The moral of Sue Volpe’s life is, as of yet, unwritten, but so far she’s learned a lot of major lessons along her journey.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood we sat down with Volpe, a local entrepreneur with a unique outlook on life.
Q: Can you give me a little background on you? What brought you to Collingwood?
A: I grew up in Sault Ste. Marie. I went to Ottawa University. After that, I moved to Los Angeles. I lived there for 11 years. I got married there and had my daughter there, but I knew I never wanted to raise kids there.
I came back to Canada but to the west coast, Victoria B.C. I lived there for a few years. My sister was here in Collingwood. I never thought I’d come back to Ontario, but Victoria had its challenges.
My sister lured us here with cheap real estate... this was a while ago. (laughs)
So 11 years ago we moved here; at that point I had two kids. (Collingwood) was supposed to be like, west-coast lifestyle in Ontario.
I had never been here. We bought our house sight unseen through a realtor.
Living a west-coast lifestyle (ocean and mountains) had kind of been my thing. My (now ex) husband and I have always been self-employed, so we could live anywhere.
Q: Once you got here and got to actually see it, were you happy with your choice to move here?
A: To be honest, I had one foot out the door for a long time. Back 11 years ago, I could tell there were a lot of progressive and like-minded people here. I have the heart of a hippie and an entrepreneur together. But, I missed having other entrepreneurs (around) and business networks. Sometimes I feel like I’m too young to be here. I’m not ready to retire.
It’s been a struggle to come up with businesses that will work here. But I love the outdoor recreational stuff. I love that I can go ski for an hour and then go to a business meeting. Having kids here is really easy. People are really cool.
It’s better than I thought, in lots of ways, but it’s harder than I thought when it comes to business.
Q: What is your business?
A: Untangled Living has been my business since 2008. The brand was the ethos of living consciously, environmentally friendly and healthy living. I started with a line of stainless steel dishes for children as an alternative to plastic that are eco-friendly.
In L.A. I learned the manufacturing world. I went there to pursue film, acting, directing and writing. My day job was clothing manufacturing and design. So I learned that there.
Last year, I closed the business because I’m trying to sell it. I don’t really want to do made-in-China products anymore.
All along the way I’ve been lifestyle and business coaching and training, so I’ve wanted to do more of that.
I’d like to do the consulting on the side, so I’ve been looking for another business or job. I’d like to work with other people. I’ve always done my own thing but I really want to collaborate now with other like-minded people who’d like to build a business helping people.
Q: You were nominated for this feature because two years ago, you donated a kidney. Can you tell me about that? What led to that decision?
A: Honestly, a Facebook post.
When I moved to L.A., I was 22. A few months in, I started doing nanny work as a part-time gig.
I met this family that had two children and I was their part-time nanny. We sort of stayed connected (after I left L.A.), but I hadn’t seen them for years and years.
So, I saw a Facebook post two years ago that the mother was dying and she needed a kidney ASAP, and the family didn’t qualify. Nobody was coming forward.
I just called them up and told them I would totally donate.
I’ve always been really healthy and I’ve worked hard at being healthy. I always wanted to help people. I thought it would be on a bigger scale, like with a business, but in the meantime, this kind of came up.
To be honest, I didn’t think about it.
I did some research, and I flew to L.A. for testing and screenings. I passed with flying colours. They even do psychological testing. It’s pretty fascinating.
We were such a match, we were as close as sisters.
Within a couple of months I went back to L.A. and did the transplant. It was such a wild thing to be a part of. The experience continues to evolve and be much more than I ever expected.
Q: In what way?
A: It became a spiritual experience because you start to realize that... I was just one small piece of this massive machine. There were UCLA doctors, two surgeons, and two big medical teams... there’s all these moving parts.
And there’s little me, but then you realize, none of this could have happened without me.
You think that you can’t really make a difference, and then you realize that this one thing you do just changed many people’s lives.
The woman I donated to, she’s a critical care nurse. She’s saving people’s lives all the time. So now, I feel like I’m a part of her saving other people’s lives.
I had a moment after the transplant where I felt sad because I haven’t accomplished a lot of my professional goals, or be where I thought I’d be at this point in my life. I wanted to just travel around the world helping people.
My cousin said to me, “Are you kidding? You just saved somebody’s life.”
That had never occurred to me. I am helping people, because she’s helping people. It feels really spiritual. Like we need each other.
Physically, it was a much worse recovery than I thought. (laughs)
Q: How did the Ted Talk happen? Did they approach you?
A: I wanted to do a Ted Talk, so I was looking into it, but not about the kidney. I had other philosophical things I wanted to talk about.
Somebody heard that I was looking to do a Ted Talk, and they said to me, “It’s a secret right now but we’re going to do a TedX Talk in Collingwood.”
I didn’t know about TedX at the time.
I told them what I wanted to talk about and they said, “No. You have to talk about the kidney.”
I wasn’t really telling anyone about the surgery. I didn’t really want it to be about me. That was another lesson I learned.
Sharing ourselves is probably the thing we need to be doing the most.
I’ve talked a lot in front of large groups, but I’ve never told a personal story. I started crying on stage and I was laughing. I could feel how connected we all were. Afterwards, people were hugging me. It was really nice to be a part of something bigger. It was effective in reaching people with a heartfelt story. Something I said in the talk was, we all have something that someone else doesn’t have. Whether it’s a few hours to babysit or give someone some extra meals that you’ve made. I still have people contacting me and sharing stuff with me. To know that I inspired people was really special.
I was also supposed to write about what the take-home message is from that experience.
Every time I would write it, the learning changed. I kept re-writing the talk and didn’t finish until about 48 hours before.
The point is, we need each other. We can’t do this thing called life on our own.
Sometimes it makes me mad when I think about how we raise our children. When I was raised, you were raised to be super independent, sleep in your own bed, learn to work for yourself, pay your own bills, don’t ask people for help.
Now I realize, that’s kind of backward. That’s not sustainable. It’s not healthy or realistic. We can’t really survive on our own. We’re designed to be social creatures for a reason, because we need to be.
Q: Is there anything else you want people in Collingwood to know about you?
A: I am looking to collaborate and create. There is something about Collingwood that is spiritual. There’s a cool vibe about this town and the people who are attracted to it. I’m excited to see what’s going to happen in the future here.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we’ll be speaking with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way. This feature will run on CollingwoodToday every Saturday. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
