2021-10-25 - Shredding For Gold on the What's Your Excuse Network with Emily Trepanier & Maxwell Ivy

We met old friend Emily Trepanier, now aka Starfish, as children, at a camp for the blind in Ontario. Kerry met Maxwell Ivey, now known as The Blind Blogger, online, through a LinkedIn community for writers and bloggers in 2014 and this is his full premier on our show. And how did this fellow Ontario friend/now a BC newcomer and a Texan/prior carnival worker and amusement park ride broker connect in the first place? They met, both participating in something along the lines of Shark Tank or Dragon’s Den for blind entrepreneurs and dreamers of all kinds. Despite both making it to the semi final round of the Holman Prize competition, they both did not win the ultimate prize. And yet, they may just have found something to be just as beneficial for them both. On this week’s episode, we speak with Emily and Max about how they connected and why, more on the What’s Your Excuse network and what the hope is with that, and Emily shares more on her new podcast on the network, Shredding For Gold, a show about her journey to compete in the Winter Paralympics as a visually impaired snowboarder. Max has always loved a challenge and some of the things he hopes to do with the WYExcuse network are, for hosts, to give a purpose, to teach marketable employment skills (people with disabilities have barriers to this), and to have a platform or can work to create one, to turn a podcast into a business or tool for one. Emily explains more about Para snowboarding being added in 2014, while her particular classification (visually impaired) is not yet, though she is in for the fight to get it included with the International Paralympic Committee. She hints at more in the works, can’t say more right now, but, nonetheless, , swears that exciting things are happening in the sport. Max is already the host of the What’s Your Excuse Show and now, Emily is the brand new host of what she’s named Shredding For Gold, a podcast on her life and goals and activities while training as a snowboarder. As well, with this show she hopes to highlight the w