Be Kind To Others (Especially When It’s Not Expected)

Character is doing the right thing when nobody is looking. Character is about treating people like a friend of family even when they are a complete stranger. To me, few things in life are more important than building your own personal character.

10 years ago I was at my first conference (I attended 13) in University, it was at the DeGroote School of Business in Hamilton, Ontario. 100+ students were at a pub in Hamilton and they shut down the bar because the guest speaker was about to take the stage.

I was a second year University student, you don’t close the bar on a second year University student! I was raising my voice and being a jerk to the bartender when an angel appeared (well that’s an exaggeration but Cam gave me a beer). Cam Heaps was our guest speaker that night and I got to talk to him before he talked to the group. He was one of the original partners in Steam Whistle, he was down to earth and just a fun guy who you’d think came from Saskatchewan.

In his talk he made me standup and introduce myself to the audience and then we exchanged belt buckles for some odd reason. After the talk the group from Regina was talking to him and he offered to give a personal tour on Sunday if we were interested. We were very interested!

The tour was amazing, when you tour a brewery with an owner it has it’s perks. 😉 We received Steam Whistle clothing and some collectibles and beer to bring home of course. After the tour was over we still had time to kill before our cross Canada flight. He opened up his house to go hot-tubbing before our flight, we went, it was awesome, and I learned a very important lesson.

Be overly kind to other people, especially if they are strangers.

Cam did not know us and by all accounts we were nobody’s from a little ol’ place called Regina. I think Steam Whistle grew to be an international beer sensation because of their attitude towards people. They acted like a little guy while growing into being one of the big guys.