Guest: Asante Haughton
Returning guest, Asante speaks about the providence in being vulnerable and nourishing himself with emotional and psychological tools rooted in strength, truth, and honesty. Asante explores what the last two years of his public life experience has been behind closed doors, and how he needed to take a step back to re-evaluate his goals. He also identified what he was working towards by taking a second look at what he truly valued about his successes; and what is truly important to him at the centre of his core. Asante details how his mental energy and stamina would be consumed, and how he needed to ensure that he wasn’t getting pulled into the crossfires of advocacy work misinterpreted. After much re-evaluation of priorities, Asante discovered that his ‘family first’ motto was his way forward, which led him to the tough decision to leave advocacy work, which allowed him to feel freer once he leaped. Asante shared the dangers of the ‘ego’ and chasing something that isn’t what he thought he was after. He spoke about the bitter truths about running on zero fuel, keeping a public face, and dealing with the depth of depression and burnout all served on one platter. His key message to the listeners is that: in leadership, there are more considerations that are required to be made which the public will never learn or be part of; when you are in the public spotlight, it is easy for people to think that individual’s life is perfect; don’t make judgements about people and automatically think they are or have done something terrible, check it out first.
Guest Bio: Asante is a mental health advocate devoted to changing the world. He is focused on amplifying the stories of everyday people to illuminate gaps in the system while working to build bridges between community members and policy makers in order to find solutions to challenges together. Asante is the co-founder of the Reach Out Response Network, an organization advocating for non-police led mobile crisis emergency response. Asante is also a 2x TEDx speaker and a CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) Difference Maker, awarded with the distinction of being one of the top 150 mental health influencers in Canada.
When Asante is not speaking and advocating, he is designing, managing and facilitating peer support training programs at Stella’s Place, a youth mental health service agency in Toronto and hosting the web show, Cypher, which turns peer support stories into original songs by Juno nominated musicians. Young at heart, silly, self-deprecating and able to find a sports analogy for virtually anything, Asante tries not to take himself too seriously despite being engaged in the serious work of changemaking!
Passionate about: Pathways to education; Stella’s place; the community healing project/city of Toronto; reach out response network
