#12: Bryce Seto - Exploring the Intricacies of Identity, Mental Health, and the Transformative Power of Personal Narratives

[00:00:19] Rob Pintwala: Bryce, thank you so much for joining me on Actualize. I wanted to just dive in with an observation. This is our first time connecting, but you strike me as a very busy individual. You are a father, a student, an executive, someone who co-founded a nonprofit. How do you make the time?

[00:02:37] Bryce Seto: getting right into it. Thanks, Rob. It's good to be here. I don't have time really but what I found is that you really, if it's important to you, you can kind of prioritize. I noticed that, you know, when I first, when I had my first daughter, I have two now. They're only 15 months apart.

[00:02:53] Bryce Seto: They're four and three years old. Once that first kid comes along you really start to, to be able to understand what's important. And how to navigate around that and how to manage it. So yeah, I'm busy. It's a little slower right now for summer. But you know, in my typical life and starting again next month, I'm doing my MBA, I'm at Ivy, the ivy hat for those who can see the video so here at Western in Ontario.

[00:03:15] Bryce Seto: And then I have a full-time job. I'm an executive at a consumer insights company, and we just started a nonprofit over the summer in May supporting Asian Canadians on getting access to mental health.

[00:03:26] Rob Pintwala: I love that. Yeah, I love the blossoms. Fun. We can talk a bit more about that too. So what have the last few years looked like? Like maybe we can just start with being in school. Like have you always wanted to go back to school or, what motivated that?

[00:03:43] Bryce Seto: Great question. No, I actually, I dropped out of undergrad actually. I dropped out of college originally, I never had any intention to go back to school, so I dropped out of school. I grew up in Saskatchewan, in the prairies, and then I filled up my little Honda Civic and drove across the country.

[00:03:58] Bryce Seto: Ended up in Toronto. And um, I was able to get into sales and learn business and navigate my way through it without a degree, into a point where I was pretty comfortable. I like not having student debt. I like not having to worry about having to go to school. But as I got older, I had my kids, my partner had gone back to school, she's now going into law school. My mom passed away last year in March. And I started to really think about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go next. And school was always kind of in the back of my mind. It became a lot more important to me once I had children and I wanted to really dive into something and really start learning again too, to see where my life could go. More on the ambition side. I do like business. I've been able to build a bit of a career in business, but I realized I have some gaps especially on things like, you know, the finance and accounting side. So I was like, you know what, let's take this a little bit more seriously. And I applied luckily Ivy was able to look at my work experience and, you know, not take my lack of education into consideration and they let me through. So once I got accepted, I just ran with it.

[00:05:05] Rob Pintwala: Incredible. I know Ivy's a top school in Canada and even probably North America. What has been it like, like what's it been like balancing the uh, at least your career? Like is your company making time or is this school just like weekends and evenings or what's it like?

[00:05:23] Bryce Seto: Yeah, so it's an executive MBA. So the way that they set it up is for people who are kind of already in an executive level. So the scheduling is based around that. It's really only, I say only it's only four days a month in class, but they're four very intense days. Like we're talking about like 8:00 AM until 6:00 PM from Thursday until Sunday. And then they pile you up with a ton of reading between the months that you're not in class. So then you have to prepare a bunch of business cases and read through a ton of chapters so that you're prepared to sit in class and go through it. And classes are like four hours long. So, you know, in terms of managing my time, It's really been about [00:06:00] having to get up early. So I'm up at like 4, 4:30 each morning to get two hours of just silent reading time before my kids get up. I've really learned to do that. And then filling in gaps, like I have my schoolwork with me at all times. Luckily, technology allows me to carry it on my phone or my computer wherever I am. And if I'm waiting in line at the doctor's office or to pick up my kid from daycare, I can pull up a case and just read through it quickly to get it into my brain and think about how I'm gonna attack it. The other cool thing about a program like Ivy and an MBA in general is just the network it provides.

[00:06:30] Bryce Seto: So I'm in a cohort of like 60, very accomplished, much more senior, smarter people than I am. So we have an ongoing like WhatsApp group and communication that I can just like reach out and talk to people. And that's the beauty of it, I guess at this stage of my life too, is just, you know, being surrounded by such accomplished people who are ambitious and kind of have the same goals as me. Who are willing to be incredibly vulnerable and ask for help and support each other. It's not competitive at all. It's actually pretty incredible. Like that network, people always talk about getting their MBA for the network. But really knowing what that means is like you are surrounded by some of the smartest people that you ever could be, and everybody is just like, there's no questions asked.

[00:07:08] Bryce Seto: It's just part of the code if you just help each other and you're just vulnerable with each other too, to help each other get to where they want to go.

[00:07:15] Rob Pintwala: That sounds incredible. Yeah. So I've recently started to read your . if you call it that. And I also read there that you had been writing for a company or one of your companies that you've worked for but you wanted to, you know, write for yourself , which I love. 

[00:07:34] Bryce Seto: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:35] Rob Pintwala: Tell us a little bit more about what you write about and uh, and, and why you write.

[00:07:41] Bryce Seto: Yeah, great question. So writing's always been near and dear to my heart. So you think back, and everybody kind of goes through this, I think when you're in school, like high school and you think about what you're gonna do and your teachers are like, oh, you should go do math or whatever. For me it was always writing and I didn't know what that meant.

[00:07:55] Bryce Seto: It's like, oh, your writing's great, you should go and write. So when I first started in undergrad, and you know, I kind of talked about how I dropped out. I thought I was just gonna major in English and maybe get into journalism, and then that's what I would do. So I started kind of with that path. I ended up, when I was in like my freshman year of university, the first little six months that I ever did there, I got a job as a journalist writing for the local paper Saskatoon. And I realized I hated it. I love writing, but I realized my relationship to writing was that I wanted to share what I wanted to share. I didn't want to write as a job. I didn't want to go cover under water, women's water polo on the weekend. I wanted to just talk about what was important to me so that kind of turned me off.

[00:08:36] Bryce Seto: And as part of why I didn't stick with school. And I went more of the business route, but it's always kind of been this lingering thing that stayed with me my entire life. I've dipped and dabbled in different kinds of variations of writing. I've always helped out my friends when they're launching businesses with copy, et cetera.

[00:08:50] Bryce Seto: And I've kind of always had a blog, so to speak, however you wanna define that.

[00:08:54] Bryce Seto: Right now. It's more like a newsletter on CK that people are subscribed to. And I started it actually, it's interesting 'cause I wasn't writing for a while. Kind of like dipping and dabbing on, I write something on Medium here or there, or LinkedIn or something. But I really wanted to take it seriously. Actually, when I was in class, I was in my marketing class in my MBA and we were talking about There's like the four P's of marketing. I'm not gonna get into the business nerd stuff, but the big thing was like promoting a product, right? And I was like, I wanna do that.

[00:09:21] Bryce Seto: I want, I wanna have something that I can promote. And then I was thinking there in class, I'm like, what if that thing was just me? Like, what if I just started to take my writing more seriously and kind of started to build it out and played around with what I'm learning in business school and try to promote it, try to grow it, try to have fun with it. But I realized something else that happened in my MBA which was in my leadership course, we had to do this exercise. It's called a 360 review, where all of your peers and people that report to you and your leaders have to do this survey to evaluate who you are. And it's a really hard look at what you're bad at, what you're good at, but it's like looking in the mirror at, you know, self-reflection as to where you're at and I had to write this report. I'd analyze that data and write this report. As I was writing the report, it wasn't, I don't know what they asked me to do, I was writing a lot about my childhood, like trauma. Like this is what made me, and like, putting the data into that. And as I wrote that report, I'm like, I like this.

[00:10:14] Bryce Seto: I like really diving into myself, figuring out my story and sharing it. I ended up doing pretty well on that. Much better than I thought I did, because I didn't actually answer the question of what the report was supposed to be for. But they still dug it. And then once I wrote that report, I just couldn't stop writing.

[00:10:29] Bryce Seto: I was like, I need to keep sharing this stuff. I just don't know where to put it. And I kind of, I recognize that I have a story to tell, like, you know, and I know we're gonna get more into the mental health stuff, but when I was diagnosed with BPD, I didn't really have anyone that looked like me sharing that story or what that experience was like. And I was like, you know what? I gotta be that voice. I gotta be someone that's sharing this information, because it could be helpful to people if they can connect to it, if they can read it, and they can kind of get that support that I didn't feel like I had back then. So, that's what opened it up.

[00:11:02] Bryce Seto: It was like this mix of like, oh, I'm writing in business school. I've always kind of wanted to do this. And then kind of the business aspect. I'm like, okay, this can kind of be like a case study to make it fun and apply some of these business skill skills to it as well. So that's kind of the birth of it.

[00:11:14] Bryce Seto: I started it in April of this year, and I've been writing two times a week consistently. I haven't really missed a week, and it's been a lot of fun. I've, I've really enjoyed it. I, 

[00:11:23] Rob Pintwala: You're an excellent writer too. And, and that's, that's bryce cto.com. Right. And we'll mention that

[00:11:28] Bryce Seto: That's right. yeah. B r y c e s c t u.com. Put the shameless plug in there.

[00:11:33] Rob Pintwala: I love it. Well, yeah, let's maybe get into it. You, yeah. So you mentioned your diagnosis. I read, I've read a little bit about this story of. Going and getting the diagnosis.

[00:11:47] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. What can you share about that experience and like, has this been a part of your life forever? Was it more, has it just been more highlighted you know, during the diagnosis and maybe leading up to that? 

[00:11:59] Bryce Seto: It's a good question. I mean, for me, when you ask if it's been a part of my life forever, I guess it has been to an extent. But I guess I wasn't aware of it. I just kind of knew that I responded differently than other people kind of emotionally to situations that happened in my life. I found it difficult throughout my life to create. Bonds or relationships or even friendships. There's always been like, it just has always kind of been different for me than I've noticed it for other people. So when I was diagnosed, it was kind of, it started to make things make a lot more sense to me. It started to kind of click, and I guess that's the beauty of therapy is like it allows you to reach a level of self-awareness that lets you, you know, kind of problem solve, okay, this is the, this is why I am the way I am, this is what I'm going through. And then you can figure out what are the skills that I need to work on to kind of get through that. So I guess the answer is, yeah, like it's always been a part of my life, but I was diagnosed six years ago and that's kind of when it all began to, you know, my journey of like what this diagnosis is, what this disorder is, how do I manage it, and how do I work through it.

[00:13:11] Rob Pintwala: Before, and maybe we can just uh, maybe you can just explain what you said, BPD, but what is that for folks who don't know?

[00:13:20] Bryce Seto: Yeah, so it's borderline personality disorder. I was diagnosed with it six years ago. And it's heavily underdiagnosed particularly among men. Basically, if I were to distill it down and kind of explain what it is, it's basically like a disorder where people with borderline feel emotions a lot differently than regular people. And that might just be more intense or it might be disassociated from emotions. It's always kind of like on either side of the spectrum and it's hard to like, regulate and normalize emotions in a lot of cases. So it's just a disorder where you kind of need to manage through that, unlike bipolar or other kinds of disorders There's no like medication for it. It's really treated through therapy. And in particular like what I went through was dialectic behavioral therapy, so DBT which is group therapy to learn skills. and it kind of takes you through particular modules of things you can learn that can problem solve against different kinds of issues.

[00:14:19] Bryce Seto: So some of those skills you learn are like distress tolerance. So when you're feeling very distressed, what are some things you can do to kind of get outta that state or emotion regulation or interpersonal effectiveness? So I like understanding how I, you know, have stronger and healthier interpersonal relationships. But one big common theme throughout D B T and what's been incredibly helpful for me is just understanding mindfulness. And that's always kind of like an underlying theme of everything you're working on is like being present, being aware, and then working through that. Any issues from there?

[00:14:49] Rob Pintwala: Very cool and no great explanation there. So leading up, so six years ago, prior to six years ago were you seeking therapy or were you going through, you know, some ups and downs or like, what was it like prior to those six years when you maybe didn't have as much awareness or knowledge of what, what was happening?

[00:15:13] Bryce Seto: Yeah. Looking back, I definitely was not actively seeking therapy. I don't come from an environment where therapy was something that was normalized or common or something that I thought you should do. I thought it was just for people that were like, you know, should be locked up, if you go to therapy and they admit you into a mental health clinic, and that wasn't me. So the way I dealt with it was through like distraction and I call it distraction, but that takes very multiple forms. So for me, that meant staying out all night and just drinking and just being away from myself, so to speak, and finding substances to take me outta my life. And so that I was drinking, it was drugs, it was just finding ways to avoid feeling.

[00:15:56] Bryce Seto: Right. I lived a very reckless life. Like, I feel like I didn't have a good compass or a good kind of like, boundary of or like not being reckless. Like I would, I wasn't, it was normal for me to just like be gone for like three days at a time, just like binging and like out with people who were problematic or, and then that wasn't I would book flights on a whim and just go to Cuba for a week just because I wanted to get away from everything.

[00:16:22] Bryce Seto: And it's just like, it sounds fun and it seems hedonistic and like, oh yeah, that's such a cool lifestyle. But for me it was literally like, I was just running away from having to deal with myself or, or the things around me. And that's also kind of like why I ended up in Toronto. So I will talk about how I dropped out of school and moved across the country. Part of that is like, and I kind of just wrote about this, like, you know, talk, I was able to kind of talk about it in a way that was like, oh yeah, I'm chasing something else. I'm ambitious, so you know I'm gonna go work on all this stuff. And in reality it was like, I'm also running away from not having to deal with some of these traumas that exist in the people around me or this town that I grew up in.

[00:17:01] Bryce Seto: It was like, you know, I'm just gonna get outta here. You know? And like that's part of the recklessness too, is because it's not normal for you to just like up and leave your parents and people that love you behind and not think twice about it. But that's kind of  how I was. 

[00:17:16] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Yeah, I can relate to that a little bit. yeah, I move, we've been moving around quite a bit, so yeah. Maybe you can share a little bit, we don't have to go super into it, but about your upbringing in Saskatoon. I've been driven through Saskatoon a couple times. You know, it's pretty far away from big cities.

[00:17:35] Rob Pintwala: I mean, it's a decent sized city. Right. But was it like growing up there and, and, uh, you know, how has your identity kinda shaped through that?

[00:17:44] Bryce Seto: Yeah, it is. I think about my childhood a lot and how I have kids here in Toronto and it's much different for them than it was for me. So I grew up in Saskatoon, and like you said it's not the smallest city in the world. It's about 250,000 people. So it's like a city, but it's not.

[00:18:00] Bryce Seto: a big city by any means. And I grew up in the inner city of the city and. You know, I kind of, I grew up in the hood, like it wasn't incredibly safe where I grew up. I remember my first week of high school, I watched the kid get stabbed and then I had to go to court and be a witness. And that was just,

[00:18:18] Bryce Seto: I think about that now.

[00:18:19] Bryce Seto: I'm like, there's just like, why? Like, it's just crazy. Like, that was the kind of environment I was in. I never really felt safe. Like, just walking to school and stuff was like, you know, you could always have a chance to get jumped or just like, messed with. And I had this feeling since I was young, like, I gotta get outta here. And that was it for me is like, Is it that I, I had to get outta here. I had to you know, find something more 

[00:18:42] Rob Pintwala: That seems pretty, you know, it's not that uncommon to wanna, you've had this kind of desire to, I don't know, kind of leap, leap outta there. Find more. Yeah.

[00:18:53] Bryce Seto: Yeah. I think that is common, right? And it was just kind of like this looming anxiety. So I left home when I was 17, got my own place, and then I left that place when I was 18 and left the city altogether. But altogether, I mean, I think my childhood was mostly fine as a kid in the nineties.

[00:19:12] Bryce Seto: Like I played sports. I did well in school, I played a lot of video games. But I did have a lot of anxiety growing up about just you know, it never felt like safe or secure or just like somewhere I could be comfortable. And I guess I've always kind of been chasing that. And that comes from two things, right?

[00:19:34] Bryce Seto: It comes from the nature of my environment of just kind of having to keep my head on a swivel and just see what's out there and make sure I'm safe. And then the second part is just financial insecurity, right? Just like, you know, I need to start working and providing for myself. So I started working when I was 14. I would, I worked at my local grocery store. I would stock shelves and I did this throughout high school. I worked from 10 until 2, 3, 4 in the morning, slept for a couple hours, then went to school just because I didn't want that feeling of financial insecurity. I didn't want to have to ask for anything.

[00:20:07] Bryce Seto: I wanted to be able to provide for myself at a young age. So, yeah just after high school I left.

[00:20:17] Bryce Seto: so just after high school I left I got into school for a little bit. But I think part of me not sticking with school too, was just the fact that I had to provide for myself. So I was working full time while I was in school. I had this job in sales, and what I liked about sales was like, how hard you work.

[00:20:32] Bryce Seto: Kind of determined how much you can make. And I was like, okay, I can stick with this. And so that's why I, I let school go and I just focused on that and I was like, like, okay, this can get me outta here. And that's what I did.

[00:20:42] Rob Pintwala: That's amazing. Yeah. So you, me, you mentioned the word trauma a couple times. Like, is that word something that becomes a little bit more clear to you once you know you got the diagnosis and like, I think about this word all the time 'cause, I work from this periphery of mental health and therapy.

[00:21:03] Rob Pintwala: But I know a lot of folks have different interpretations of the word trauma. And a lot of people think that trauma is just not part of them, right? Like, they just think it's . You know, not necessarily something they've experienced. Right. But I know there's all sorts of definitions of it, but I'm curious what your definition of it is, as it applies to you?

[00:21:21] Bryce Seto: I would think of trauma just from the perspective of like, almost like validation. So like, I feel like everybody's experienced trauma to some extent, and to what capacity, it might be varying, but you have if you're a human being, the human experience is like experiencing pain, that's part of it.

[00:21:39] Bryce Seto: It's whether or not you accept it and want to deal with it, or you want to just. Deny it, which a lot of people do. I'm moving very much towards not denying it. Let's deal with the truth and let's accept it. And that's how we move forward together? And so for when I say validation and trauma, I think like a lot of trauma comes from invalidation or extreme invalidation of just like, you know, trauma can happen from like neglect.

[00:22:01] Bryce Seto: It's like, okay I need to be, I need to be validated. I need to be held, I need to be, I need my feelings to be heard, and nobody is hearing them. I don't have anybody. And I felt like this was a lot in my childhood, and that's simply by the fact that my parents would work at night and I was just like I don't feel like I was like, tended to.

[00:22:18] Bryce Seto: Right? And there's, that, that creates a traumatic experience is like, you're invalidated. It's like I have these feelings. I don't have the ability to express them, to share them, to to be validated. And that, I think, creates trauma. And invalidation can take a lot of extreme, you know, examples like I use the example of Of neglect, but abuse is probably the most extreme invalidation. It's like, you know, I don't want you to do this. This is crossing a boundary. You're doing it anyway. You are abusing me. Whether that's physically, emotionally, sexually, whatever. They're invalidating your boundaries in the way that you feel.

[00:22:54] Bryce Seto: And I feel like that's kind of what creates trauma. So I think anybody can think about events in their life where they've had that happen. And then, and there's a lot of, there's a lot of studies on this. It's not perfectly tied together from my understanding. And again, I'm not a therapist or an academic in mental health.

[00:23:10] Bryce Seto: But with borderline personality disorder, there are links to traumatic events that have caused that. It just kind of creates like this cross wire in your way to manage emotions because of something that had happened to you and it spills out as this disorder. I mean, one of the most famous people that is open about their diagnosis of BPD is Pete Davidson. And he talks about how he lost his dad in nine 11. And that's, I feel like, and I'm, I don't wanna speculate, but it sounds like to me, based on the little bit we know about his story, that probably had an impact on, you know, his ability to regulate his emotions or manage them and may have impacted his his mental health and caused some sort of a disorder.

[00:23:51] Bryce Seto: Right. And I can think of a variety of different events that have happened in my life that tie back to my ultimate diagnosis.

[00:23:59] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's super insightful and yeah, I didn't realize Pete, Pete had the diagnosis as well, but I know he has been open about his struggles. And I actually struggle with that word. I read your post recently uh, you said, some folks have introduced you as maybe someone who's like, struggled with their mental health and you talk about how you don't love that introduction like yet.

[00:24:23] Rob Pintwala: Why not tell? Tell me a little bit more about that. I love the article, by the way. I thought it was awesome.

[00:24:27] Bryce Seto: I appreciate that. It's really just coming from this perspective of when we talk about mental health, it doesn't need to be talking about struggle. And I feel like that's how we want to approach the conversation, especially publicly. And I've been doing a lot of conversations like this and I've done some new stuff and it is kind of always under that parameter of like, oh, here's Brace Cedar.

[00:24:47] Bryce Seto: He's struggles with borderline personality disorder and. You know, listen to a story. And it's not that I sometimes struggle with it, but I really just have it, you know what I mean? It's just part of who I am. The same way that any human being has mental health, right? Like we all just have mental health.

[00:25:03] Bryce Seto: It's just part of, just the same way you have physical health, you have mental health, and we don't need to talk about mental health from the perspective of struggle all the time. My perspective and what I would love is to just normalize it, to be able to talk about it in an open way that makes it more accepting and easier and easier to have that conversation.

[00:25:24] Bryce Seto: Like going to therapy shouldn't be because you're struggling. You should go to therapy because it's helpful for your life and that it helps you figure out and become more self-aware and make better decisions that fulfill you and help you navigate through all the complexities of life. But that doesn't mean you're struggling. It's just, you are. Seeing a therapist. It's just like how Patrick Mahomes as a quarterback coach, it doesn't mean he's struggling with throwing, he's the best in the world, but the coach is just helping tinker and work on and get better day by day. So just having that, we talk about mental health through such a negative lens and everything has a negative connotation. And that, I think my perspective is that it prevents people from wanting to open up and speak about it. Because like, even for myself, it's like, okay, I'm making more and more appearances and they're gonna introduce me as this. I don't wanna be perceived as weak. You know, I want to be perceived as me.

[00:26:10] Bryce Seto: Right? I don't want that connotation of like, here's a, let's pity this person because they have borderline personality disorder. It's like, no, I don't, I don't want that. I wanna just share my story because I know my story could be helpful and anything that I could do to help that narrative of people just being able to like, talk about it.

[00:26:25] Bryce Seto: Like whatever it is. Anxi, we've all experienced anxiety. A lot of people have experienced depression. These are things we should be able to be open and just be able to talk about the same way we talk about, oh, I hurt my ankle. When I tripped over the bus or towards the bus the other day, and nobody's, you know what I mean?

[00:26:41] Bryce Seto: That's just part of life. You gotta physically heal that and away you go.

[00:26:44] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's well said. You You kind of, yeah, I mean, the word that comes up for me is like a kind of stigma then. It sounds like you're really still helping. I mean, I know it's a stigma to me almost seems like an old word, it's like, oh, why is it still around? But you know, you're outspoken about your experience.

[00:27:08] Rob Pintwala: You now probably have a good time to talk about your nonprofit or charity focused on Yeah. What is it like, I mean, there's definitely some, some level of stigma or maybe that's me projecting, but like, that, that's a theme in what you're trying to do here. So yeah. What is your, is it a nonprofit or charity or both?

[00:27:26] Bryce Seto: Yeah it's a nonprofit. So me and my co-founder, Madeline Chung, who is the founder of the Represent Asian Project which is a publication to help you know and highlight Asian Excellence in Media. She approached me through my newsletter actually, and we've been in touch for a little while.

[00:27:41] Bryce Seto: We've been friends. But when she saw that I was writing about this, she came to me and she asked if I wanted to work with her on a nonprofit she wanted to start. And she's also a therapist, so she's coming from that perspective as well. And it's something that I had in the back of my mind for a long time. And so we started the Blossom Fund, and it's specifically built to help Asian Canadians for now with getting access to culturally competent and the funds needed to access mental health support through therapy. And the reason why we started it, and I think why it was important for our community, I mean, if people can't see I'm. I'm half Chinese, I'm an Asian, Amer or Canadian man. The experience for Asians in general is specific and it doesn't have the specific care within the systems that we have set up. So yeah, there, you're right. I mean, there is a lot of stigma in our culture when it comes to mental health. There's some research that supports us as well that says that, you know, Asians are less likely to seek out mental health support than other cultures. And that comes from this mentality within our culture of like, you're not supposed to talk or know, worry about how you feel. It's all about your family and it's all about your work.

[00:28:50] Bryce Seto: You know, do good in school, get a good job and support your family. Don't talk about how you feel like that's not important. You just get over it and then away you go. And then, and what that does is going back to validation. It's incredibly invalidating and it creates this stigma that makes it harder for Asians in general to To get support for mental health. And that's a problem. I mean, everybody deserves access and, and, and the ability to get the support that they need. The second part of it and the other problem that we're trying to solve, so one is just normalizing it. And I talk a lot about that and share stories like, Hey, you know, I'm an Asian person and I've gone through this mental health journey and this is what I've been diagnosed with. And then the second part of that is about getting people access. So when we say access, we mean access to culturally competent resources. There's not a lot of the other problems, not a lot of Asian Canadian therapists. And what that creates is a relationship in therapy where you're not fully understood and understanding is so important.

[00:29:48] Bryce Seto: So anyone that's gone on a therapy journey, I mean, it's incredibly important that you find a therapist that makes sense and connects with you and, and understands you. if they don't understand. Those cultural stigmas and generational trauma that I spoke a little bit about, it's really difficult to connect in a way that you feel safe and can fully share what your experience is. And so, you know, we're trying to connect more Asian therapists with Asian clients just to build resources for Asian Canadians to be able to access help that is specific to them. And then we have a grant program. So the money that we're raising is to fund Asian Canadians to get access to expensive therapy.

[00:30:28] Bryce Seto: And that's, we understand that's a big barrier to people getting help. The one thing that I think is overlooked as well is Asian Canadians you know, are more underemployed or unemployed than the general population as well. So we wanna just be able to, to help bridge that gap to support you know, people to get access to the help that they need. Okay, so it's been going well. We launched this summer. We were about to hit our initial goal, which is to send 10 Asian Canadians on their initial therapy journey. And we're about to kick that off uh, hopefully this month. So all is going well. It's going well and we're still kind of in our fun initial fundraising phase, but what we've started with our mission back in May is beginning to actualize, and that's, it's incredibly rewarding to see that.

[00:31:11] Rob Pintwala: That's incredible. That's incredible. Yeah. I love the mission. I have learned quickly about cultural competence. Aspects of therapy very quickly. When I started this business, you know, I started with a very small group of therapists and wasn't quite thinking that deeply about diversity. I was just, you know, trying to get whoever I could up on the website.

[00:31:34] Rob Pintwala: But very quickly had quite a bit of requests for certain, you know, cultural backgrounds of therapists. And now it's, I take that into account, you know, upfront and center. I think it's so important and like, as you mentioned, you know, it's not even like you can explain, first of all, therapy is expensive, so why should you have to pay to explain to your therapist about your upbringing and your background, especially if they're not even gonna get it anyway.

[00:31:57] Rob Pintwala: You know? 

[00:31:58] Bryce Seto: Yeah. 

[00:31:58] Rob Pintwala: So I it, you know, and like added to the fact that like in a lot of cultures there's not even like the right language for, it doesn't translate to English very well as far as like depression or like certain other mental health or emotions. Even. Not all emotions are even translatable, which is so critical in yeah, just trying to express yourself.

[00:32:17] Rob Pintwala: Right. incredible, Incredible results already with Blossom Fund. So I actually lived in Shanghai for six months at my university. And it was a pretty intense place. And just like, you know, I didn't get super, super close with any local families or anything like that, but just witnessed the culture firsthand and just the sort of, Relentless, like work ethic and you know, everyone, I mean I was also in like the biggest city or one of the biggest cities in China, but just, you know, sort of the first word that came to mind was competition.

[00:32:55] Rob Pintwala: like I'm at this time, I'm in my third year university and I was really interested in psychology and I remember my psychology, like 1 0 1 class or whatever. And university was like talking about the difference between eastern and western cultures and how eastern cultures are more collectivists and westerns are more individualistic.

[00:33:15] Rob Pintwala: Right. And I think I took that the wrong way because I thought that meant Eastern cultures I as Asian were like more of one another. Conforming like that. You know, when I got to China I was like, holy crap, everything is like a race. Like I can't even get a seat at the subway 'because people are sprinting and like, you know, it was really intense and I was like, this is really tiring.

[00:33:40] Rob Pintwala: You have to negotiate for everything. And it gave me a little bit more understanding of the culture. I'm by no means an expert, but I don't know. Do you have any? I've also interviewed quite a few Asian Canadian therapists about this as well. And yeah, like what do you relate to your own upbringing with I'm taking it one of your parents being Chinese, Canadian or Chinese.

[00:34:06] Rob Pintwala: Do you kind of see that some of that stuff has passed down or like, do you see in hindsight that it affected you growing up?

[00:34:13] Bryce Seto: For sure. It's interesting 'cause I'm not. I'm born in Canada, in the prairies of Canada. My dad was born in Canada and he's Chinese, and my grandfather came to Saskatchewan when he was 14, they started a restaurant in Humboldt, Saskatchewan. When he was 14, they had a restaurant hotel. So I'm actually very Canadian, but I obviously identify as an Asian person.

[00:34:33] Bryce Seto: I'm not treated as a true Canadian because of my background. And a lot of those you know, kind of cult cultural traditions and nuances, they definitely get passed down for sure. I don't speak Chinese, Mandarin, or Cantonese at all. I can order dim sum if we go out, but that's it, Um, but the actual nuances of the culture stays with it. I think about my Asian family a lot and their approach and relationship to a topic like mental health. It makes it hard, right? It makes it hard to talk about it or have access. Like me, I feel like I couldn't have this kind of discussion with my dad, and it's simply because. It's never been an option for him in the way that he's grown up. So that gets passed down. Right. He's, you know, you mentioned the competition aspect within Asian cultures. I think a part of that as well, even thinking about the collective collectivism side is like this aspect of expectation. And so it's, yes, you know, family is super important and your job is to provide for your family and to, you know, provide financially maybe, but also provide reputation, provide honor, do something that will make your family proud.

[00:35:41] Bryce Seto: Right. My dad definitely carried that weight on his shoulders, um, his entire life. And so you think back to what that means. It means like this idea of expectation of there's no room for you to not be the best you can be. And when you talk about mental health, the entire concept of mental health is just being honest. It's saying, Hey, you know what? This is truly how I am and how I'm feeling. And you know, when, when you're talking about like, the best part of that is like hiding that. How do you not show any weakness so that you can channel your energy and focus into your work? And if you show any weakness, then you are bringing dishonor into our collective, our family. And that's not okay. Right? Especially for my dad who was the oldest son in his family. And, and that carries a lot of weight and expectation in and of itself. And then the other side of it, when I think about the kind of Asian mental health and, and the impact that this has on the flip side, so what happens when you don't meet that expectation?

[00:36:40] Bryce Seto: Right? And what I've noticed, especially in my family, is that it brings shame if you feel ashamed. You feel like I'd let my family down. I'm being shamed by my, my, my parents, by the people around me. I did not live up to the expectation of the collective that was expected of me. And so to me, That causes a lot of mental health issues in and of itself, right?

[00:37:00] Bryce Seto: Because, you know, I think shame as a concept of the feeling of shame, it thrives in silence, right? It thrives when you are internalizing everything and you've been taught to internalize everything as like an Asian man to never talk about the way you feel to, to, to only, you know, bring things that are honorable to our collective family. So what that does is it makes you more silent, which makes your shame thrive, which creates this cycle, and you just kind of live in shame. And like, the opposite of that and what I'm, the way I'm going and what I'm trying to do with my work and with my daughters and the life that I'm trying to live is just an openness and vulnerability and speaking up.

[00:37:38] Bryce Seto: Because to me that's where shame struggles. Shame has a really hard time when you are being so open and so vulnerable and just talking. And that's why therapy is so important, because you need to be able to, you know, take everything inside and to share it, discuss it, let it live in the world outside of yourself. And that's to me and my perspective, and the little bit I know going through my own mental health journey is that, you know, shame really, really struggles when you are actively going out and just sharing as hard as it is. I mean, man, it's hard. I know, you know, like just talking about like, we're just two dudes talking about mental health right now.

[00:38:16] Bryce Seto: And that's a hard thing, right? Like we, carry the expectation as men to not be this way, to not be weak to be, you know, masculine and tough and whatever that entails. And to turn your head from that knowing that there's gonna be people that are gonna look at you and maybe try to look down upon you and be like, wow, like you're weak or you're whatever word.

[00:38:36] Bryce Seto: I know the words we're thinking of, that they want to throw in our face, but that's the choice that I'd rather make than the other way.

[00:38:45] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Yeah. I'm all for that . I fully agree. I've been down this path for a handful of years now too. and I think it's the right way as well. Obviously I'm doing this, so I think I love what you're doing, how you're speaking, the intention that you're bringing into, like raising a family.

[00:39:03] Rob Pintwala: That's what I'm trying to do as well. I got a son and another one on the way actually, and yeah, 

[00:39:08] Bryce Seto: Wow. Congrats. 

[00:39:09] Rob Pintwala: thank you. 

[00:39:10] Bryce Seto: How old is your son? 

[00:39:11] Rob Pintwala: almost two 

[00:39:13] Bryce Seto: Okay. 

[00:39:13] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. But yeah. Have you been able to? To kind of set these like kind of intentions with, with your family, with your partner.

[00:39:23] Rob Pintwala: Like where does your immediate family now, like your, your, your family that you've, you've created play into supporting you and how do they, you know, like you're super, super busy. How, how does that, how does that all take shape? 

[00:39:39] Bryce Seto: Yeah. It really helps a huge cheat code to all of this by having an incredibly supportive partner. And she's actually the one who took me to CMH, which is the Center for Addiction and Mental Health here in Toronto. My original diagnosis is that she's the one that kinda grabbed my hand.

[00:39:56] Bryce Seto: It's like, okay, you know what? Let's go. You're coming. And that changed the course of my life. So having her as a partner, Kind of gives me this freedom to be like, you know what? Like, I know that she's gonna support me and that I don't need to I think a lot of, you know, kind of being like a dude and I'm a straight guy, and like there's this toxic masculinity aspect of being a straight man in our society where we probably feel like we have to live up to a certain expectation in order to be liked.

[00:40:26] Bryce Seto: And to be liked by the opposite sex is like, I gotta be masculine, I gotta be tough, I gotta be someone that people admire or people, you know, are attracted to. And with her as my partner and her being as understanding and, you know, like, with me throughout this, it kind of gives me that freedom to be like, I, you know, who caress.

[00:40:45] Bryce Seto: Like, girls aren't gonna like me because I'm being vulnerable like she does. Like, that's fine. You know, like, so, I think that's a huge advantage because I think that's something that for sure before she came into my life was in the back of my head is just like, I need to not be too weak.

[00:40:58] Bryce Seto: I need to be someone that is, you know, attractive. And that's not never, like, we don't think of attractive men as those who are like, you know, talking to a therapist or being open about their struggles of being weak, right? So, that was the whole dynamic that shifted by having a partner that's been so supportive and changed my own perception as to what I need to be as a man. So that's a big part of it. The second part is just having my daughters just existing in a world with these two little girls has just totally changed my world. And I know that's cliche as parents that, that we talk about what, what happens when you have kids? I remember when, you know, I thought about my diagnosis and I talked a little bit about how when you have BPD it changes your relationship to your emotions.

[00:41:40] Bryce Seto: So sometimes they're too intense and sometimes they don't exist. There's certain emotions that I've denied so much of my life that I've had to work to bring back, like, Like true sadness is something that I just kind of pushed away my entire life because of how I was raised and what I was ex, what was expected of me. And so I remember when I was first working in therapy I talked about how it was, I couldn't cry And I remember when I was like 16, I lost my, my my grandfather and I was sad, but I remember at his funeral I wasn't crying. And I was like, is there something wrong with me? Like, I know I want to, it's just not coming out like what's going on?

[00:42:13] Bryce Seto: And I was talking about this therapy

[00:42:15] Bryce Seto: and how it wasn't something that I was able to like to do, I didn't have a healthy relationship with sadness. And so like we went through this whole exercise of like, she would bring in like sad stuff that I, like content is like, see if this awakens that. And we try to elicit emotions that I had denied in order to learn how to sit with them again, how to embrace them and just experience them because I spent so much time pushing them away that they were not a part of my life anymore, which is not a healthy place to be. So all this to say is when my kids came along, that went out the window whatever. I cry all the time now. . Like, it's just like, I remember I dropped my kid off at the first day of kindergarten. I was just a blubbering mess going home. Like I just remember like all these little things that shouldn't be as big of a deal literally turned me into a blubbering baby.

[00:43:04] Bryce Seto: And I am so grateful for that because that is something that I tried to train myself back to. But they've just opened up this part of myself like this softness that I have, it is irreplaceable and it's just helped me like to live so much more of a fulfilled life with them. And when you talk about like, intention Yeah.

[00:43:21] Bryce Seto: I'm very intentional about sharing my story about, you know, being open. And a part of that is, is for them, right? It's because they're my inspiration. I don't want them to grow up in an environment of having this dad who is like closed off. And so like, Masculine and just like not someone they actually know. I want them to have, you know, a connection with me in a way that is like, here, kids, like this is who I am, right? And I'm not perfect. I have all these flaws. I've gone through a lot of struggles. Let's just put it out there and, and hopefully that will help them realize that that's okay for them to share theirs as well. And for us to be able to navigate, work through those issues together as a family.

[00:43:58] Rob Pintwala: Yeah, it sounds like there's some lucky, lucky girls to have a, have a dad, such as you. That's super inspiring. 

[00:44:05] Bryce Seto: I appreciate that.

[00:44:07] Rob Pintwala: What is the, you know, what's kind of keeping you motivated right now, aside from, you know, having all these projects on the go? I mean, where do you sort of see, I mean, you're, you strike me as someone who's incredibly talented, smart, emotionally, you just kind of follow your passions as they arise?

[00:44:26] Rob Pintwala: Or are there any larger plans in the works? Not to belittle what you're doing every time, it seems pretty large to me. Yeah. But yeah,

[00:44:34] Bryce Seto: Yeah. So you're gonna actually start doing something with your life? No, for sure. I feel like I'm at a place in my life right now where I feel quite self-aware and kind of on top of what it is that makes me tick. And it's not just one thing like I like to write, I have this creative side.

[00:44:50] Bryce Seto: And I've fully embraced that to be like, okay, you know what? Let's try to be an artist here and like to dive into it because I need to kind of be able to express myself. But I also, you know, I like business. I like this kind of game. I like the competition. I like, you know, building businesses and being a part of that. And so when I think about, you know, my ambitions and where I want to go with this, it's really about navigating myself into spaces that I feel like I could contribute and that will be fulfilling for me. I've acted, you know, I've been in some movies and I feel like I'm gonna get back into that as my kids get a little bit older as a part of, you know, what it is that I do.

[00:45:24] Bryce Seto: I love performing, I love exercising that part of my brain as well. And so, you know, in terms of my grand plans, I think I'm gonna lean further into entrepreneurship and doing more work and, you know, kind of building value for myself. And trying to build things bigger than, than just me. it's always like, you know, how do I contribute? How can I be helpful? How do I share and connect with other people in ways that can kind of help them? And so wherever that takes me is wherever it goes. like there's something that, you know, we talked a little bit about my childhood and I know there's probably a lot of people that listen to this who grew up in particular environments. I think that's a part of what's always gonna push me. And I talk about this in therapy, a lot of like, you know, I like being ambitious. I like having a lot of things on the go. I like that, I like trying to accomplish things, but at the same time, at what point is it unhealthy to keep chasing? And part of what I'm driven by is like incredible anxiety of where I'm from, right? I still wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes like panicking about money, and I'm not in that place anymore that I was growing up, but I still feel like I am that, that hasn't left me. And that's part of what keeps pushing me. So I guess what I'm trying to say is where do I go, how do I, how do you balance that? That's a big therapy thing that, you know, I don't know. I mean, I'm probably not paying my therapist enough to help me work through this, but it's this concept of chasing more and also accepting enough. And I did write about that recently actually on my website.

[00:47:02] Rob Pintwala: That's relevant to me. 

[00:47:04] Bryce Seto: Yeah. 

[00:47:05] Bryce Seto: Just exploring this concept of more, and I feel like my concept of more, not to get too abstract, but comes from this place of like running away more than running towards. So it's like I disguise it as like, I'm running towards this big ambition. I wanna accomplish things But in reality, I think what I'm doing is running away from my insecurities and what I don't want to be. And it's the same way when I left Saskatoon to Toronto, it was like, Hey, I'm chasing my dreams.

[00:47:38] Bryce Seto: But it was really like, I'm kind of running away from what's here. And it's the same thing. I'm still doing that today. That's a really abstract way to answer your question. I don't, you know, did it give you my professional five-year plan? But it's more about, I don't know, I wanna chase more, but I also, to understand and be more aware of where that is coming from and making sure I'm doing it for the right reasons as opposed to like trying to [00:48:00] avoid.

[00:48:00] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. 2 things come to mind there. One is something I've been thinking about a lot and heard other folks talk about who are ambitious is the fear of losing an edge. Like, like, you know, you're ambitious. You're kind of tapping into that sounds like you're kind of, you know, maybe that fear does exist, right?

[00:48:21] Rob Pintwala: But you know, there's this kind of theory that, you know, the more you work on yourself, maybe you dig deep enough to understand fully where your motivation comes from. And maybe that's actually like trauma or insecurity, right? Like, and if you kind of heal that, does your motivation go away?

[00:48:39] Rob Pintwala: Does your 

[00:48:40] Rob Pintwala: Ambition gone? And that's the fear is like, oh shit, I'm gonna lose it. I'm gonna just be doing nothing, 

[00:48:45] Bryce Seto: right. 

[00:48:46] Rob Pintwala: I'll be peaceful. Like, I don't know. What do you think about that? I mean, it sounds like you've kind of thought, thought through this and 

[00:48:51] Bryce Seto: Yeah, you kind of described that so eloquently. Like, that's exactly what I've been grappling with as well, if you know, what happens if you kind of capture that light and find that piece, does that mean you stop? And then to me, the fear that arises is like, wow. Like if I stop, that means my kids aren't gonna have the life that I want them to have.

[00:49:11] Bryce Seto: And, you know, I'm not gonna be able to do all these things that I wanted to do with my life. It's such a good question. I don't know, man. I don't know. Like, I think for me, in the work that I'm doing, it's like I'm gonna keep trying to be self-aware and try to get to that point. And then, you know, hopefully I can find ways and things to continually provide and chase.

[00:49:32] Bryce Seto: I don't, but I, man, I don't know. I don't think I could turn it off, dude.

[00:49:37] Rob Pintwala: I hope that it just come, 

[00:49:39] Rob Pintwala: You know, the energy just starts coming from a more grounded place, right? I don't think it goes away. I think it comes from 

[00:49:45] Bryce Seto: Right 

[00:49:46] Rob Pintwala: fulfilling areas or contributing, like, you know, you, I think you, you alluded to some of that stuff. The other question I had is more like, you sound like someone who really loves being a dad and wants to be present.

[00:49:58] Rob Pintwala: mentioned mindfulness with your children and you also mentioned that your partner's gonna go to law school, it sounds like a busy household. What do you think about showing up for your kids and being ambitious and having an ambitious partner and kind of hitting all your goals? Like, what have you had to make compromises yet?

[00:50:15] Rob Pintwala: This is a selfish question. I'm basically asking for myself,

[00:50:18] Bryce Seto: No, it's a good question, man. It's a really good thing to consider.

[00:50:24] Bryce Seto: You always have to make compromises as your family gets bigger, and I'm sure you're doing that right now. You have a kid and your partner, you always have to make compromises. And I've learned a lot about what it means to support another person in terms of what their dreams are, as opposed to just like, I gotta chase mine, I gotta chase mine. You know, I've been as supportive as I possibly can be for her and her ambition to go to law school. It was never questioned. It's like, Hey, you wanna do this? Let's do this. And she's someone, you know, I think it works as well 'cause she's kind of the same way of always running and always chasing, and it leads to a very impulsive relationship.

[00:51:00] Bryce Seto: Like we're quite impulsive people that kind of just like, okay, we have a seat opportunity, let's attack it. I mean, we've moved six times in the last five years because we're always trying to level up and, I'm talking about like, you know, a couple years ago she had a farm, an acre of land and she had a whole business and she built a farm by herself.

[00:51:17] Bryce Seto: I didn't help. And that was her thing. And then, and then, uh, and then she's like, you know what? I wanna go to law school. It's like, okay, let's sell the farm. Let's go do law school. And then, and that's what she did. She applied herself and, and got in and, and away we went. I think with the kids, and this is what I tell her all the time, because we have this conversation where she feels guilty.

[00:51:35] Bryce Seto: Like, Hey, is it fair for me to go to law school right now? We have these two little girls. I'm gonna be very busy, you know, I'm not gonna be able to be here like I was in their lives. And I think my perspective is that I feel like it's great for them. They get to be around us, they get to watch us struggle and we get to come home.

[00:51:53] Bryce Seto: And I love sitting across from my kid who's got our little kindergarten homework and I'm doing my MBA stuff. We're sitting at the kitchen table both doing our homework and I'm talking about it just like her school. Like, Hey, how was school Laura? And I'm telling her about my school. And it's like, we're both in school.

[00:52:05] Bryce Seto: Like, that's cool. To just be in a household where we're constantly learning and pushing ourselves. It's not like, you know, you go punch in the clock at nine, come home at five, and we just live in a routine. It's like, no, let's have how do we keep moving? And I think by osmosis they're gonna see that.

[00:52:17] Bryce Seto: And that's gonna be a good thing that's gonna hopefully rub off on them. And then the other thing is like, and I'm very open about my relationship with my kids and being a dad and how much I love it. Because any journey that I have in life, they're there. They're with me. So, and I mean that literally and figuratively, like I bring 'em to the office every so often just to hang out in color, especially this summer where there's a lot of downtime.

[00:52:42] Bryce Seto: It's like, Hey, I gotta go to the office. I got some client meetings. You kids can come and color in your books and we'll take you out for lunch and just hang out and like you get to see it and hang out with us and watch it. And you know, she's been taking the kids to on campus and just hanging around on campus to be around her at the same time.

[00:52:58] Bryce Seto: So they're a part of this journey. And you know, luckily we do have a little bit of help. We have some great babysitters and her mom's around every so often too, to take them. And we need a break. But I think what I'm trying to relate to my kids is one is like, it's okay to keep working.

[00:53:15] Bryce Seto: Like, like this should be fun and school is fun and you know, it's okay that we're busy. And two is like, we're in this together, right? Like no matter what, you're gonna be busy. I'm gonna be busy. There's gonna be a time where my kids are not gonna want to just be around me and they're gonna want to go to camp with their friends or to ballet school or off to college.

[00:53:34] Bryce Seto: And I gotta do the same thing. I'd be like, Hey, I would really love to hang out with my daughter today, but she's got friends or some other priorities and I gotta support them with their lives as well. But at the end of the day, like it's still us and we're still in this all together and there's never, it's just an environment to me of unconditional support. And that's what we do for each other. Whatever you dream, whatever you want, this is our family. We're gonna support each other. Having said that, when we're both this busy, a calendar and scheduling is incredibly important.

[00:54:05] Bryce Seto: Asking for help is incredibly important. And communicating and just be like, Hey, you know what I'll take him this time. You can have the weekend to catch up, and then I'll need your back to have my back the next time. And we just gotta be in it together no matter what.

[00:54:19] Rob Pintwala: That's awesome, man. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of this concept actually, that I heard from Brene Brown 

[00:54:26] Rob Pintwala: Differently, she said there's like three choices of families, and how they kind of lead their lives. Like one is sort of parent first families, second is like kids first families, and the third would be like family first families.

[00:54:39] Rob Pintwala: And it's like, whoa who's kind of leading the charge? Is it parents taking their priority? Is it the, all the kids always taking their priority, everything for the kids? Or is it like family? And the family is like, I. Compromise and balance and you know, that sort of thing. So it's like you got the family set up going on.

[00:54:54] Bryce Seto: I love Brene Brown. 

[00:54:56] Rob Pintwala: Yeah. Yeah, it was awesome. That was a light bulb for me. I told my wife immediately. Awesome man. Well thank you so much for your time. What, like, is there anything else that you wanted to cover? I don't wanna keep you all day. And yeah. Are there any other topics that maybe we didn't get to that we wanna dive into?

[00:55:11] Bryce Seto: No, I think we hit it. I, you know, I'm happy to talk, I could talk about my kids and about

[00:55:16] Bryce Seto: my mental health all day. No I love what you're doing, man. And I appreciate you having me on. I love your mission and work that you're doing, and hopefully our conversation could be helpful to people. And if anybody wants to talk about my journey or has any questions, don't hesitate to reach out.

[00:55:31] Bryce Seto: And I'm happy to see if I could be helpful in any way.

[00:55:33] Rob Pintwala: Well, it definitely helped me and I took a lot from this conversation, so thank you. And where can people find you? We mentioned your blog at your website, bryce cto.com. Where else can people get in touch?

[00:55:44] Bryce Seto: Yeah, easiest is right through my website, if you can you can reach out to me there or Instagram. That's the platform I'm the most active on which is just at Ceto. And feel free to follow and shoot me a message and then connect. I'm happy to talk and have conversations.

[00:56:01] Rob Pintwala: Amazing. And if we have any Asian Canadians listening that might be interested in the Blossom Fund, what's the best way to learn more or support or potentially like to apply?

[00:56:13] Bryce Seto: Yeah, great question. So the Blossom fund.org is the website to get access to all of the information that we have there. And so there you can read more stats and more information. You can donate and we're still raising money for our initial round. And then apply. Yeah, so if there's anybody that is Asian Canadian seeking support, our first phase is Ontario only just because of how therapy's regulated in our country, but we're gonna be branching out very soon. So specifically if you're an Ontario, Asian Canadian and you'd love to, to apply for the grant feel free, don't hesitate. We're taking applications, and we'd love to see if we could support you. And then if you have a story to tell the Blossom Fund um, you know, if you're, have a perspective on you know, for in, in the Asian community either as a therapist or as you know, an advocate or somebody who's gone through their own mental health journey feel free to reach out to us on the website as well. we'd be happy to hear from you.

[00:57:09] Rob Pintwala: I love that, Bryce. Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much for joining me this afternoon and yeah, all the best with all your endeavors and your family and yeah, well, I'm sure we'll keep in touch, so thanks again.

[00:57:21] Bryce Seto: Awesome. Thanks so much, Rob.

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