On his journey through the music industry, Dan Mangan has experienced his fair share of metaphorical doors close in his face. Instead of seeing this in a negative light, he decided to build his own door. After a particularly challenging year in 2015 — artistically, spiritually, personally — Mangan started Sidedoor, a platform for burgeoning musicians to connect with alternative venues and hosts to book shows and tours. All was going well until the covid-19 pandemic hit and the whole premise of Sidedoor, namely in-person gatherings, was shut down overnight.

But, as the theme of this episode hints at, for every door that closes another one opens. 

As a live performer, Mangan is well-known for connecting with his audience in ways most artists can only dream about. But without the option to play live, how does a performer make connections with an audience? After a few underwhelming attempts at putting livestream shows on, Mangan dug into the technical challenge of online concerts and ended up discovering connections that never would have surfaced had he not been forced to look at his career differently.

You could easily see how the pandemic was an end to life as we knew it — but what Mangan was able to see was the new opportunities it offered. Hear how he and his team at Sidedoor turned a forced ending into a fresh beginning.

“Sometimes the difference between the unfinished painting and the finished painting is as simple as finding the right frame.” — Rick Rubin

A plumber knows when a job is complete. Water turns on. Water turns off.

But when we plumb the depths of our soul to create an original idea, how do we know when the idea is complete? When do we stop putting the finishing touches on something and let it breathe a life of its own? When did Michelangelo put down his chisel and claim David was perfect enough?

For our guest Ken Davenport, his career as a producer of some of the biggest theatre shows on Broadway didn’t start when someone gave him the handbook on how to run a successful production. In fact, he will tell you he often had no idea what he was doing in his early career. But that didn’t stop him from trying.

In the theatre world, there are a million things that can go wrong: actors’ lines, costume details, lighting cues, ticket sales. But for Davenport, he wasn’t searching for perfection. He was simply constantly moving toward his goal, using a memorable tennis metaphor to figure out answers along the way. His goal wasn’t to be perfect — his goal was to be done.

After all, what is perfectionism good for? Human beings aren’t perfect, so why are we constantly in search of it? When we let go of the idea of being perfect, we make room for something far more important: being one-of-a-kind.

When you have nothing, you appreciate everything.

Mark Brand would know. He had everything going for him: successful careers as a DJ and chef, a home, a loving partner. He was living the dream. But when a medical condition dashed his chances of staying in his adopted country of Australia, he was forced to leave everything behind and come back to Canada, the place he was born. It became a rebirth.

Even though life had taken a turn, Brand focused on what he knew he was good at — and good things started happening. Accomplished in the food and beverage industry, he opened his first restaurant in Vancouver with humble financial investment but a ton of heart, and proceeded to win accolades ahead of established restaurant empires. Brand was witnessing how good energy begets good energy, like an exponential algorithm of positivity, and that by connecting and contributing he could facilitate change. Soon, it would become his mission.

Ignited by the notorious mistreatment of residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Brand’s fiery devotion has made him one of the best examples of how social entrepreneurship can respectfully and effectively lift marginalized communities. He is the founder of A Better Life Foundation, an organization dedicated to using food as a catalyst to enrich, employ and empower people who need it most.

Hear how Mark Brand and Michelle Malpass, VP of Community at Traction on Demand, focus on making a habit of doing good to give everyone a chance to nourish their full potential.