Stepan Stewart-Quires

Stephane Stewart, an author, motivational speaker, and learning consultant, shares her journey from Jamaica to Canada and how her formative years in Jamaica have influenced her purpose of helping others. She discusses changing her major to political science and her belief that laws and procedures are meant to improve citizens' lives. After being downsized from her job in 2020, she realized her purpose was to deliver mindset and leadership development courses. She emphasizes the importance of taking care of oneself through healthy eating, exercise, and positive thoughts. She encourages listeners to love themselves and recognize their worth and purpose in life. She also discusses the power of thoughts and the need to change negative habits by creating new neural pathways through positive thinking. She suggests dedicating 30 minutes a day to focus on positive thoughts and redirecting negative ones. Welcome, my name is Esther, the host of the Canadian Businesswoman Podcast. Today, I have the honor of speaking to Stephane Stewart. She's an author, motivational speaker, and learning consultant. Welcome to the show, how are you today? I am excellent. Thank you for having me, it's a pleasure to come and chat with you. I always ask my guests to just give us a short story about your life before, growing up, and whatever led you to this point. You know, it's, I think, I'm from Jamaica. I was born in Jamaica, and I came, I migrated. My parents had us migrate to Canada when I was age 10. So I spent most of my life here in Canada. But you know, my formative years in Jamaica are still impacting on my life. I remember in grade one in Jamaica, they divided the class in half, and they gave me half the class to teach to read. And I believe that the, my guide, my purpose was always to help people to identify their purpose and to do their best to, and that's what I do. I've done it since I was in grade one, and I've done it in so many different forms. I, my, I studied. Undergrad, I did political science, and I excelled in political science, so I think I, I started in business, actually, and I thought, this is, this is really not challenging me as I think it should. So I decided to change my major to political science, and I completely enjoyed it. And the fact is, because I thought the laws and the procedures of legislature are, were made to make lives of citizens better. And I thought I wanted to be part of that process. And in 2020, while working, it's a big jump, while working and delivering mindset courses to the OPS community, I was downsized out, and I came home and I was pretty gray. And I remember lying in bed for the third day, and something inside of me just said, get up, really, honestly, are you going to sit there and let them, you know? And I got up and I, because I was doing mindset courses and leadership development courses, and I thought, this, when I started to do it, I thought, ha, this is it. This is my purpose. It, sometimes we do things, and we're not aware that, of why we're doing it. And our purpose isn't completely resonated or full-blown obvious. But while I was at the government and delivering these courses and mindset development presentations, I realized that all that I had done, I had taught middle school, high school, and college. And even in my teaching, a lot of my students said to me, Liz, you need to be motivational speaker. Because I was always encouraging them and getting them to be, to reach higher, to raise the bar higher and to reach for it. And so, it has brought me here. Thank you for sharing your story. From my experience, it's never a direct path to your purpose. But everything that may not even seem related will still eventually lead you to where you need to go if you keep that in mind and you're focused on just personal development. And I know you focus on not just the mindset, but also healthy living. So, how does that tie in what we eat versus what we think? How is that connected? What you eat becomes part of your body. So, there's a famous saying, God is in, God is out. So, if you feed your body junk food, it will not fuel healthy living. If you don't... We were meant to move and we were meant to... One of our biggest jobs is to take care of you. You are responsible. You are CEO of food, of you. And a lot of times, we want to be CEO of everybody else, but it starts with being CEO of us, what we eat, what we do, how we sleep, what we think. And if we can conquer us, then we can conquer the world. And conquering you means doing the best for you, the best food, the best exercise, the best thoughts, the best classes, what you need, finding... And we're all unique. You may be allergic to apples, but I may not be. But it's my responsibility to find that out. And it's my responsibility to find out what best fuels my system so that I can be always actualized and ready for all the challenges that come because challenges must come if I am to grow. And if I am to grow, I need this body to be in perfect condition to take on and to move forward and to be active in whatever comes to me. There's no other way. I mean, we use our bodies. It's the only tool we have to make change. Absolutely. I had kind of the same epiphany as you and I think hopefully a lot of people during 2020 because that's when we were experiencing the pandemic and the lockdown. And I didn't realize how negative my thinking was towards myself and how hard I was on myself until everything was locked down and I still had these voices telling me that I should be doing something. And I'm thinking, well, I legally can't do anything. So why do I still have this voice in my head? And that's when I recognized that I have to change my thinking. And also, the eating thing too, like if I'm not at my best, if I'm not eating the best things, I see, I see, it's usually either I act negatively or I just don't have the patience to react positively, right? That tends to be my experience. You know what? Talking about eating and time, I remember during the pandemic or I was thinking about the time it took to do my hair and being a Black woman, our hair takes a lot of time. And I was angry at first. And I said to myself, why does it have to take so much time? And then I remember a small voice said to me, something, the thought said, why are you so upset that it would take time to take care of you? Why would I want, why would I not want to take time to take care of me? And the reason is because we weren't taught to love ourselves and that I deserve the time it takes to beautify me, my hair, my eyebrows, my skin, my nails, because I am worthy. Until you become aware that you are worthy, you will be annoyed at the time it takes to cook, to clean, to manage yourself, and to appear every day the best that you can. And I remember going, sitting down and thinking about it, and I Googled, what does it mean to love yourself? And that awareness, that journey started me to realize that it all comes from loving you. Knowing that you have a purpose, you are here on a mission, and only you can accomplish what you can do. There's nobody else. The world needs you. The world is depending on your contribution to it. The world needs you. The world is depending on your contribution to complete the whole. And it's your decision. There's lots of people who live, no, no, they exist for a number of years, and they die existing, and they did not accomplish what they were sent here for. And it's a shame. I don't want that to happen to me. There are challenges. There's challenges in taking care of ourselves. There's challenges in realizing our purpose. There's challenges in building relationships. Planet Earth was not meant to be a plateau. There's hills and valleys, mountains and streams, rivers, waterfalls. It was built so that we could be challenged. So that we could accept the challenge of making a home, beautifying a home, beautifying ourselves. You know, I look around at, I love being outdoors. And when I get outdoors, I am just awed by the miracle of nature. Can you think of the amount of species of flowers there are in planet? Millions. What's the purpose of flowers? For us to enjoy. So don't tell me that you're not here, we were here to have a life of drudgery. No, we were born to enjoy, to excel, to love life. And in doing so, we grow. We, challenges come to us for us to grow. We are meant to move forward. We are meant to be creative. We are meant to be inventors. We are, that's who we are. I agree, I always think that there are a lot of people who are just zombies, pretty much. The living dead. Who are just existing, but not, not fulfilling their purpose. And everywhere you see in nature, there's always an evolution. Nothing stays the same. Even we do not stay the same physically. So we can't expect mentally that we should stay the same or accept that we're staying the same. So you, you go to nature, you go to nature. And you mention that you can help people change their minds with just 30 minutes a day. And, and as I said, during the pandemic, I was, I had to have a mind shift that I'm still working on. And part of that was guilt, though, because I didn't feel like I should be putting so much time and energy into myself. That I should always be doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And that was guilt. And part of that was guilt, though, because I didn't feel like I should be putting so much time and energy into myself. That I should always be putting more time in other people. So how can we change our mindset with only 30 minutes a day? Okay. It starts out with 30 minutes. And 30 minutes will leave you, but you need to start somewhere. And what people don't understand is every thought, everything in life, every single thing that has been invented that we use, started with a thought. And that thought, when we think of thoughts, a neural pathway is created. And when you think more on that thought along the same subject area, it deepens that neural pathway. And so the habits get formed by our very thoughts. Now, if you want to change your life, you have to change your habits. And your habits are thoughts which forward neural pathways. Neural pathways that are deep. And they're the things that you think you've been thinking on, maybe 30 minutes a day for the last 10 years. And so now your brain, our brain is the best computer in the world. So once you train it to do something, it automatically takes over. So if you want to change it, you start a thought. You create a thought. And you think on that thought for 30 minutes or 5 minutes every day. And every time you want to revert back to a negative thought, you stop yourself. And you be gentle with yourself. And you say, you know what, it's entirely up to how you talk to yourself. But I said, no, no, no, not today. Thank you for that thought. But that's not what I need. What I need is this. And I go back to thinking the thoughts that I need to move forward to change my life. Our minds are the tool that governs us. What we were taught as children dominate our lives. What we were taught in school dominate our lives. And if you are an addict of bad news, it dominates your life. So those people who are making the news, oftentimes this is their livelihood. They have a good living. Do they care that your mind is being destroyed by it? No. But you should care. Because thinking, always dwelling on negative thinking, will never give you positive outcomes. Be aware of what you're thinking. Be aware of what you're thinking. And when I listen to the news, yes, I do need to know what is happening. And strangely enough, when I stopped listening to the news as of 2020 and a little bit before, I realized that when I needed to know something, it came to me. If you are focused on building you, you will get all you need. It will come to you. So people are worried that they won't be in the know. You know, I was having a conversation with someone not too long ago. And I said, some of the news that we hear, we have little control over it, but it has a lot of control over us. Let's develop wise practices of screening all that comes into our mind. Because it affects our mind. We wouldn't go out and buy a nutritious meal and sprinkle poison ivy on it. No. But we do that all the time with our minds, with the kind of news and conversations that we get involved in. We need to screen that out. We need to say no to people who want to gossip and tear people down. We need to say no to organizations and rules and procedures that diminish equity, fairness, justice in our society. Because, you know, some people say we don't want to get involved because it's not my business. It's not my business. Well, you know what? Because you're on planet earth, and because it came to you, it becomes your business. And it may not apparently, obviously be affecting you, but it is affecting you because it is diminishing our environment. Anything that diminishes planet earth diminishes the existence or the potential of how you live here. We are all connected. We are all one big family. Regardless of skin, race, ethnicity, we are related. And what affects me affects you. I agree. Our minds is the tool. It's the central processing unit of our body. It is what tells us how to live. It is what determines our success or our failures, our triumphs. Everything starts in the mind. And if you can control your mind, you are achieved greatness. The mind is an awesome tool. And human beings, we haven't quite realized the power of our mind. But if you look around at what we've achieved so much, it will tell you the potential of our minds. If our predecessors sat around and did nothing, then we would not have the privilege of all these technologies that we are using and taking for granted. It all started with a thought. As we all have a different purpose, and we need to realize our purpose in this life so that others can benefit, it's by no chance that you are here. I agree. I believe there's no mistakes, especially if you learn from them. They're only a mistake if you keep repeating it and ignoring the lesson that you need to learn. Is there anything else that I haven't asked you today that you wanted to share with us? One of the things that I would like, in talking about the mind and our power, I want people to realize that change takes time. And we live in a society or in an era whereby we push a button and we get instant gratification. That too can be a curse because we have come to expect instant change when we want it. Body cells have a cycle. For anyone listening, I would love for you to Google or to research the life cycle of your cells in different areas. And it will fascinate you to know that our bodies shed cells and go through a cycle. So when you create thoughts, the thoughts send a signal to your cells. And if you have been sending a certain signal to your cells over a period of time, it is forming that cell over time. It's like planting a seed. It takes time for the fruit to grow, but it will grow. So whatever you've been planting for many years, there is going to be a fruit. In order to have a different fruit, you must now plant a different seed. And that too has a process of growth. It will take time for the seed to germinate. It will take time for you to water it and nurture it and wait for it. And then you can reap the fruit. Neural pathways, habitual neural pathways, will lose hold as you no longer think or build on those thoughts. Lack of use will diminish them. More use will strengthen them. And one of the major items for change is awareness. Know thyself. How do you get to know yourself? You have to spend time with yourself. This fast-paced society where we're always engaging, that too can be an addiction. Not being able to sit still and listen to you, to who you are. You'll never know who you are in the company of others. It's when you take time out and listen to what you're thinking, pay attention, so you learn who you are, where you're at. You can't change if you don't know. So, my admonition, or what I wish for myself and people in general, is to take time to learn you. And as you start to learn who you are today, you will be outfitted with the tools to move from strength. I am stealing the title of this book. He appeared on Oprah. You will move from strength to strength. And I will add to that, from glory to glory. That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom with us today, especially in this Black History Month. Perfect timing. If somebody wants to, maybe they are still working on their New Year's resolution, or they stopped their New Year's resolution and they want to restart it with a better mindset, where can they reach you? What's the best place? They can reach me at my website, at choirsinc, Q-U-I-R-E-S-I-N-C dot com. Or on Instagram, the same, choirsinc, Q-U-I-R-E-S-I-N-C. Or at my email, fstuart at choirsinc dot com. Or info at choirsinc dot com. It's always at choirsinc. You can always reach me. Oh, and you know what? Choirsinc. Choirs mean pages. And it was deliberately chosen. It means pages of your life. And the goal is for you to rewrite the pages of your life with stories of triumph, victory, and success. Go to triumph. There's lots of resources there for you to aid your journey to be the best person you can be. Thank you for being here today. And have a great rest of the day. Thank you.