For over 15 years, I have been practicing passion. Applying my lived and professional experience, I currently support entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and community builders in clarifying their passions for change. Along with my own coaching practice, I am currently a facilitator with Neolé Inc. and a part-time instructor at McMaster University.

This passion practice is informed by people at organizations and in neighborhoods I have the privilege of working in and learning from. I previously served as the Social Enterprise Manager at the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto, developing feasibility studies and business plans for social enterprise ideas developed by Indigenous women. As the Manager of the Centre for Social Innovation in Regent Park, I worked with hundreds of changemakers working and/or living in Regent Park. Here, I learned the power of passion in effecting social change. Passion for economic justice was cultivated during this time, which led me to join Cannabis Amnesty as their communications coordinator, advocating for its mission to right historical wrongs in the cannabis industry. I was also the Entrepreneurship Policy Workstream Manager of what is formally known as the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship. Throughout this journey, passion has been a common tool I have harnessed when navigating different career paths, exploring relationships and group flow, and organizing communities for policy, market, and culture change.

My life experiences also inform this practice. I was born in Sydney, Australia, and in less than a year, my family returned to Busan in the Korean Peninsula. I immigrated to Tkaronto, Dish with One Spoon Treaty, at the age of 8 as a settler on Turtle Island. On Turtle Island, my education at McGill University, Canadian citizenship and middle class upbringing afforded me certain privileges when navigating and securing aforementioned careers and advocacy work. Furthermore, my partnership and eventually marriage with my husband, Adil Dhalla-Kim, in my adult life provided dual income, offering some financial and psychological safety when exploring passion activities during my career exploration. Along with these privileges, my experiences as a 1.5-generation Asian immigrant woman has shaped my views on how structural inequities can stifle or sabotage people’s potential, and this passion practice has been work that is both personal and political for collective liberation.