S4E6: Lauren Manekin Beille | Consultant & Facilitator | November 2, 2023

S4E6: Interview with Yukon Entrepreneur Lauren Manekin Beille, Consultant and Facilitator | November 2, 2023

 

It’s Yukon Innovation Week 20223 and the Yukon Entrepreneur Podcast is once again featuring a mini-series of insightful conversations with Yukon entrepreneurs on what innovation, inspiration, wellness, and community mean to them.

 

(0:21) Lauren introduces themselves and shares their recent journey into solo entrepreneurship, tackling projects that look at the really tough questions and complex problems we are facing as a society such as the opioid crisis and housing issues.

 

(2:53) What does innovation mean to Lauren? Anything new or existing that has to be imagined and how we go about that process of looking into the problem and creating solutions. Post-covid, everything is innovation. “We are having a hard time understanding what happened yesterday and we are having a terrible time predicting how to solve the problems of tomorrow.”

 

(4:13) When it comes to wellness, Lauren finds themselves going in and out of balance and recognizes their attitude of being all in is both a superpower and a great weakness. They have been working on how to prioritize their work in ways that can support better balance.

 

(5:33) What inspires Lauren in the work that they do? For Lauren, they are inspired by how and how critical the work is. People are desperate to be heard, seen, and made feel they are valuable. Once people are made to feel cared for, valued and seen, they are drawn to be part of the solutions.

 

(7:20) Lauren describes how debilitating fear is and how we let our fear, and our insecurities hold us back from doing the right thing which may be different for each and every one of us. They are bothered by how there are not more opportunities for restorative justice and for people to come together in conversation but are hopeful that we will be able to get there.

 

(9:21) How can we transform the systems not serving us well? Lauren has learned so much through meeting people where they are and how there are different solutions at an individual level. It is asking the question, given people’s truths, what will it take for them to step in and up to be a part of a finding shared solution to something much larger? “This type of work takes creativity, courage and deep vulnerability and a lot of people are ready to do it, they just need the avenue and conduits to do it.”

 

(11:04) What lesson does Yukon have to share with the world about innovation? Lauren speaks about how the First Nations people of this territory have been tremendous leaders in showing the world an example of self-determination and creating systems for themselves that work. They feel as a smaller community we have the power to create a tipping point to create change at a human-centered level, and we could have the influence to develop solutions in a grassroots sense partnering with government that reimagine a beneficial, new future.

 

(13:30) What’s next for Lauren? They are having conversations with many people around finding new ways to go about having hard conversations, and they want to continue to embrace the power of community by working with the systems in place and other trailblazers to come together to solve the big problems.

 

Thank you for listening!

 

For more information about Lauren please visit: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/laurenmanekinbeille

 

For more information about Yukon Innovation Week please visit: https://yukoninnovationweek.com/