some countries, dogs aren't quite seen as the same.

656
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:36,440
And it must be interesting to start a group in places like that.

657
00:58:36,440 --> 00:58:42,480
I will have to listen to that interview.

658
00:58:42,480 --> 00:58:52,320
Yeah, I mean, she provides some shocking details on how they look at animals and even the caretakers

659
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:58,400
of the sanctuary, because she's not there herself, but she's part of the board of trustees.

660
00:58:58,400 --> 00:59:03,960
And I think she's the president of the organization.

661
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:14,640
But even the caretakers, they have a different attitude.

662
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:22,280
They're not treating the dog like a vegan Westerner would treat the dog.

663
00:59:22,280 --> 00:59:23,280
There's a nuance.

664
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:31,800
There's a lack of sensitivity toward the feelings of the dog or the cat or the animal that is

665
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:32,800
welcomed.

666
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:43,680
And this impression of you're going too far when you care for an animal and you're spending

667
00:59:43,680 --> 00:59:52,200
money on their health, healthcare, for instance, or things like that, that foreigners, people

668
00:59:52,200 --> 00:59:59,360
in cultures where veganism is not rooted, would think, no, this is too much or you're

669
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:03,080
too extreme in your compassion.

670
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:07,920
Yeah, well, that's interesting for sure.

671
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:22,240
You got my head spinning a little bit on how they can approach that and cut through that.

672
01:00:22,240 --> 01:00:26,880
The paradigm is the pendulum is definitely swung a lot more in that direction there or

673
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:30,240
towards just seeing animals as something we can use.

674
01:00:30,240 --> 01:00:34,880
It sounds like, or just as others, I guess.

675
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:37,040
And yeah.

676
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:44,080
Well, I like using the word presence.

677
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:54,160
Before becoming vegan, yes, I cared for non-human animals, but they did not have presence in

678
01:00:54,160 --> 01:00:55,800
my life.

679
01:00:55,800 --> 01:00:58,720
It was part of the decor.

680
01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:09,440
It was decoration or I would not turn my head to pay attention to their feelings or they

681
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:10,440
did not matter.

682
01:01:10,440 --> 01:01:15,480
They did not stop me from going from A to B or something like that.

683
01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:17,840
It was just like, oh, birds in the sky.

684
01:01:17,840 --> 01:01:23,480
It's same as a cloud kind of attitude.

685
01:01:23,480 --> 01:01:31,760
But then becoming vegan and as years went by, I started to pay more attention to them

686
01:01:31,760 --> 01:01:36,800
as if they were people, which they are.

687
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:43,360
But yeah, that's the shift of attitude I experienced.

688
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:44,360
That's interesting.

689
01:01:44,360 --> 01:01:48,000
You mentioned like birds, the story of how I went vegan.

690
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:50,000
I had not even been vegetarian.

691
01:01:50,000 --> 01:01:54,440
Although I had a cousin growing up who was always vegetarian and I never gave it much

692
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:58,080
second thought as to why.

693
01:01:58,080 --> 01:02:01,640
I guess I knew why, but I never thought very deep on it.

694
01:02:01,640 --> 01:02:10,360
And one day, yeah, about 17 years ago, in my home, a morning dove crashed into my picture

695
01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:15,960
window and I suddenly felt he was definitely injured and couldn't move or barely could

696
01:02:15,960 --> 01:02:16,960
move.

697
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:23,560
And I felt this sense of responsibility suddenly that I just realized, well, he had no idea.

698
01:02:23,560 --> 01:02:27,960
Instead of thinking maybe stupid, Barry, how did you do this?

699
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:32,720
I thought, the poor guy thought he could just fly right through as if it was a frame.

700
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:39,720
He saw the reflection back and had no idea that we directed this modern day creation

701
01:02:39,720 --> 01:02:42,480
called Glass here or Window.

702
01:02:42,480 --> 01:02:49,920
And I had this thought, it'd be like me running along the desert here in Arizona and an alien

703
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:54,600
ship maybe was hundreds of yards that way and put up a force field and I just come running

704
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:56,960
into it and alien is like, look at this idiot.

705
01:02:56,960 --> 01:03:00,400
He has no idea what he's doing.

706
01:03:00,400 --> 01:03:03,200
And so to us, it's like they're living in our world.

707
01:03:03,200 --> 01:03:07,320
And God, there's a lot of, speaking of, there's a lot of birds that die just running into

708
01:03:07,320 --> 01:03:08,720
buildings, right?

709
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:17,080
But I was suddenly faced with this kind of predicament where I was looking at this bird

710
01:03:17,080 --> 01:03:19,120
and I was like, I guess I should hop online.

711
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:23,680
I found a local wildlife group and they were all the way across town.

712
01:03:23,680 --> 01:03:26,080
And I was like, well, I really should do this.

713
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:30,200
This is really an inconvenience to my day, but I can't just let him die here.

714
01:03:30,200 --> 01:03:34,340
And I could tell you, it wasn't something I could just nurse him back myself.

715
01:03:34,340 --> 01:03:41,000
So I spent the better half of the day going over to this wildlife rescue center and driving

716
01:03:41,000 --> 01:03:43,920
back in traffic.

717
01:03:43,920 --> 01:03:48,880
And I get home and I was cooking my regional chicken breast for dinner on the frying pan.

718
01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:51,000
And I was just like, holy crap.

719
01:03:51,000 --> 01:03:54,200
I'm like, I just spent all this time shaving this one bird.

720
01:03:54,200 --> 01:04:01,600
And I kind of saw him as having a personhood and as an individual.

721
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:06,080
And here I am staring at this other bird in the pan and I thought, what kind of life did

722
01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:09,200
this one live and how did he die?

723
01:04:09,200 --> 01:04:11,960
And I was like, well, that's why people are vegetarian.

724
01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:16,720
Oh, yeah, they kind of think about these guys too.

725
01:04:16,720 --> 01:04:22,360
And I hadn't had a, I grew up with a dog, but I don't think, I hadn't had my 15, no,

726
01:04:22,360 --> 01:04:25,720
15 year old dog yet.

727
01:04:25,720 --> 01:04:31,920
But I definitely had a great friendship with a dog growing up.

728
01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:39,560
And so I knew animals certainly had emotions and could feel pain and that sort of thing.

729
01:04:39,560 --> 01:04:43,320
And so I hopped online, I was like, well, that's why people are vegetarian.

730
01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:49,200
And I was Googling stuff and I came across some member of PETA articles and videos and

731
01:04:49,200 --> 01:04:51,160
it was quite shocking to me.

732
01:04:51,160 --> 01:04:57,020
And I'm glad I came across that material particularly, I think, rather than something softer because

733
01:04:57,020 --> 01:04:59,480
it did kind of wake me up.

734
01:04:59,480 --> 01:05:04,920
And I don't know why, but I had this, I got really angry and I had a switch kind of go

735
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:08,560
off where I just almost overnight went vegan.

736
01:05:08,560 --> 01:05:15,120
And I'm not sure if I would have gone on for years without thinking much on it or, but

737
01:05:15,120 --> 01:05:20,600
I think that bird, that poor bird, I don't know if he survived.

738
01:05:20,600 --> 01:05:22,200
And seeing him as an individual.

739
01:05:22,200 --> 01:05:28,440
And so I wonder what, sometimes think about that and examine what exactly, to me it was

740
01:05:28,440 --> 01:05:31,320
so clear and easy at the time.

741
01:05:31,320 --> 01:05:34,560
And I just thought my friends and family would jump on board too, as soon as I showed them

742
01:05:34,560 --> 01:05:38,560
a video, for example, or documentary.

743
01:05:38,560 --> 01:05:42,920
But for them, it couldn't break through that cognitive dissonance, right?

744
01:05:42,920 --> 01:05:52,560
And it's quite fascinating how I never would have thought I'd become vegan, but I did pretty

745
01:05:52,560 --> 01:05:56,000
quickly after having this epiphany, I guess.

746
01:05:56,000 --> 01:05:59,040
And so how do we recreate that, if it's possible?

747
01:05:59,040 --> 01:06:02,560
Or just the one-off thing, but yeah.

748
01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:08,320
Well, it was when I first started this podcast, it was a recurring question.

749
01:06:08,320 --> 01:06:11,640
I would ask it a lot to guests.

750
01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:19,320
Do you think you were born vegan or do you think you became vegan in the sense of, do

751
01:06:19,320 --> 01:06:26,240
you think you were born with certain feelings, a certain form of compassion, a level of empathy

752
01:06:26,240 --> 01:06:31,240
that made you receptive to the vegan message?

753
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:35,320
So yeah, that question, I ask that question a lot.

754
01:06:35,320 --> 01:06:42,560
And what comes back again and again is that you're born vegan, that you're born with

755
01:06:42,560 --> 01:06:49,400
a certain level of empathy, compassion, and maybe even sensitivity.

756
01:06:49,400 --> 01:06:55,760
And then you encounter that message and it resonates with you.

757
01:06:55,760 --> 01:07:03,700
It confirms maybe some feelings or experiences you had throughout your life.

758
01:07:03,700 --> 01:07:07,560
And then it triggers a change.

759
01:07:07,560 --> 01:07:12,480
But it's just my opinion of things.

760
01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:13,480
What do you think?

761
01:07:13,480 --> 01:07:19,040
Yeah, that's interesting.

762
01:07:19,040 --> 01:07:28,680
I have seen studies where even people's political views are maybe influenced by how compassionate

763
01:07:28,680 --> 01:07:37,000
they are or the level of empathy they have.

764
01:07:37,000 --> 01:07:45,440
And yeah, I really hope most people could come around eventually if they had the right

765
01:07:45,440 --> 01:07:46,440
experiences.

766
01:07:46,440 --> 01:07:52,560
That's why I love the example of, so many people love their animals, their companion

767
01:07:52,560 --> 01:07:53,560
animals.

768
01:07:53,560 --> 01:08:00,680
Some people don't fully, they have maybe a different relationship than others where they

769
01:08:00,680 --> 01:08:05,480
like having a dog, but they're not as compassionate towards that animal or see it as suffering

770
01:08:05,480 --> 01:08:09,760
when they just stick it out back all night in the cold and hope it does okay in the doghouse,

771
01:08:09,760 --> 01:08:12,400
that sort of thing.

772
01:08:12,400 --> 01:08:20,760
And yeah, that's an interesting thing to think about.

773
01:08:20,760 --> 01:08:28,480
Because then it begs another question, which is if veganism depends on a certain level

774
01:08:28,480 --> 01:08:37,600
of compassion and empathy ingrained in people from birth, then is the solution to criminalize

775
01:08:37,600 --> 01:08:40,600
animal exploitation?

776
01:08:40,600 --> 01:08:44,400
Yeah, right.

777
01:08:44,400 --> 01:08:48,000
That's the direction you have to go eventually.

778
01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:56,280
Because those that can see the reality have to force it upon others to a degree or set

779
01:08:56,280 --> 01:09:10,720
certain societal rules and laws up just like we do with other things.

780
01:09:10,720 --> 01:09:16,080
To get us closer to that reality, we need to take action.

781
01:09:16,080 --> 01:09:23,360
And you're someone who decided not just to be vegan, but to be active and join all sorts

782
01:09:23,360 --> 01:09:25,240
of initiatives.

783
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:28,560
How did that happen?

784
01:09:28,560 --> 01:09:36,640
When did you decide to truly take action and not just be, I guess, passively vegan?

785
01:09:36,640 --> 01:09:47,120
Yeah, early on when I went vegan, yeah, because it was, I think it was 2007, I didn't know

786
01:09:47,120 --> 01:09:48,120
any vegans.

787
01:09:48,120 --> 01:09:53,200
And I turned to podcasts, which were absolutely wonderful.

788
01:09:53,200 --> 01:09:59,880
It was like a true respite for my brain to hear others and their experiences and learn

789
01:09:59,880 --> 01:10:03,880
how they're navigating this world, living in a non-vegan world.

790
01:10:03,880 --> 01:10:08,480
I bought a couple of books, I think all the books I could find at the time.

791
01:10:08,480 --> 01:10:11,000
Now you couldn't read through them all probably.

792
01:10:11,000 --> 01:10:15,880
But anyway, I found a local meetup group.

793
01:10:15,880 --> 01:10:18,000
There was a vegetarian and vegan meetup group.

794
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:22,920
And there's probably maybe 50-50 with vegetarian and vegan.

795
01:10:22,920 --> 01:10:30,920
And as I was learning, I would meet other vegans or vegetarians down there and share

796
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:32,760
the tools I had found, like podcasts.

797
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:36,200
I'd point them to specific episodes that we're discussing, maybe something that came up at

798
01:10:36,200 --> 01:10:40,560
the meetup dinner.

799
01:10:40,560 --> 01:10:44,520
And I had this whole email set up where I would send people, like, let me send you an

800
01:10:44,520 --> 01:10:45,520
email.

801
01:10:45,520 --> 01:10:46,960
And I had breakdown of different things.

802
01:10:46,960 --> 01:10:50,760
And listen to this episode and check out, here's a section from this book I read that

803
01:10:50,760 --> 01:10:59,720
just perfectly explains how to look at dealing with your old leather belts, for example,

804
01:10:59,720 --> 01:11:02,240
or something.

805
01:11:02,240 --> 01:11:12,840
And so I think my activism came a little bit just wanting to help others along the way.

806
01:11:12,840 --> 01:11:20,720
And also I love trying to convince maybe vegetarians to go vegan and friends and family.

807
01:11:20,720 --> 01:11:25,360
I quickly learned I should just focus on others, not friends and family, because you can do

808
01:11:25,360 --> 01:11:27,080
a little bit, but you do too much.

809
01:11:27,080 --> 01:11:31,000
And you just come across as overzealous.

810
01:11:31,000 --> 01:11:37,840
But you have to kind of let people plant some seeds and let people maybe find their way.

811
01:11:37,840 --> 01:11:42,200
So I ended up starting because I was sharing podcasts and recommending to people.

812
01:11:42,200 --> 01:11:45,040
I started a website as a web developer.

813
01:11:45,040 --> 01:11:48,640
I thought, well, I'll use my skills to put something out there.

814
01:11:48,640 --> 01:11:51,920
And I created veganfeed.com.

815
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:56,280
And it was a pretty neat little site back then.

816
01:11:56,280 --> 01:11:57,840
I hand coded everything.

817
01:11:57,840 --> 01:12:02,360
It was before I even worked with WordPress, some of these content management systems that

818
01:12:02,360 --> 01:12:03,760
make life a lot easier.

819
01:12:03,760 --> 01:12:10,120
But I obsessed over building this website that aggregated RSS feeds of all the vegan

820
01:12:10,120 --> 01:12:11,240
podcasts I could find.

821
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:16,040
And as new ones came around, inevitably, back then, if you Googled vegan podcasts, it was

822
01:12:16,040 --> 01:12:17,200
like the first site that turned up.

823
01:12:17,200 --> 01:12:18,920
Now it's buried.

824
01:12:18,920 --> 01:12:22,360
But people would have me add their podcasts.

825
01:12:22,360 --> 01:12:28,160
And I love being able to introduce people that were visiting my site to their podcasts.

826
01:12:28,160 --> 01:12:33,320
That maybe was a way to help jumpstart their podcast, getting at least a couple of listeners

827
01:12:33,320 --> 01:12:34,320
going.

828
01:12:34,320 --> 01:12:37,920
And I like to think I was helping out a little there.

829
01:12:37,920 --> 01:12:44,600
And the site never quite got thousands of hits per day, but it got a few hundred.

830
01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:51,400
And I think of real people, not just bots and search engine crawlers.

831
01:12:51,400 --> 01:12:54,400
And from there, I shared blogs I also followed.

832
01:12:54,400 --> 01:12:59,200
So I aggregated blogs and little synopsis, our first few hundred characters of the blog

833
01:12:59,200 --> 01:13:00,200
post.

834
01:13:00,200 --> 01:13:01,600
And you could click to read more.

835
01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:09,280
And so I tried to create a little resource where people could read food blogs and animal

836
01:13:09,280 --> 01:13:13,680
rights philosophy blogs and find podcasts.

837
01:13:13,680 --> 01:13:17,040
And I introduced myself to the podcasters.

838
01:13:17,040 --> 01:13:20,840
Often, I'd email them about my website and hope maybe they'll throw up a link somewhere

839
01:13:20,840 --> 01:13:24,560
or just to let them know what I was working on.

840
01:13:24,560 --> 01:13:27,360
And through that, I made some connections.

841
01:13:27,360 --> 01:13:31,000
Inevitably someone would be, I would even point out an error in their RSS feed I just

842
01:13:31,000 --> 01:13:33,040
noticed because it wasn't refreshing on my site.

843
01:13:33,040 --> 01:13:34,840
And I would help them troubleshoot that.

844
01:13:34,840 --> 01:13:40,940
And I got hired on as one of the first vegan podcasts, Our Hen House with Jasmine Singer

845
01:13:40,940 --> 01:13:42,180
and Marion Sullivan.

846
01:13:42,180 --> 01:13:44,640
They hired me on as a webmaster early on.

847
01:13:44,640 --> 01:13:51,080
And to this day, it's been about, I want to say 15 years now maybe that I've been their

848
01:13:51,080 --> 01:13:54,000
webmaster and web developer.

849
01:13:54,000 --> 01:14:02,320
But through an interview they did early on about the vegan feed site, I met then a local

850
01:14:02,320 --> 01:14:06,840
philanthropist in Tucson who was a fan of their show.

851
01:14:06,840 --> 01:14:10,600
And I learned that I never would have met.

852
01:14:10,600 --> 01:14:14,920
And she just wanted to meet and discuss things because she was putting on symposiums in town

853
01:14:14,920 --> 01:14:23,080
with the Forks and the Eyes crew, Dr. Esselstyn and Rip Esselstyn, the firefighter guy.

854
01:14:23,080 --> 01:14:30,040
And there's Dr. Greger and all those guys, T. Colin Campbell.

855
01:14:30,040 --> 01:14:38,120
And they would, she was also a big benefactor to some vegan organizations.

856
01:14:38,120 --> 01:14:45,000
And she formed a little group, put on these symposiums and had a meeting with me wondering

857
01:14:45,000 --> 01:14:46,880
if there's any way we could work together.

858
01:14:46,880 --> 01:14:53,200
And I think just hearing about my vegan feed podcast and my meetup experience, and I pitched

859
01:14:53,200 --> 01:14:58,880
the idea of showing movies in town, screening documentaries, because I found them, I loved

860
01:14:58,880 --> 01:14:59,880
vegan documentaries.

861
01:14:59,880 --> 01:15:03,920
I thought they were potential vegan makers for a lot of people.

862
01:15:03,920 --> 01:15:12,400
And so she financed this whole operation where I'd run out of theater, 500 seat theater,

863
01:15:12,400 --> 01:15:15,360
she helped me pay for fires to be printed.

864
01:15:15,360 --> 01:15:21,640
And I would use my meetup group and just me driving around town, hanging them at Starbucks,

865
01:15:21,640 --> 01:15:29,080
poster boards, and posting on every possible event list online and in local papers.

866
01:15:29,080 --> 01:15:35,920
And if you stop short of putting up billboards, which she actually did for her symposiums.

867
01:15:35,920 --> 01:15:43,600
And those she charged for, but the theaters were prepaid and it was free for everyone

868
01:15:43,600 --> 01:15:45,680
to come see this documentary.

869
01:15:45,680 --> 01:15:50,720
And we actually filled all 500 seats a few times, so much that we had a second showing.

870
01:15:50,720 --> 01:15:57,040
But that got me involved in kind of organizing events.

871
01:15:57,040 --> 01:16:01,480
And I ended up with helping with some festivals later.

872
01:16:01,480 --> 01:16:06,960
And so I just kind of had this natural progression by just, I guess, wanting to maybe help others

873
01:16:06,960 --> 01:16:08,640
early on.

874
01:16:08,640 --> 01:16:15,440
And I think as being vegan and having this huge enthusiasm for it, it all came very easy

875
01:16:15,440 --> 01:16:16,440
to me.

876
01:16:16,440 --> 01:16:22,440
I ended up actually overextending myself to a degree and maybe not focusing on things

877
01:16:22,440 --> 01:16:26,080
that would maybe make me money.

878
01:16:26,080 --> 01:16:29,040
But in hindsight, I'm glad I did it.

879
01:16:29,040 --> 01:16:34,440
It opened up some opportunities that even like, I think the vegan jobs website I launched,

880
01:16:34,440 --> 01:16:38,680
it was easier launching that having connections I did with bloggers.

881
01:16:38,680 --> 01:16:40,320
They helped me get some links early on.

882
01:16:40,320 --> 01:16:43,560
And that of course helped with search results and that sort of thing.

883
01:16:43,560 --> 01:16:51,400
And I think a couple of podcasts maybe mentioned it.

884
01:16:51,400 --> 01:16:58,200
And even through that process, I did occasionally see like I'd be on an email list with Dr.

885
01:16:58,200 --> 01:17:02,600
Gregor is looking for, I think, a video editor.

886
01:17:02,600 --> 01:17:06,000
And that would just get passed through an email chain of people I knew.

887
01:17:06,000 --> 01:17:09,440
And I had owned this domain name, veganjobs.com.

888
01:17:09,440 --> 01:17:14,160
I grabbed a few early on and thinking that they would have potential eventually.

889
01:17:14,160 --> 01:17:17,360
And I was like, it might be about time to start that.

890
01:17:17,360 --> 01:17:21,320
And that's kind of what maybe pushed it a little bit other than it was probably the

891
01:17:21,320 --> 01:17:22,920
best of the names I had.

892
01:17:22,920 --> 01:17:27,080
And I love having, they call it like the category killer domain.

893
01:17:27,080 --> 01:17:34,920
It's the one that helps with branding and people remembering the name and search engine

894
01:17:34,920 --> 01:17:37,000
optimization at least back then.

895
01:17:37,000 --> 01:17:40,000
And so I'm not sure if I didn't own that name.

896
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:44,920
What I've focused on, maybe a site about vegan dogs or something.

897
01:17:44,920 --> 01:17:54,000
So yeah, so that's kind of my story as how I kind of progressed.

898
01:17:54,000 --> 01:18:00,560
And yeah, even through the festivals I helped with, I'd see plenty of job opportunities

899
01:18:00,560 --> 01:18:06,560
pop up where we had to hire people for and that sort of thing.

900
01:18:06,560 --> 01:18:14,560
Well, yeah, in preparation for this interview, I tried different searches on Google.

901
01:18:14,560 --> 01:18:25,360
I tried animal rights job, animal welfare job, putting my, being through the perspective

902
01:18:25,360 --> 01:18:31,080
of a job seeker who's vegan and who wants a job in an animal rights organization.

903
01:18:31,080 --> 01:18:38,240
And what pops up first is jobs related to the animal industry.

904
01:18:38,240 --> 01:18:49,000
You know, like farmers that need people who care for their cows and things like that.

905
01:18:49,000 --> 01:18:57,320
So I'm truly, truly happy that this initiative exists and that it's a tool people can use

906
01:18:57,320 --> 01:19:05,640
to look for, again, a job, like I said in my intro, that is more meaningful.

907
01:19:05,640 --> 01:19:08,160
Yeah, that's good.

908
01:19:08,160 --> 01:19:09,160
That's great to hear.

909
01:19:09,160 --> 01:19:15,400
Yeah, another, you reminded me of early on when I would Google vegan jobs on like Indeed

910
01:19:15,400 --> 01:19:21,840
or even just Google, I guess, any of the job websites, there was maybe a page or so of

911
01:19:21,840 --> 01:19:26,480
jobs that just mentioned vegan option for the employees in the description somewhere.

912
01:19:26,480 --> 01:19:29,280
And that would of course turn it up in the results.

913
01:19:29,280 --> 01:19:35,800
And that made it clear to me that it would be beneficial to have a site listing just

914
01:19:35,800 --> 01:19:38,760
vegan jobs, exclusively vegan jobs.

915
01:19:38,760 --> 01:19:42,760
And or it would be like, I'm trying to remember other examples, but it was fascinating how

916
01:19:42,760 --> 01:19:47,560
many jobs would come up that weren't vegan, but happen to mention vegan somewhere.

917
01:19:47,560 --> 01:19:53,720
Even if they said, even one said not a good job for vegans, it was like a butcher or something,

918
01:19:53,720 --> 01:19:56,280
or some kind of meat related industry.

919
01:19:56,280 --> 01:19:59,640
And just the fact that it said not for vegans, it turned up.

920
01:19:59,640 --> 01:20:04,560
But there was, yeah, somehow that word would come up.

921
01:20:04,560 --> 01:20:11,760
Just people mentioning they, yeah, I think that they would something about vegan options

922
01:20:11,760 --> 01:20:12,760
at the company.

923
01:20:12,760 --> 01:20:16,560
But yeah, I don't recall the ways it would turn up.

924
01:20:16,560 --> 01:20:19,120
It was fascinating though, how many it would.

925
01:20:19,120 --> 01:20:28,800
Well, famously there was this WeWork initiative of offering vegan options that way back then.

926
01:20:28,800 --> 01:20:35,960
And that started like a little trend of corporations offering vegan options.

927
01:20:35,960 --> 01:20:43,520
I think Apple have only vegan options at their headquarters, maybe.

928
01:20:43,520 --> 01:20:47,040
But yeah, but it's not what we're looking for.

929
01:20:47,040 --> 01:20:52,000
We're looking for, and if you don't know the names of the organizations out there who are

930
01:20:52,000 --> 01:21:00,040
fighting for animal rights, then how are you going to find these opportunities?

931
01:21:00,040 --> 01:21:05,480
And it's also beneficial for those organizations that want to reach vegans.

932
01:21:05,480 --> 01:21:07,880
Yeah, absolutely.

933
01:21:07,880 --> 01:21:16,600
Yeah, there's, and there's so many organizations now that, but like you said earlier too, you

934
01:21:16,600 --> 01:21:19,200
don't always know who's vegan for the right reasons.

935
01:21:19,200 --> 01:21:22,960
And maybe just on the face there, they're kind of pitching that.

936
01:21:22,960 --> 01:21:34,960
But yeah, it's definitely, definitely exploded.

937
01:21:34,960 --> 01:21:39,740
And there's, it's just maybe created more noise in some ways, although there's more

938
01:21:39,740 --> 01:21:41,800
selection but more noise.

939
01:21:41,800 --> 01:21:45,640
Yeah, that's very true.

940
01:21:45,640 --> 01:21:51,880
To end the conversation, I want to ask you, you know, this, the whole philosophy, the

941
01:21:51,880 --> 01:21:57,080
reason why I started this podcast is to encourage people to take action.

942
01:21:57,080 --> 01:22:04,680
So what would you say to vegans who want to take action or are on the fence of taking

943
01:22:04,680 --> 01:22:06,480
action?

944
01:22:06,480 --> 01:22:13,200
Why should they consider, you know, going out, being open about their veganism and putting

945
01:22:13,200 --> 01:22:16,920
efforts in advancing the animal rights cause?

946
01:22:16,920 --> 01:22:22,640
Yeah, I guess we could use, we can use everyone we can, we can get.

947
01:22:22,640 --> 01:22:27,120
Because it's still, even though there's a lot of vegans now, a lot more than there used

948
01:22:27,120 --> 01:22:31,040
to be, it's, I think there's definitely big hurdles out there.

949
01:22:31,040 --> 01:22:34,720
And you may be touched on some of them.

950
01:22:34,720 --> 01:22:37,720
And with when it comes to the empathy of others.

951
01:22:37,720 --> 01:22:48,960
But I've, I like how I approached it where I kind of used the skills I had and that still

952
01:22:48,960 --> 01:22:53,200
got into areas where I had no idea what I was doing necessarily.

953
01:22:53,200 --> 01:22:55,200
But then kind of learned as it went along.

954
01:22:55,200 --> 01:23:06,920
And I think if people, whatever they might have, maybe a natural inclination to, to pursuing

955
01:23:06,920 --> 01:23:14,040
just even in their own, as a hobby even, there might be opportunities there they could explore.

956
01:23:14,040 --> 01:23:22,560
I guess, I guess it's, it's the example of courses like online, you know, developing

957
01:23:22,560 --> 01:23:27,200
something to help reach people there.

958
01:23:27,200 --> 01:23:32,680
But even just volunteering locally is a good start.

959
01:23:32,680 --> 01:23:38,480
It might get the ball rolling and being around others that are, that are involved in the

960
01:23:38,480 --> 01:23:41,280
community.

961
01:23:41,280 --> 01:23:52,400
And yeah, the, I think it's, it's easy to feel like, like you're just a drop in the

962
01:23:52,400 --> 01:23:53,400
bucket.

963
01:23:53,400 --> 01:23:57,080
But at the end of the day, we know it's going to take, you know, get enough drops and it

964
01:23:57,080 --> 01:23:58,760
fills the bucket, I guess.

965
01:23:58,760 --> 01:24:01,240
But it's just like voting, I guess.

966
01:24:01,240 --> 01:24:06,720
That's like one of those things where you feel like you're just this tiny insignificant

967
01:24:06,720 --> 01:24:12,440
thing compared to all the millions of votes for, for an election.

968
01:24:12,440 --> 01:24:16,960
But without everyone getting together, it doesn't, it doesn't work.

969
01:24:16,960 --> 01:24:27,080
So yeah, I think if, if you, there's certainly a lot of ways that people, if you're a graphic

970
01:24:27,080 --> 01:24:31,960
designer or a, I'm trying to think, I should have a lot more examples on off the cuff here.

971
01:24:31,960 --> 01:24:40,520
But there's almost, there's, because now the vegan world, it kind of spans all sectors

972
01:24:40,520 --> 01:24:46,920
and, and every little thing that there's, there's probably something with your specialty

973
01:24:46,920 --> 01:24:50,520
out there that someone might be hiring for.

974
01:24:50,520 --> 01:24:56,060
So if you do want to work for a vegan organization or company, there's, there's a chance that

975
01:24:56,060 --> 01:24:58,320
you'll find a fit out there.

976
01:24:58,320 --> 01:25:06,200
Or if not today, maybe, you know, years from now, but there's, it's amazing what, you know,

977
01:25:06,200 --> 01:25:14,000
it's every little thing you can think of from legal assistance to, there's even some healthcare

978
01:25:14,000 --> 01:25:19,120
clinics that have sought vegan, like nurses.

979
01:25:19,120 --> 01:25:30,480
There's you know, ecotourism type jobs and a lot of hospitality jobs, of course.

980
01:25:30,480 --> 01:25:38,720
But there's, you know, data analysts and food scientists, and it's just endless, endless

981
01:25:38,720 --> 01:25:45,640
list of potential jobs that are needed or going to be needed, I think.

982
01:25:45,640 --> 01:25:54,160
And so whether it's becomes your job or just maybe volunteering your skills, or just if

983
01:25:54,160 --> 01:25:58,200
you don't have, if you don't feel like you have any that currently fit, just going out

984
01:25:58,200 --> 01:26:05,240
there and diving in and sure enough, you'll, you know, a lot of, almost all of us have

985
01:26:05,240 --> 01:26:09,480
that imposter syndrome, perhaps in the beginning when we do anything and just kind of push

986
01:26:09,480 --> 01:26:16,920
through that and get involved because it's really rewarding, especially I found volunteering

987
01:26:16,920 --> 01:26:17,920
really rewarding.

988
01:26:17,920 --> 01:26:18,920
And yeah.

989
01:26:18,920 --> 01:26:25,600
Well, Ben, that's a great message to end the conversation.

990
01:26:25,600 --> 01:26:31,620
Thank you so much, Ben, for having accepted my invitation for your initiative and sharing

991
01:26:31,620 --> 01:26:34,200
your thoughts with listeners.

992
01:26:34,200 --> 01:26:40,320
I'm all about, you know, veteran vegans who have been vegans for as long as you have,

993
01:26:40,320 --> 01:26:43,680
you know, to share their wisdom with people.

994
01:26:43,680 --> 01:26:44,680
So thank you.

995
01:26:44,680 --> 01:26:45,680
Thank you so much for your time.

996
01:26:45,680 --> 01:26:46,680
Oh, excellent.

997
01:26:46,680 --> 01:26:47,680
Yeah.

998
01:26:47,680 --> 01:26:48,680
Thank you so much.

999
01:26:48,680 --> 01:26:50,440
It's been great.

1000
01:26:50,440 --> 01:26:52,320
Thank you everyone for listening.

1001
01:26:52,320 --> 01:26:56,680
I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans you know.

1002
01:26:56,680 --> 01:26:59,680
Let's encourage more people to take action.

1003
01:26:59,680 --> 01:27:05,680
Again, thank you so much for caring and I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.