In this profoundly moving episode of Chatter That Matters, I sit down with Pierre Mousseau to talk about loss, grief, faith, and the long road back to meaning after tragedy. During the height of the pandemic, Pierre lost his 20-year-old son, Parker, after weeks of surgeries, setbacks, and moments that felt like miracles, followed by an impossible decision no parent should ever have to make. To say there is no more, to say goodbye to their child.

Pierre speaks openly about watching his son fight, signing the papers to let him go, the guilt that followed, and the silence that filled every corner of his life afterward. He shares how grief became both his armour and his prison, how depression nearly claimed him too, and how a moment on a dark country road forced him to choose between ending his life and continuing it for those who still needed him.

From the Ashes is not just a story of loss. It is a story of what can rise from it. Pierre reflects on rebuilding faith after anger and doubt, on unexpected moments of spiritual connection, and on how love, purpose, and responsibility reshaped his marriage, his leadership, and his view of what truly matters. He also speaks candidly about masculinity, vulnerability, and why men, especially, need permission to talk about grief instead of carrying it alone.

This episode is for anyone searching for light after darkness. It is a reminder that while grief may never leave us, it need not define the end of our story. Sometimes, from the ashes, something meaningful can still grow.

To purchase the book: From the Ashes: A Father's Journey Through Grief, Grace and Faith https://a.co/d/a82HrgI

Some people dream. Others help weave those dreams. This episode is about two women who refuse to separate the two.

It begins with Karla Briones. Raised in an entrepreneurial family in Chihuahua, Mexico, her first business was a schoolyard candy empire at six years old. Then the drug cartels arrived. Threats followed. Friends disappeared. At eighteen, her family dismantled their entire life and drove nearly four thousand kilometres to Canada with no safety net, no jobs, no guarantees.

What followed was survival. Credentials did not transfer. Her parents fell into depression. Karla became a provider before she had finished becoming a student. Three jobs. A new language. University. Failure. Grit. Then entrepreneurship again. Pet stores. Restaurants. Retail. Some worked. Some collapsed. All of them taught her the same lesson: everyone needs a helping hand.

That lesson eventually became Immigrant Entrepreneur Canada to help weave the dreams of others.

Then enters Lina Asma, the Hot Pepper Lady. From Ghana to Canada, Lina carried fire in both food and spirit. She works full-time. She farms. She grows over 160 varieties of peppers. Her turning point came at a last-minute event she almost skipped. Karla spoke. Lina applied. She entered Immigrant Entrepreneur Canada and found something rare, a system that did not talk about immigrants as numbers, but as builders. She found mentors. She found clarity. She found momentum. She found her dream.

Lina also named something most people feel but rarely say out loud: we listen to accents before we listen to ideas. Inside that community, she found her voice again.

Immigration Entrepreneur Canada and Karla Briones are helping newcomers weave their dreams.

I went in, and she was sitting there in a motel room with a kilo of cocaine on the bed and two bikers helping her break it down into smaller bags. That was the insanity I was living in.

Gordon Lownds has lived multiple lives. He grew up in Toronto and clashed with his father and an older brother who bullied him until he finally fought back at sixteen. That was the moment he said, enough. He left home, hustled at carnivals, and learned some of the sharpest business lessons you will ever hear.

He packed in a philosophy degree, then an MBA, and turned out to be a brilliant business mind. By his forties, he had co-founded Sleep Country Canada with Stephen Gunn and Christine Magee, and later Listen Up Canada. These companies reshaped how Canadians sleep and how they hear.

At the height of his success, on his forty-eighth birthday in 1998, Gordon tried crack cocaine for the first time.

It was day one of a thousand-day descent into hell that nearly destroyed everything he loved and all he had built and cost him over a million dollars in drugs.

What happened after is a rare and remarkable story of recovery, resilience, reinvention and redemption.

To buy Gordon Lownds' Book: Cracking Up: From Rising Star to Junkie Despair in 1,000 Days-An Unlikely Addict's Memoir - https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/cracking-up-from-rising-star-to-junkie-despair-in-1000-days-an-unlikely-addicts-memoir/9781990700798.html