How to Live Fearlessly and Build a Life of Commitment | An Anti-Peter Pan Story with Simon Barrette

In this episode of After Peter Pan, host Pat Tenneriello sits down with longtime friend Simon Barrette, considered an "Anti-Peter Pan", to explore a journey of fearless decision-making, personal growth, and balancing life’s commitments. Simon shares how pivotal moments—like moving to Finland to start a new life, pursuing his dream of becoming an NHL scout, and embracing family responsibilities at a young age—shaped his outlook on trust, purpose, and resilience.

Together, they discuss the challenges of making bold life choices, the importance of intuition in major decisions, and the process of rebalancing when passion and priorities shift. Simon also opens up about redefining success, finding spirituality, and the lessons he’s learned from balancing career, family, and personal well-being.

Whether you’re navigating life’s crossroads, seeking inspiration to follow your intuition, or curious about what it means to grow up and take responsibility, this heartfelt conversation is full of relatable insights and encouragement.

Resources Mentioned:

• Simon's recommended read: - The Untethered Soul - Michael A. Singer

Episode Highlights:

• Trusting intuition to guide major life changes.
• Balancing personal passions with family and career commitments.
• How travel and international experiences shape personal growth.
• The power of spirituality and self-reflection in finding purpose.

Join us as Simon’s story inspires us all to embrace responsibility, trust life’s process, and fearlessly pursue what matters most.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:15 Introduction to Simon Barrette
• 4:04 Following Intuition to Love and Commitment
• 7:59 The Impact of Travel on Life Decisions
• 10:35 Navigating Parental Guilt & The Graceful Art of Letting Go
• 13:40 Signals of Maturity & The Courage to Start Anew
• 17:01 Knowing When You're Ready for Marriage & Commitment
• 20:59 Finding Inner Voice and Intuition
• 24:17 Career Chasing & Stress
• 25:57 The Transition to NHL Scout & Burning the Candle at Both Ends
• 40:42 Rebalancing Life: Health and Spirituality
• 48:14 The Rewards of Action Over Stagnation
• 52:35 What Growing Up Means to Simon
• 54:56 Outro

Transcript

Pat (00:00)
Welcome to the third episode of After Peter Pan. I’m your host, Pat Tenneriello.
If you’re new here, I recommend starting with our 90-second trailer to get a feel for the show.

This episode marks the beginning of the Anti-Peter Pan Series, where I’ll interview guests who have fearlessly embraced responsibility and commitment early in life to uncover their mindsets and learn from their unique journeys.

Today, I’m I have a heartfelt conversation with my longtime friend, Simon Barrette—someone I consider the Anti-Peter Pan. Simon is a former NHL scout, a certified personal trainer, and a devoted husband and father who has fully leaned into life’s responsibilities from a young age.

Simon’s story explores themes of moving abroad for love, balancing family and career, and learning to trust life’s timing. It’s an inspiring conversation about courage, purpose, and finding balance—particularly meaningful for anyone who relates with the Peter Pan syndrome.

Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Simon (01:14)
it's interesting. I was just reminiscing a bit while you were talking. we've known each other a long time. And one very interesting aspect of our friendship is that you have a very direct link.

to many of the important decisions I've made in my life, which included moving to Finland and meeting my wife, but I can get into that a bit later. So a bit about me, we're the same age, I'm 39 now, almost 40. I'm Canadian, but I live in Finland. I've been living in Finland since 2006, married.

with my wife and we have two kids, an 11 year old son and a 13 year old daughter. I've studied journalism in school but never really worked very much as a journalist. I kind of went more into the PR and communication side and my studies kind of concluded and I was very lucky to find a job.

when I moved to Finland, my studies kind of concluded and I moved to Finland pretty much at the same time and I was able to find a very good job at the time with Nokia which was a Finnish company, still is, but it was of course the biggest manufacturer of mobile phones at the time, it was like the Apple back then.

And so I was able to work there for a year. was a temporary contract. And that kind of gave me a lot of momentum, I think, for my future positions and career, you know, and jobs. But ended up working about, I would say how much, 16, 17 years in PR communications for different companies here in Finland. And then.

about 10 years ago, I also in parallel to my communications work, started working in hockey and professional hockey as a scout. I worked a bit over eight years as a scout for the Columbus Blue Jackets, which was a dream of mine, dream job and dream experience.

but also maybe going back to what I started with, you know, our friendship goes back many years and one of the reasons that I moved to Finland is because I met my wife who is Finnish and I actually met her while visiting you.

in France when you were doing your student exchange and my wife was doing the exchange at the same place and that kind of, I would say, changed my life forever because once I met her I kind fell in love and decided that she was the person I wanted to build my life with and that eventually not too long after that, about a year, I was living in Finland already.

Pat (04:02)
remember those days well, even though it's been quite a while. I think we're going back to 2005. And I was studying abroad and you came to visit me and maybe that's a good place to dive deeper. me, that experience of studying abroad was my first taste of freedom and my first time living on my own.

Simon (04:10)
19, I guess.

Pat (04:28)
I went a little bit crazy. I loved it. I met people from all over the world I lived in a dorm. It was an international dorm with, like I said, people from all over the world. were, we had a very, very hectic social life. were going out partying too much. and you, you came in the thick of that and, and despite that atmosphere, you met the woman of your life.

Simon (04:31)
Yeah

Pat (04:55)
And we that point, I mean, it's it's so interesting because that's like the complete opposite of where my head was at. And, you know, at that point in my life, I remember you, we we were talking and I was you were so decisive were convinced that that you had met the right person. Can we go back to those days and just

Simon (04:56)
Yeah.

Pat (05:19)
Walk me through what you were feeling. Like how were you so convinced? Because for many years in my life, I would wonder, how do you know? How do I know I've met the right person? And I would ask people that. wasn't that all obvious because I would always think, well, I'm dating one, but that one looks pretty good. Like the grass is always greener sort of syndrome. So for you back in those days, how were you so convinced that you had met the woman of your life?

Simon (05:51)
I'm not sure to be honest. I think it probably comes down to intuition, comes down to a feeling, comes down to just a knowing. I mean, if I look back when I was a kid and even a teenager, young adult, and for context, I think we were probably 21, around the age of 21 when...

You were in France and I met my wife for the first time. But when I was younger, always got attached to people very quickly, people that I connected with on an emotional or energetic level. I never had that... You know, some people have the difficulty of getting close to people or opening up or being vulnerable.

And I was always, someone who gets attached very quickly if I see a person that I feel is the right person that I want in my life. So I think that plays a lot into it. I think also the fact that when I was in my teenage years, when I was a kid, I always knew I wanted to be a father. I always knew that I wanted to be married.

And it was something that I always was kind of looking forward to. And also I think, you maybe my parents, had me when they were, my dad was maybe 26 when he had me, my mom was about 24. So I had, you know, my parents were relatively young So I always felt like I wanted to be like a younger dad versus an older dad.

Because I felt like, once you raise your kids, you still want to have a bit of time where you're able to pursue your passions and hobbies and stuff like that. that's why I think I was able to.

attach myself to this person very quickly and say, hey, I know that she's probably going to be my wife someday.

Pat (07:52)
So part of it was instinctual, part of it was you were exposed to from your parents.

Simon (07:57)
condition maybe.

Pat (08:00)
and I share that we married internationally marriage on its own is not an easy feat. know, it's a lot of complexity. It's obviously beautiful, but it can be challenging. And when you add the international component where you're uprooting your life or one of the two of you is uprooting their lives to go and join the other, which is what you did. You moved from Canada to Finland.

it adds even more complexity. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that complexity and that despite knowing that it wouldn't be easy, you chose to dive in nonetheless.

Simon (08:41)
Well, it's interesting that you bring the international element. mean, you were also obviously very present in another milestone in my life which relates to this, which was the student exchange we did in high school going to Italy. And for me, that was the first time that I traveled abroad by myself without parents. Of course, we were with teachers and friends.

But that gave me, we were three weeks in Italy, a taste of what it's like to live in Europe, what it's like to live in a different culture, in a different setting. And it's just funny if I think about it now that we actually went through that experience together. I think that gave me a taste of...

of experiencing another culture and being open to it and wanting to have that openness in your life. There's people back home in our city where we're from who have probably never really left Canada or have never really traveled that much. And I know for a fact that some of them, for those reasons, would never move away from Ottawa or where we're from.

because they're just so very comfortable being at home in the environment that they know. So I think that the trip that we did together as a student exchange in high school was like a big milestone in my life just to kind of open my eyes, open my mind to what's out there. And from then on, I always wanted to move to Europe.

I always wanted to live in Europe or live in a different country, which, you know, then when that opportunity arose, by meeting my wife, I was very much willing to do it. I was very much willing to uproot my life in Canada to go and experience something else.

Pat (10:36)
know, our families can sometimes put pressure on us in our life decisions. Our parents invest so much into us parents are happy to see their kids kind of go off into the world while others want to keep them close to their chest.

you, was there any pressure or guilt when you made that decision to go so far away from home?

Simon (10:58)
Yes and no, have to say. my parents were separated since I was divorced, since I was two years old. And he was remarried with a wife and two kids. And for a period of about five years before me moving to Finland, my dad and his

kind of second family were living in Africa. And that's actually why I went to visit you because I was visiting my dad in Africa, And that's when I met my wife. My mom and her partner at the time were moving a lot

They had moved when I was younger to Montreal and then now they were moving to Toronto. So there was a feeling on my end of, well,

people are not kind of sticking around for me. So it's fair game in a way for me to go wherever I want. And I can't say I've been bitter or anything like that, but it has kind of opened that possibility for me that my dad's in Africa, my mom's moving to Toronto four hours or five hours away.

they can't really get angry at me for wanting to move somewhere else because they're not here. And my mom, especially, who I'm very close to, when I told her that I was moving to Finland, she was very upset, actually. And I'm so close to my mom that I was scared that, this going to put a wedge between us and our relationship? But the next day, she called me and she said, you know, Simon,

You're my son, you're my only son, you're my only child. I love you, I want you to be happy. And I know our discussion yesterday was not the best, and I'm sorry, but I just want you to be happy. And if you feel like going to Finland to pursue that your life is the right decision, then I will support you 100%. And to me, it showed a great deal of compassion and love.

And pretty much everything you want as a parent when you kind of think about raising your kids is the art and loving way of letting go, So yes, there was resistance, but for just a very short time, And my dad was actually coming back to Canada when all of this was happening.

But he had been gone for five years, so he couldn't really kind of get upset about me moving.

Pat (13:22)
they not accepted, you think you would have made the same decision?

Simon (13:23)
I would have still done it, think. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think I would have. I'm always somebody who's been very comfortable in the decisions that I've taken in the passions I've pursued. So I would have probably done it anyway.

Pat (13:41)
the story we're discussing, was, to me it signals a pretty mature guy for 21, 22, making these decisions, having these difficult conversations with your mom then uprooting your life and going, and then starting from scratch when you arrive. Would you say,

In that moment, you felt yourself maturing. Would you say you were already a pretty mature person?

Simon (14:07)
I'm sure if you would ask people who knew me at that time they'd say I was not a very mature guy compared to you know at 39 but especially my wife probably but

in that regard, yes, in the optics of wanting to settle down, wanting to have a family, wanting to have a career and stuff like that, that's something that I was kind of looking at from a mature lens

Pat (14:33)
I would say one thing that is clearly shows a sign of maturity is that you were willing to forego short -term gratification for long -term goals that you had set in your life, which was you knew you wanted to have a family, you knew you wanted to get married, and you knew you didn't really want to waste time, and you pursued those goals. Whereas a 21 -year -old may say, I have those goals, but why do I need them now? Maybe I'll...

I'll do them in five or 10 years and then you wake up and you're 35 or maybe 40 and you still haven't begun to tackle that goal because you've been, you know, focused on short -term gratification. it easy for you to renounce some of the things that you needed to renounce in order to dive into this new life you were creating for yourself?

Simon (15:25)
looking back on it now, it's not as if I had a great deal of things that were attaching me to where I was at that time. So the decision was made easy in that regard. It was made easy because I didn't have so many strings attached. My dad was living in Africa. My mom was living in Toronto.

So it was more or less only friendships that were holding me back. And I felt like, well, know, friendships, if they are good friends or if they are good friendships, they'll survive the test of time and space or long distance.

and the friendships that are not so good will probably fade out. But again, I don't feel like I had that much to lose by taking that leap of faith So it's a different story if I was risking a lot, then maybe I'd feel a different way, but I wasn't risking much by moving.

Pat (16:24)
And I think you were pretty comfortable in your own skin in terms of being able to meet new people and make new friends and build a new network, social and professional.

Simon (16:34)
Yeah, a bit. what was maybe more of a challenge was when I actually arrived in Finland. And for those of you who are familiar with Finland or not, it's a country that is, I would say, more introverted than extroverted, the people of Finland. So it was a surprise for me that to make friends or to make friendships here was a bit more challenging than I thought.

Pat (17:00)
a lot of people today who are not convinced of marriage or not even convinced of the monogamy. made that decision pretty early on in your life. Were you certain that that was gonna satisfy Simon?

Simon (17:12)
when I met my wife and everything, yes, absolutely. it wasn't really, for me, a question like it is for some other people.

where they want to have all these experiences before they commit to somebody. I would say that at the time it wasn't something that was preoccupying my mind or that I was thinking about so much. Just because it's something that I was looking forward to being in a relationship for a long time. And before I met my wife, my longest relationship was maybe four months.

So I hadn't had really a very long -term relationship of living with somebody and being with someone.

Pat (17:52)
you think of any advice for any listeners who maybe going through that decision now? Either they've met someone and they need to, they're thinking whether or not to take the plunge and they're asking themselves questions or maybe listeners who are not even there yet.

that feel like I'm nowhere near ready to get married, even though they know that a life goal is to get married and have kids. And I would say I would put myself in that bucket. I was someone who knew I wanted to have children, but I kind of thought that that's gonna come tomorrow. my everyday actions,

didn't work towards that goal. And that's when at some point I woke up in my mid thirties and said, there's a disconnect here between my everyday actions and what I truly want longterm for my life. And that disconnect created a lot of anxiety and stress and loneliness for me. And for me, was, you therapy really helped to kind of align those two together. And, and so

Any advice for people either in the first camp where they met someone and they're wondering, is this the one? Or in the second camp, which would be me, who know long -term they want this, but their actions are not aligned today with that goal.

Simon (19:26)
know, if somebody doesn't want to get married or doesn't feel ready to get married, they should in no way, or form rush themselves to get married or to to jump into something because ultimately they won't be happy. I give the same advice to somebody who

wants to that commitment or wants that relationship, if that's what you feel you need in your life right now, then there's probably a good reason for it.

would say just the advice is really to listen to how you feel and to listen to what your...

your thoughts flow is telling you. everything happens in its time. Like for you, look what you have now, right? You're married, you have your first child. I don't think you would exchange that for anything else, right? You've gone through what you needed to go through

Pat (20:15)
Right.

Simon (20:18)
in order to lead up to what you have now. then for sure, if we look at what you have now, it's precious. You'd never want to go away from that. So in a way, your journey, your path to where you are or where you were was perfect for you. I would say the same thing for myself because...

Of course sometimes I would question, I can question, okay well did I commit myself to one person too early or did I jump in too early but really would I change it? I wouldn't because I have everything that I've wanted or that I want right now in my life.

Pat (20:59)
talked about intuition earlier. Now you're talking about that voice. You're talking about it. Basically a feeling that comes from within that says I'm ready or this is the right. today's society? We're just bombarded all the time with like we can't sit still. how do you make space for that voice? Like how do you make space to hear that voice or

Simon (21:09)
Mmm.

Pat (21:22)
follow that intuition.

Simon (21:23)
earlier in my life, when I took big decisions, when I took, you know, leap of faiths or when I changed the course of my life by making a decision or not, I can't say that I was actively listening to a voice in my head or intuitive voice. I think I was acting more on a feeling, which I believe was intuition, looking back on it.

And I think now what I've come to learn throughout the past probably five or so years is really to embrace this more kind of listening of your soul, basically, listening of what your soul wants and how to do that is more or less to slow down and to meditate. And I think that's a big part of my life now. But then again, before,

when I was younger, it just kind of manifested itself through a feeling of, I need to pursue this. You know, it kind of makes my soul thing. it makes, it makes me excited.

Pat (22:26)
like when you're younger, that voice may be more attuned to it. And maybe as you get older, it gets drowned out by reasons. Would you say that...

Simon (22:35)
Hmm?

work life,

Pat (22:38)
you say that that is a true statement? And so as a result, that's why you need to work at it differently.

Simon (22:44)
I do believe that we're all quite sensitive beings. if I look at myself and I...

look back on my life when I was younger I was very sensitive, very in touch with my emotions and when I arrived at about let's say 22, 23, 24 the life started chipping away at that sensitivity and I kind of hardened myself very much. I became very negative,

I became maybe even hard on my partner. became very, you know, it's just kind of the weight of the world and of your responsibilities starts to fall on your shoulders. I think sometimes you can kind of forget a bit who you are. It can make you forget what your purpose is in life.

It makes you maybe not the best version of yourself, And for me, it took some years. I was probably 34, where, you know, I was kind of burning the candles at both ends. was living incredible dreams. I was working in the NHL. was...

very successful in my communications work, yet I wasn't really happy with who I was becoming.

it took a few things, important things that happened in my life to reset the perspective, let's say, of how I want to live my life.

Pat (24:17)
a good segue, because I do want to start to move towards some of these shifts you made and the story of how you became a scout. But before I do that, you said that you needed to rejig things. There were some things you were not happy with. Can you just be a bit more specific about what it is that you felt needed to change?

Simon (24:41)
I think it's a lot of things that people experience just in their life when they become, when they increase their level of responsibility, whether it's at home or at work, stress starts to chip away at you, you get more impatient, you don't enjoy necessarily what you're doing on a professional level or even on a personal level.

taking all of your energy and you are starting to place your energy in places where it's not really where you want to put that energy and you're starting to feel like you're just one cog in the wheel and you're A, you're replaceable and B, people don't really care about your well -being so if you don't take care of yourself who will really, you know?

If you're just chasing the professional career and you're chasing achievement after achievement or promotion after promotion, it's a race that you'll never stop unless you say, I don't want play that game.

Pat (25:44)
it sounds like terms of your time management, maybe it was too much energy in career and just needed to rebalance some of that energy into other areas of your life that were more important. Okay.

Simon (25:52)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that's a fair statement.

Pat (26:00)
So became an NHL scout people who may not know typically, so every NHL team, the NHL is a national hockey league. Every NHL team has scouts throughout the world. typically these scouts, they go out and they find the next.

Generation of talent for the team It's a crucial part of a quality team and most of these tend to be ex NHL players or Hockey players that played at a very high level now simo you've always been a good hockey player, but you didn't play at the NHL level. Yeah nowhere in

Simon (26:36)
nowhere near a professional hockey player.

Pat (26:39)
And so you decided to pursue this knowing full well deck was stacked against you. And so tell us a little bit about the journey into becoming an NHL Scout.

Simon (26:50)
I was working at an elevating escalator company in Finland at the time. I want to say I was at that company for maybe five or six years and I was enjoying the work I was doing, but was it really kind of fulfilling my passion? Was it really

something that I was excited about when I woke up in the morning. No, you know, it wasn't. And, I was, I was kind of thinking, what am I passionate about? What is it something that I could kind of maybe redirect some, some of my energy and some of my effort to, build something that could then be a career where I would be really fulfilled and really happy about. And I was like, well, I've always been very,

passionate about ice hockey as many Canadians are and I felt like you know maybe I could become a scout I could I could give it a try so I was I it was I remember we were going to bed one time with my wife one night and I was just saying to her you know Mari that's my wife's name I said I want to I'm gonna work in the NHL that's what I want to do

And she started laughing and she said, well, Simon, you've never played professional hockey or you don't really know anybody, don't have really contacts. And I said, yeah, but you know, I'll find a way. So I was a insulted that she laughed, but I thought, okay, it'll just kind of drive me a bit more. So I started doing whatever I could to get any kind of experience I could get, which...

Eventually I started working for a company who did a software for all of the teams where they input their game reports and I was videotaping players for them in Finland. So I did that for maybe like one season or even less. And I was just trying to kind of build up a resume that I could at least have some experience when I presented myself to some teams.

And, you know, eventually it worked. So I was able to start doing some freelance video work for the San Jose Sharks. That was the year of the lockout. So then that was about 10 years ago, a bit more than 10 years ago. And that eventually led to a European video scout position with the Columbus Blue Jackets, which I did for then four years. And then they gave me the territory of Finland.

as to be the scout. And this was all kind of part -time as I was also working in, communications and PR and I had a good career there. so I was like for basically for eight and a half years, I was working two, what I called two full -time jobs, even though one was full -time, one was part -time, but of course the part -time job I was fully dedicated to. was, it was a kind of a passion.

but it also demanded a lot of travel inside Finland, so I would work, you know, eight hour day, and then I would drive three hours to go to Pori in Finland, and you know, come back after the game. It was probably midnight or 1 a So they were long days, and then when I talked about, you know, burning the candles at both ends, that was definitely part of it, but yeah, it was...

It was a great experience. would, you know, never, I never regretted going and chasing that dream. but it was also, part of my personality. And I think you said it in the intro of when I put my mind to something, I dive into it a hundred percent. And I was like that even more when I was, when I was younger, I think as I grew, as I've grown older, I'm a bit less like that.

Pat (30:27)
you

Simon (30:32)
until my detriment, I think.

Pat (30:35)
on the one hand, you talked earlier about needing to rebalance your life. the other hand, you're proud of the fact that you have this in you to pursue and kind of vision a goal and then work towards it. I also know bought a plane ticket and flew to the NHL draft on your dime made some bold moves that you

Simon (30:47)
Mm.

Yeah. yeah, yeah.

Pat (30:58)
know what the outcome was. You weren't thinking so much about the short term outcome, you were just, you were doing it, right? And so you're willing to take risks. now you said, well, I'm a bit older and maybe to my detriment, I'm not so much like this because I need to rebalance my life. But in a way you can't have it both ways, right?

Simon (31:06)
Mm -mm.

Hmm.

Pat (31:20)
can you? Can you rebalance your life and still these

Simon (31:26)
if you look at all the very successful CEOs or founders, entrepreneurs and stuff like that, very few of them will talk about their great work -life balance

even athletes, professional athletes and so on, you have to have a bit of an obsessive mind to be able to reach greatness, which in a way is a good thing and a bad thing. is it sustainable in the long run? No, that's what I think. And if you look at a lot of the

great innovators, great founders, great CEOs, great athletes. A lot of them, you know, typically end up having issues, whether it's personal issues, whether it's addiction issues, whether it's health issues, whether it's, scandals, stuff like that. There's usually something that comes out of it because...

To have that balance is very important and that's what I've learned basically in the past maybe 10 years.

Pat (32:31)
When you were burning the candle at both ends, old were your children?

Simon (32:35)
well, my son was born the day after I, or the day before I accepted my first position as a scout. So he was very young. So I would say they were between the ages of one and...

Seven, probably.

Pat (32:56)
Do you have any guilt about time away?

Simon (33:01)
Not really, not really. because I'm also so present now in their lives that whatever time that I might have missed then, now I've more than enough compensated for. And I'm also somebody who's never lived with regrets. I think that I've always been very comfortable in the decisions I've made

and the consequences that have stemmed from those decisions. I've always kind of owned up to them. I know some people even in my immediate family who have always kind of regretted things in their lives and have always talked about missed opportunities and

if this would have happened, would have been, you know, so much better and stuff like that. I've never really lived my life like that. So no, I don't have any regrets because I lived incredible experiences as well at the same time.

Pat (33:52)
mean, the reason I ask is, I mean, I see you as a present father and someone who's been, who has a good relationship with his kids and your kids well behaved, I would say, whenever they've been around me. the reason I'm asking is I'm actually going through something now where I have an opportunity to join some sort of startup boot camp that would take me away from

Simon (34:05)
Thank you.

Pat (34:18)
my son and my wife for at least 10 weeks. And maybe I can come back on the weekends, few weekends throughout those 10 weeks, but it's 10 weeks when I have a 17 month old, just seems like a long time. And so was wondering, emotions you may have felt when you were putting in 12 or 16 hour work days in those formative years.

Simon (34:34)
Hmm.

Yeah, but it's a bit different. You know, I was seeing them every day. I've always seen them every day, my kids more or less, or, you know, maybe maybe one week or 10 day business trip here or there, but I was still seeing them fairly frequently, fairly frequently on a daily basis. So it's a bit different. I would also feel reservations for, you know, to leave, leave them for, 10, you said 10 weeks or something like

Pat (35:12)
Yep.

Simon (35:13)
Yeah, it's not an easy decision for sure.

Pat (35:17)
so in your case, your career has been PR communications, which has paid the bills and you've had success and people have been willing to pay you to do it. So you obviously have been doing something right. But your passions becoming an NHL scout, that's kind of been call it your side hustle, even though was much of a commitment as a full time job. And then you have other side hustles as well that we can certainly get into.

Simon (35:23)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Pat (35:42)
Did you ever attempt to combine those two? Or in your mind, were you always comfortable with it being, okay, I something that's gonna pay the bills, it's not gonna be the center of my life, I'm gonna then carve out time and space and energy to do these things that I really love doing.

Simon (36:02)
The objective was always to eventually move away from the PR and communications work to focus full time on hockey. That was kind of the dream and that was the objective. And for X amount of reasons, that didn't happen. And when I started feeling like it's not gonna happen, that's when I started really feeling a lack of motivation to continue.

in with that kind of goal. There were a lot of opportunities that came or a couple opportunities that came after that, after I kind of decided to quit because I actually quit the Blue Jackets. I resigned, which is not so common. Usually get fired. But the objective

Pat (36:45)
Why'd you walk away?

Simon (36:47)
Just exactly what I I explained. the objective for me was always to work full time in hockey and it didn't happen. Personally, I think it was more because they knew I had this very good career full time in PR communications, working for good Finnish companies and the GM was Finnish. So he knew the companies I was working for.

He was very smart guy too. And he didn't, I believe, you know, a combination of, well, he has this successful career and he's doing a great job in the position that he's in. So why change it? Why, mess with something that's working for us? And we're, paying him probably peanuts compared to others. So, yeah. And eventually I just kind of thought, well, you know.

I wasn't so happy with the fact that I had been working eight years part time and there wasn't anything full time. And I resigned. and sometimes I don't regret it, but sometimes I feel, was it the right decision or not? I think whenever you have the opportunity to stand up for what you believe in, for what you think is the right move, it's probably the right thing to do.

Pat (38:02)
Was there an inner voice too at that time that was helping to guide you?

Simon (38:08)
Yeah, I would say. It's like that inner voice, that feeling of, I'm not happy with what I'm doing. I'm not getting that enjoyment, I'm not getting that fulfillment, that passion's not there anymore. And it should be because it's something that I've enjoyed doing for eight years and that I wanted so bad. So if I'm really not happy doing it, there's a serious problem.

It's about listening to your emotions and it's about also listening to how you feel. Not necessarily listening to what you're thinking, but listening to how your body is making you feel.

Pat (38:40)
find it's not always easy to discern between the two. How do you do that?

Simon (38:48)
Well, the mind, I think the mind is a bit paranoid, right? The mind is kind of always thinking about, know, will I survive? Will I be able to make it out alive? But the body, there's a certain feeling, a physical feeling

it's not that voice in your head that's always resonating and always questioning and always going a bit crazy. And actually it was a book of one of your fellow podcast guests who recommended this book, The Untethered Soul. Jean -Philippe made that recommendation on LinkedIn one day and I just, I was in an airport.

and I thought, I'm going to try to find this book. And there was one copy left, and I read it and changed my life. It was such a profound experience actually, because it was exactly about that. It was exactly about, you know, the voice in your head is not you. You are not that voice. You're so much more than that. And the voice in your head is just kind of your, basically your...

your insecurities or your mind and your brain trying to navigate the world but it doesn't mean that your thoughts are you. And that for me was, I was reading it on the plane and I started crying because it was so profound and it was such a kind of aha moment. And I don't remember really the exact date or year I read that book but it was pretty much around the time.

of all of this kind of transformation that was happening and that I made kind of those decisions of moving on from the hockey work and stuff like that.

Pat (40:23)
also read that book and I also think it can have a profound impact. And so I'll post a link to the description to the Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer in the description of the podcast for those who are curious to get their hands on a copy.

Simon (40:29)
Mm

great books sold millions of copies.

Pat (40:47)
When you left NHL Scout, maybe that's where the big rebalance started. then you've been very focused on your health, both physical and mental, also focused in other areas, your spirituality. love to hear more about that and how that's had an impact on you.

Simon (41:04)
it is absolutely correct when you say resigning from the Blue Jackets was, that was actually like the first domino, in rebalancing my life. And there were other dominoes, a year and a half later, I resigned from a job that I was working in.

which was a, you know, it was a very high paying job. It was a startup that I really enjoyed working for, but I just, couldn't get behind the leadership or the management. I had worked for companies, for big successful companies, stock listed companies in Finland with

amazing leaders who, I've learned so much from. So then to go to a bit of a more smaller company where I felt like the leadership was lacking was a shock. So that was another domino then that fell. Around the same time,

my brother or half brother committed suicide which of course was a huge shock to the system and to my life and it shakes you to your core so all those things combined you start questioning

Where are your priorities? Where do you want to put your efforts in life? And about two years ago, this was right about the time that I resigned from this startup I started putting a much bigger emphasis on my physical well -being and my health. I started going to the gym.

almost four to five times a week getting into the better shape because I felt like I was getting the dad bod a I was kind of letting myself go and I lacked the energy and I always felt like going to the gym was something that gave me energy

So it has been very much a journey in the past two and a or three years of rediscovering what I want to do. Luckily, having worked all those years, two jobs, I had saved some money. I was financially secure for a while that I could give myself that time to really

introspectively look at my life and what I wanted to keep in my life and what I didn't want to have in my life anymore. Has it been easy and straightforward? No, it's been, sometimes very difficult, very frustrating. But I do have that feeling that it's ultimately for the better.

And right now what I'm doing is I've basically for the past 10 months, I've founded my own consultancy for PR and communications, And it's been a very good learning experience. And now it's finally starting to gain a bit of traction, which is nice.

Is it what I want to do for the rest of my life? Probably not. Do I know right now what I want to do with my life? Not really, to be honest, I think I joked to you beforehand that, you know, for me, it's more like the wanting to be Peter Pan and not after Peter Pan.

And you talked about spirituality It has become an important part of my life, know, meditation

I think it all comes into the same topic of our purpose here on life. Why are we here? And that's something that about five years ago, I was really starting to question. I was working two jobs like we talked earlier. I was not so happy with what I was becoming as a father, as a husband, as a friend even to some people, as a colleague.

I started questioning why am I here? What's my purpose? Why are we here? And for me, that's really what spirituality is, is looking at the greater of ourselves and thinking about why are we here, basically.

Pat (44:59)
when I thought about a title for this episode, I was thinking, me, you're like the anti Peter Pan, Pan is this this syndrome of not wanting to grow up, and I associate

Simon (45:10)
Mm

Pat (45:11)
-term thinking, hedonistic lifestyle, and a disconnect between what you really want to get out of life and what you're actually doing in your day to day and not stepping up and taking responsibility in the world what I think of when I think of Peter Pan. And me, you were the anti Peter Pan because you did the opposite of that. You made

big decisions at a young age, you took responsibility, you started a family, you started a career everything that we've talked about. And now today, we've had chats recently where, you your kids are more and more independent and you have probably have more time on your hands than you ever have. And so you have more time to ask yourself those questions. And so maybe that's where you're saying this Peter Pan

Simon (45:32)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Pat (46:00)
is coming in. So you say, don't really know what I want to do. Where are you looking for answers? Because you know, I had JP on the podcast. I also had my friend Ashwin on the podcast. And the common theme was the answer to that question is not out there. It's in here.

Simon (46:19)
Yeah, absolutely.

Pat (46:21)
And so for you, any, how are you tackling that question as someone who's,

Simon (46:28)
I do agree a hundred percent. It is in here and it's not out there for sure. But I can honestly say that right now I just don't know inside. Right. And I guess it's about

just taking that time to allow life to happen and I'll find something that I'm kind of very passionate about and I'll be like, yes, that's what I want to do.

And it's trusting in life that that day will come because I do feel like it will. I'm somebody who's very determined, who's very dedicated, and I can have a quite intense nature to myself, as you know. And already maybe now at this point in my life, I feel like, okay, there's got to be something now. But I'm just...

I will jump into something when I get that feeling, that intuitive feeling of, yes, I can get behind that.

Pat (47:28)
And I think that in the meantime, you don't know which direction you wanna go, it's like you're in a room that's completely dark. you don't know, if you go in one direction, you don't know what's waiting for you at the end. you can do is take that next step, right? Like you need to have faith in the step. And so...

with you, example, like, let's talk about your physical health. You're very, very passionate about the gym right now. And what did you do? You went out and became a certified That's a step. Like, do you know if that's what you're gonna be doing for the rest of your life? You don't know the answer to that. at least you took a step, right? And you're taking steps and kind of feeling it out because opposite would be to just stagnate, just stay in one place.

Simon (48:06)
Yeah.

Pat (48:14)
And I think that that's what people, a lot of people do because they're, they're paralyzed with, with some fear, some anxiety and just ambiguity. They're waiting for more certainty. And unfortunately in life, that certainty never comes. You got to have, have faith in the timing of your life.

Simon (48:14)
Mm -mm.

Yeah, and I think life rewards movement as well. If you're stagnant, usually life passes you by so if you take these steps, if you take these, you know, whatever those steps might be, it's better than just staying stagnant. And if I go back to actually, when I decided to move to Finland,

This is very interesting. goes back to this kind of having faith in life or the universe or whatever you want to call it. Having faith that things will work out. They might not work out exactly like you want them to, but they'll work out somehow and you'll learn from it. Because, you know, when I moved to Finland, I said earlier that I was

you it was at the time when I was ending my studies and everything like that. I actually had one semester left and I had gone to Finland to spend Christmas with my future fiance and I had spent a month there, came back and I was supposed to finish my last semester and I think I lasted a week back in Canada and at the university and

I wanted to, I didn't want to be there. didn't want to, I knew that my heart and my life was going to be in Finland. And when I was in Finland during that period of time, I had actually had an interview with the company I eventually worked for, Nokia, And I hadn't heard back from them if I had gotten the job or not. And the day that I...

took the decision to finish my university studies and to finish all of my courses by correspondence so that I could finish them while I was in Finland. The day I decided to do that, I got home and I called my wife, then my fiance or my girlfriend, and I said to her, you know, I'm coming home earlier, or I'm coming to Finland earlier, and I opened my email.

And I had an email from the hiring manager saying that, you've been selected out of 200 people to get the job. And it was just an amazing, you know, coincidence. I don't believe in coincidences, but it was such a weird thing that it was happening on the same day that I had really decided that I'm leaving.

So I don't know if it's from that or from later on in life or even before in life but I've always had an innate knowing that things kind of take... If you work hard and if you do the right things you're taken care of somehow, the universe

looks out for you in a way. And right now in my life, all those things are maybe not going exactly like I would like them to go or exactly like I would plan them. You know, if I could plan my life in a certain way, it's not going necessarily that way, but I do still have that trust that, you know, things will unblock at some point.

And I think you've probably had the same thing in your life sometimes where things are overwhelming, things are not going your way. But eventually that changes. It might take longer. It might take more months or more years than you think, but eventually there's an unblockage at some point. Have you had those kinds of moments where...

Pat (51:52)
Yeah, I mean, makes me think of the word manifest. inexplicable things timing of things, you just say, this can't be a coincidence. And sometimes just the decisions working up to the outcome manifests itself. The other thing that comes to mind with what you said is this mantra that I came across last summer.

Simon (51:58)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Pat (52:16)
when I was on a retreat in Spain and was trust, let go, be open. powerful mantra that I tend to repeat to myself when I'm in unknown situations that cause stress or anxiety or just fear and unknown. But I think Simone were...

Coming up on the end of the episode, I think we're closing at a good place. one question that I like to ask to close with is that I gave my definition of growing up in this episode. really is the genesis for the concept of this podcast, but I realized that growing up means different things to different people.

love to hear what it means for you to grow up.

Simon (53:03)
I think the first thing that pops into my head when you say that is just for me growing up was realizing my parents weren't perfect. know and then to have to live that now with my kids also that you know right now well maybe not my 13 year old she definitely doesn't think I'm perfect but my 11 year old still thinks I'm perfect you know that I'm the best and stuff like that.

I always try to make them understand that I'm not. And I'm just a person and I'm a human and humans are therefore not perfect. And for me, that's, it goes beyond fatherhood or parenthood because at the end of the day, we're all not perfect. And we all need to have that compassion with each other also of kind of, you know, you're meeting somebody

where they are in their life at that particular time in their life and You'd never know what they're going through. You never know what they've gone through And that to me demands a lot of growing up from everybody, to see that in other people and to realize that When you when you interact with people is I think very important

It's easy to say it, but in practice it's very difficult even for me to put into application when I have my interactions with family members or friends or people in the streets.

Pat (54:30)
a message of compassion that's a great place to close. Thanks for sharing that, Simon. So I want to thank you for coming on the show today. I really enjoyed our conversation and I would love to have you on again sometime in the future. I

Simon (54:47)
Absolutely. Thank you.

Pat (54:48)
Is there any

good. Okay. Well, again, thanks Simon. It was great.

Simon (54:50)
Yeah, cool. Thank you, thank you. All right, take care.

Pat (54:55)
Hey listeners thanks so much for tuning in today. I hope you found the episode entertaining and insightful. It was the first episode in the Anti-Peter Pan series, my thinking behind this series is to drop an episode from time to time where I interview someone who dove into life responsibility and commitment at a young age and nd I was really thinking of those listeners who associate with the Peter Pan syndrome. 

By the way, if you enjoyed the episode I'd love to hear from you. I love this Fan Mail feature which is a link that is embedded in the description wherever you listen to your podcasts and those messages go directly to me. So I would love to hear from you, any feedback, any recommendations or ideas.

Thanks again for tuning in and until next time.