"I'm proudly a recovered alcoholic and I'm no longer going to feel ashamed. Shame will kill us - it almost killed me."Jenn Harper had been selling seafood for over a decade when three little Indigenous girls covered in lip gloss changed everything. The dream came in January 2015, just two months into her sobriety—brown skin, rosy cheeks, giggling and laughing while covered in colorful gloss. When she woke up, she wrote down what would become the business plan for Cheekbone Beauty."It was so real to me that building a cosmetics company was the next thing on my path," Harper reflects. "It's crazy when I think about it now—I'm embarrassed about how much I didn't know about this industry."What she didn't know could fill a warehouse: product development, supply chains, ingredients, retail merchandising, the crushing competitiveness of beauty. What she did know was this: a brand representing Indigenous people deserved to exist in the world.Ten years later, that naive conviction has built something unprecedented—the first B Corp certified Indigenous beauty brand to hit Sephora shelves, a company that's donated over $250,000 to Indigenous communities, and a new category Harper calls "Indigenous Beauty" that puts sustainability and cultural values at its core.But the real revolution? How Harper transformed the same addictive patterns that nearly destroyed her life into the obsessive focus that built an empire.When Shame Nearly Killed Her"I'm proudly a recovered alcoholic, and I'm no longer going to feel ashamed," Harper says with the directness that's become her trademark. "Shame will kill us—it almost killed me."Harper's battle with alcoholism lasted years, marked by rehab attempts, relapses, and a marriage hanging by a thread. In 2014, her husband delivered an ultimatum: get sober or he was leaving. It was the first time in their marriage he'd drawn that line."I had this moment of surrender. I had to believe truly that I could get well," she explains. The timing wasn't coincidental—2015 was also when Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its report on residential schools, finally giving Harper language for the generational trauma that had shaped her family."I used to believe I was just this person who comes from a completely dysfunctional family—we're just screwed up people," she admits. "Then I learned that this was systematically designed to take down a culture."Her grandmother had been taken from their community at six years old, forced into residential school until sixteen, beaten for speaking their language. Suddenly, Harper's family dysfunction had context—and a path to healing.Replacing One Addiction With AnotherTraditional recovery wisdom warns against substituting addictions, but Harper had a different plan. "I became obsessed with building this business, and maybe as an addict with an addict's brain, I'll never be fully healed from that in this life. But how can I use that power of obsession for doing something good versus destroying my life?"She admits the approach isn't typical AA advice, but it worked. Harper channeled her addictive patterns into something constructive: reading over a hundred books on entrepreneurship and Indigenous culture, diving deep into formulations and supply chains, obsessing over every detail of building a sustainable beauty company."That you can climb any mountain and get to the top," Harper says when asked what sobriety taught her about business. "You really can't see it unless you can see it—that line is so important for people from BIPOC communities. If you didn't see yourself represented out there, how are you supposed to think you can do those things?"Building Indigenous Beauty From NothingWhat Harper calls "Indigenous Beauty" isn't just marketing—it's a fundamental reimagining of how beauty products should be made. Where Korean beauty focuses on skincare and French beauty means perfume and red lipstick, Indigenous beauty centers sustainability and connection to the earth."Indigenous people have truly lived and breathed sustainability since the beginning of time," Harper explains. "We want to add that into how we make and create our products."At Cheekbone, that means formulas that actually biodegrade back into ecosystems, sustainably sourced packaging, and transparencyabout every ingredient. Harper spent years studying formulations to replace conventional ingredients with biodegradable alternatives—swapping propylene glycol for propendol, using only post-consumer recycled plastic, creating products that can serve multiple purposes."The truth is, true sustainability means we buy nothing and use what we have," Harper acknowledges. "We're still a consumer-based business. But can we do it so that the choice someone's making is a better choice they can feel good about?"The Cost of RepresentationHarper's drive for visibility became even more urgent after losing her brother BJ to suicide. "When you lose someone to suicide, you really spend a lot of time thinking about the what-ifs," she says quietly. "What I learned from my brother is that he really felt represented in these last few years. He would send me messages about Indigenous people on red carpets or athletes coming up."Those messages became proof of representation's power—and its absence's danger. Harper knows the statistics: Indigenous communities face suicide rates far above national averages, often linked to disconnection and lack of belonging."You really can't be it unless you can see it," Harper repeats. "For me, being able to represent our communities and help them see that entrepreneurship is an option—if I can figure it out and I wasn't a great student, I didn't have a university degree—if I can do this, they can too."Revolution, Not ActivismHarper's approach to change differs from traditional activism. "I feel like going and yelling at someone with a sign is never going to change their heart," she explains. "We need activists for many things, but I believe the way I love to connect with people is: can we change people's hearts?"Instead of protests, Harper builds. Cheekbone's scholarship fund has deployed 30 scholarships since 2021. Two percent of all revenue goes to Indigenous education initiatives year-round, with special Orange Shirt Day campaigns raising additional funds."We use the system," Harper says of their Orange Shirt Day strategy. "People arethinking about those things on that day, so of course we're using it. The algorithm of the world works on days now—if you're not speaking to the big things happening, no one cares because no one's going to see it."The approach extends to retail partnerships. When Sephora committed to Harper's "Glossed Over" campaign—featuring lip glosses named "Luscious Lead" and "E. Coli Kiss" to highlight water crises in Indigenous communities—it gave profits from Cheekbone sales to water treatment organizations."Sephora is really great—they take risks in that way," Harper notes. "They're truly the heroes in that story because they used their platform, and that's not easy to do on a bigger scale."The Real Beauty IndustryHarper envisions an industry transformation that goes beyond Indigenous representation. "Real people, no more editorial stuff," she says when asked what would make beauty actually beautiful. "We deserve to see real people wearing the products with real skin imperfections, acne, textured skin, hair on their face—let's just be real about it."It's a radical vision in an industry built on manufactured insecurity, but Harper's betting consumers are ready. As the first B Corp certified cosmetic brand in Sephora, Cheekbone legally prioritizes people and planet over profit—paying living wages, providing mental health benefits, and taking company-wide mental health weeks."Everyone at Cheekbone makes over a living wage for the area of the world they live in," Harper explains. "We take a whole week off every summer as an entire business so that it's a real mental health break for the entire company."What Her Grandmother Would ThinkWhen asked what her grandmother would think of seeing Cheekbone in Sephora, Harper pauses. "I think she would be proud. We're a humble group of people, a humble nation. We don't do the bragging thing—it's cultural. But there would be a lot of joy and happiness because I'm her granddaughter."That humility runs through everything Harper builds. Despite Cheekbone's success—Sephora shelves, B Corp certification, six-figure donations—she insists they're just getting started."I literally feel like we're just getting started," she says of the ten-year journey. "Over the last two years is finally when I feel like we've built something that's going to have value and matter."The Revolution ContinuesHarper's vision extends beyond Cheekbone to building an Indigenous beauty conglomerate—acquiring skincare brands, hair care lines, creating an entire ecosystem centered on Indigenous values and sustainable practices.“Cheekbone pioneered a category we call Indigenous Beauty," she explains. "What we intend to do is build this with that long view in mind."For women watching Harper's journey—especially those with their own healing to do—her message is clear: "I am no longer going to feel ashamed. If we've made past mistakes, big ones or small ones, you have to remove that shame part of it. Anyone can turn their lives around at any given moment."It's advice born from experience, spoken by someone who turned rock bottom into revolutionary business, addiction into empire-building, and personal healing into community transformation."If your heart's in something, there's nothing that can stop you from reaching that goal," Harper concludes. "I have regrets, many, many regrets. But shame will kill us. And I refuse to let shame win."Harper's story represents a new generation of Indigenous entrepreneurs building businesses that honor their heritage while challenging industry standards. As Orange Shirt Day approaches this September, her work reminds us that real reconciliation happens not through performative gestures, but through sustained action, authentic representation, and the radical act of building something beautiful from the ground up.When Jenn Harper talks about changing hearts instead of holding signs, she's describing a partnership that puts real money behind Indigenous education. For four years, Cheekbone Beauty has worked with Indspire, Canada's largest Indigenous-led registered charity, transforming lip gloss sales into life-changing scholarships."They're the one that we do our scholarship fund in collaboration with," Harper explains. "They're a not-for-profit, we're a for-profit business, so we get them to do all of our scholarship fund work."The partnership makes perfect sense: Harper brings platform and profits, while Indspire brings three decades of experience. Since 1996, Indspire has distributed over $200 million in scholarships to more than 54,000 Indigenous students across Canada.The collaboration has deployed 30 scholarships since 2021, with Cheekbone contributing 2% of all revenue year-round to their "For Future Generations Scholarship Fund." During Orange Shirt Day campaigns, that jumps to 100% of profits after operational costs."This year will be the fourth year," Harper notes. "The people at Cheekbone love their jobs because everything we do is about supporting and giving back to the community."What makes this powerful isn't just money—it's visibility. Harper's Orange Shirt Day campaigns educate consumers about funding gaps, systemic barriers, and why Indigenous education matters. Her customers learn while they shop."Education is powerful," Harper emphasizes. "Whatever path a young person can choose, it's going to help."Indspire's approach aligns with Harper's philosophy. Rather than charity creating dependency, they provide tools for self-determination. Scholarships support everything from trades programs to PhD studies, recognizing that Indigenous communities need leaders in every field.Harper's story—building a multi-million dollar company without a university degree—proves success comes in many forms. But systemic change requires Indigenous people in boardrooms, courtrooms, research labs, and government offices."Meeting people that have been impacted—they're a beautiful organization, and people should be supporting them in every which way they can," Harper says.The partnership creates a feedback loop: Cheekbone's success generates scholarship funding, which creates Indigenous graduates, who become role models for the next generation—the representation Harper wishes she'd had growing up ashamed of her identity.This isn't charity for charity's sake. Harper sees education funding as business strategy, community building, and cultural preservation. Every scholarship recipient represents potential future leadership and entrepreneurship."It's all about what are we doing here for the next generations," Harper explains. "That's part of our complete ethos as a brand."As Cheekbone grows into an Indigenous beauty conglomerate, the Indspire partnership ensures success lifts the entire community. It's capitalism with conscience, business as resistance, and proof that revolution can happen one scholarship at a time.

Patric Gagné doesn't need her kids to love her back. She's okay with that. Are we?Patric Gagné cuts her kids' peanut butter sandwiches into stars and whales. She makes Christmas magical even though she hates it. She shows up for bedtime stories, tantrums, and bullies.But here's the kicker—she does it without the emotional fuel most of us run on.She's a diagnosed sociopath. And she's one of the most fascinating, disarming, and deeply human mothers I've ever interviewed.This isn't a hot take on TikTok psychopathy or a glorified redemption arc. This is someone telling the truth about what it's like to parent without the typical emotional wiring—and still doing the damn thing.I first reached out to Patric because her memoir Sociopath hit me in the gut. Not because I saw a monster. But because I saw a parent navigating the same chaos I was—just using a different map.What followed was one of the most honest, unfiltered conversations I've ever had with anyone."I told my kids they don't have to love me."That line stopped me cold.I asked her if she meant it literally—like, had she actually said those words to her children?"Yes," she said without hesitation. "We've had long conversations about love, and I've told them it should always be additive. You should never feel obligated to love anyone. Even me."It’s not rejection. It’s radical self-honesty.And it challenges every sappy Mother’s Day card, every feel-good sitcom, and every sugarcoated idea we’ve been sold about what love between parent and child is supposed to look like.But that's the point. Gagné's entire existence challenges the mythology of motherhood—and not in a self-congratulatory way. She's not trying to shock. She's trying to survive. And raise decent humans in the process.The Baby Stage: “I wanted to leave.”We talked about those early months of parenting—the dark, sleepless tunnel so many of us have barely crawled out of. I told her I was crying daily, unsure if I'd make it out in one piece.She didn't flinch."I wanted to kill myself," she admitted. "Not because of them—but because I thought something was wrong with me for not bonding."She had hoped, deep down, that motherhood would unlock something in her. Some primal instinct. Some feral maternal love.But it didn't.And that realization broke her heart in a way she couldn't quite describe.She wasn't angry at her children. She was angry at herself for believing she could be like everyone else."I was a fool to have thought I could have bonded that way," she said. "I should have been more realistic with myself and said, 'Hey, it's not going to be what it's like for everybody else, just like nothing in your life has been. It's going to be different. But you'll get there.'"The difference between her experience and mine? She had a partner she could tap out to."Unlike you, I had the benefit of a partner that I could say, 'Here you go. I got to tap out.'"Parenting Without the ScriptWe don't talk enough about what happens when your kids trigger parts of you that have never fully healed. Or never existed.Patric doesn't fake maternal warmth to keep up appearances with other parents. She fakes it when her kids need it from her."Not so much anymore—they're older," she said. "But when they were younger and needed comfort I couldn't access authentically, I gave them what they needed anyway."When I asked what it feels like to watch her kids sleep, she answered without hesitation:"Relief."Not joy. Not aching love. Relief. Because they're okay. Because she can finally rest.That answer gutted me. Not because it was cold—but because it was honest. And how many of us have felt that exact thing, but felt too guilty to say it out loud?But then she surprises you. When her older child witnessed a classmate being bullied for their sexual orientation and stood up for them, Patric had what she describes as“I was a fool to have thought I could have bonded that way. I should have been more realistic with myself and said, 'Hey, it's not going to be what it's like for everybody else, just like nothing in your life has been. It's going to be different. But you'll get there.”"one of her proudest moments."I told him, 'You have no idea how much that means to that kid. It really means the world to a kid who feels all alone to have another kid say, stop doing that. That's not kind. And you're being a dick.' I was really proud of him that he did that."Pride without ego. Protection without possession. It's parenting stripped of performance."I can't care about this."One of my favorite moments came when I asked her how she handles the petty day-to-day dramas that set most parents off.“I just say, 'I can't care about this,'” she said, laughing. "It started as a joke with my friends, and now my kids even say it. Like, 'Mommy, you can't care about this.' And I'm like, 'I really can't. I love you. I do not have the bandwidth for a Fortnight play-by-play. I’m a huge gamer and I actually love Fortnite, but I’m also not interested in a 30 minute rundown.”It sounds harsh. But how many of us pretend to care about every scraped knee, every Pokémon card betrayal, every tantrum about the wrong color cup?Patric doesn't pretend. She just shows up with what she's got.For nightmares, she takes what she calls "the easy way out." Instead of processing the dream at 3 AM, she'll say, "That's so scary! Let's talk about it more in the morning," or "The best thing for a nightmare is to replace it with a fresh dream," and bring them into bed with her.“The middle of the night is no time to process a nightmare,” she said. “If they still want to talk about it in the morning I’ll tell them they have 90 seconds to identify every emotion they felt in the dream. The emotions hold the information and, let’s be honest, no one is trying to hear 90 minutes of unconscious recall.”Boundaries without guilt. Efficiency without cruelty. It's revolutionary, actually.The Santa Claus RebellionIf you want to understand how Patric's mind works, ask her about Santa Claus.From the time her children were conscious enough to have the conversation, she's been methodically dismantling the myth."I think Santa Claus is crazy. This whole thing about Santa Claus is insane to me," she told them.When they protested that Santa was real, she'd respond with pure logic: "What's the truth? That a man who wears the same clothes 365 days a year comes down a chimney and leaves presents for you because you're good? So he's breaking and entering?"Her children would push back, insisting Santa arrives by sleigh."I'm sorry, he comes on what? A sleigh?"She'd continue: "Don't talk to strangers unless it's a man in a red suit promising gifts, in which case get into his lap and whisper your secrets? We're teaching kids about stranger danger, but over here it's okay?"But here's the thing—she still makes Christmas magical."I really work hard to make Christmas magical for them, because it's not their fault that I have a really hard time at Christmas. It's so hard every year. But I definitely do it for them."Her solution was brilliant: let her children convince her while maintaining her stance."They would come to me with the stories, and I would say, 'That's bonkers,' and then it's on them to convince me. All along I would say, 'This is insane,' but I will tell you there is something about Christmas that is magical. I don't know what it is, but I know it's not some random guy.""I never wanted to tell them I believed in something I didn't believe in," she explains. "I'd rather my kids know they can always count on me to deal with them honestly, even if it's not as magical as they would like it to be."Radical honesty wrapped in love. It shouldn't work. But it does."I don't need an excuse to be an asshole. If I'm in a dark place and I act out, I act out. There should be consequences. But I don't feel guilt about it."When Marriage Meets LogicLiving with someone who processes emotions so differently presents unique challenges. When her Italian husband gets angry and starts raising his voice, Patric's response is clinically precise.“I say, 'You’re increasing the volume of your voice, not the clarity of your communication.'” she tells me. "I don't respond to yelling. I don't allow anyone to speak to me this way, and I wouldn't allow anyone to speak to you this way, so you need to take a walk because all I see is someone who is so wrapped up in an emotion tornado I can't reach the person on the inside."It should sound cold. Instead, it sounds like the sanest relationship advice I've ever heard.Her husband, she says, thrived in the baby stage. But Patric prefers the teenage years."People like us tend to have a much easier time with the teenage years," she explains. "So many people who thrived in the baby stage are ready to pull their hair out in the teenage years. I feel that I'm more equipped to be a teen parent because I can have those conversations—about sex, about violence in schools. I'm very direct. I don't shy away from anything."When it comes to discipline, Patric strips away the emotional drama that usually accompanies consequences."Actions have consequences. Period," she says. "It's like being an adult—if you want to test the boundaries and get caught, you're not going to be able to have access to the things you want. It's not 'How can you do this to me?' It's more just meeting them where they are."She often lets her children choose their own consequences."You did something, so what is the consequence? You tell me, because I can choose, but I think it's more effective if you choose your own consequence. They're usually pretty spot on."With her older child, she'll reframe situations by asking what advice he'd give his younger sibling in the same situation. "Is this what I should tell your younger sibling? Is this how you would handle this?"The answer, she says, is always the same: "No."It's accountability without shame. Consequences without manipulation. And it's working.The Boxes of MemoryIn her memoir, Patric writes about a box of stolen childhood trinkets—glasses, small objects that gave her some sense of feeling when everything else felt like nothing. I asked if she still keeps that box."I do, but it's gotten bigger. So now I have many boxes full of things, and they're not necessarily things that have been stolen so much as they're things that I have from places that I've been where I shouldn't have been."The impulse has evolved but never disappeared. When she travels alone, she notices the old urges."She's still there, you know. She's like, 'Hey, you wanna go? Do you want to get into it?' It's like, no, I do not want to get into it. It's a conversation that's more playful now."At a recent party, she watched a woman being "such an asshole to the people working the event" and felt the familiar pull toward chaos."I remember thinking, I'm just gonna grab her purse and throw it in the garbage. She's gonna lose her mind. She's gonna think somebody stole it. All of her stuff's gonna be gone."Her husband intervened quickly. "He definitely interceded very quickly, like 'You're not doing that.' And I was like, 'Well, we aren't doing anything. Just go get the car, Buddy. You don't have to be a part of this.'"Instead, she kicked the woman's purse under a table three tables over."She did lose her mind and started accusing the staff of stealing it, which just basically outed her for being an even bigger piece of shit than she was."It's vigilante justice without violence. Chaos with a moral compass. And I'm not going to lie—I kind of love it.Love, RedefinedPatric's definition of love doesn't come with fireworks. It's not desperate or possessive. It's mutualism."Organic. Additive. Mutual homeostasis," she said. "Not transactional. Not ego-driven. Just two people benefiting from each other's presence."When her children accomplish something—good grades, first steps, small victories—she celebrates differently than most parents."I'm happy for them. I'm proud of them. But pride is something that's egocentric, isn't it? So many people who have a lot of pride also take it as a reflection of them, like 'Look at what a good parent I am because my kid got an A.' I'm proud for them, proud of them, but it has nothing to do with me."She adds, "You can be diagnosed with secondary psychopathy and still love. You can love differently—and still make it count."Honestly? It sounds like a better kind of love than most people ever get.Of course, the part of her story that makes people recoil—the pencil-stabbing, the animal cruelty—can't be sanitized away.When I asked what those moments felt like, she said, "Relief. It was like I could finally stop masking. It was my way of saying, 'This is who I am.'"She doesn't excuse the behavior. She doesn't romanticize it. She just doesn't connect to it emotionally the way neurotypical people do.And that's what terrifies people. But that's also why this story matters.Because when we treat sociopathy like a horror movie diagnosis—something you either are or aren't, something inherently evil—we lose the nuance. We lose the opportunity for understanding. For intervention. For treatment.She's Not Asking for ForgivenessPatric doesn't want you to like her. She's not asking for redemption. She's not looking to be fixed. She's just telling the truth."I don't need an excuse to be an asshole," she told me. "If I'm in a dark place and I act out, I act out. There should be consequences. But I don't feel guilt about it."Her diagnosis doesn't excuse harm. But it does explain how she moves through the world. And she's spent years unlearning harmful behaviors—not because she "feels bad," but because she understands what's right.There's something both terrifying and refreshing about someone who takes responsibility without the emotional theater that usually accompanies it.The Privilege to HealShe's the first to acknowledge that if she weren't white, articulate, and conventionally attractive, this story might have ended very differently."There are thousands of kids with the same traits I had—oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder—but they don't get access to treatment. They get kicked out of school. Thrown into the system. Labeled as bad kids. But these are treatable conditions. We just don't fund the solutions."She cites staggering statistics: "Conduct disorder affects roughly 10% of girls and 16% of boys. Its symptoms, such as stealing and deliberate acts of violence, are among the most common reasons for treatment. And yet there's no testing for them or markers for them like there are for autism."This isn't abstract for her. This is the knowledge that hundreds of thousands of children are cycling through systems designed to punish rather than heal. Children who could be helped. Children who could become functional adults, partners, parents.Children who could become her.The Origin MysteryPerhaps the most significant revelation comes when Patric drops a bombshell about her condition's origins:"I was not born this way."She's discovered something about the environmental factors that shaped her—specifically, "having been exposed to psychopathic practices at a very young age." Her response to this discovery? "Relief, fury, and clinical curiosity."But she's not ready to elaborate. "I need to do more research," she says.If her research proves what she suspects, it could revolutionize how we understand and treat sociopathy. It could shift the conversation from "monster or not monster" to "how do we prevent this from happening to other children?"For now, she's keeping that discovery close to her chest. But the implications are staggering.So What Do Her Kids Think?"They've never asked why I'm different," she said. "Because I've always been honest. I've told them, 'Mommy doesn't experience emotions like that. So sometimes I won't understand what you're feeling. But that's okay. You can talk to Daddy.'"When her children heard some of the backlash against her book, their response was pure confusion."They're like, 'I don't understand. Why are people angry? Why are they saying things like that?' They can't wrap their head around it."Her children aren't confused about their mother. The rest of us are confused about what motherhood is supposed to look like.The Uncomfortable TruthThis is not a "look how far she's come" piece. This is a "look how she lives anyway" piece.Patric Gagné isn't trying to be your role model. She's not trying to win you over. But she is asking you to consider that parenting doesn't always have to be soaked in guilt, martyrdom, and emotional exhaustion.Maybe it can also be about logic. Consistency. Showing up. Giving your kids the truth, even when it's not pretty.We love to say that "there's no one way to be a good parent." But we rarely mean it. We say it, then judge every choice that doesn't look like our own.Patric Gagné is here to remind us that the love we think is universal—that overwhelming, consuming, sometimes destructive devotion—might not be the only way to raise whole human beings.You can love differently and still make it count.And maybe that's what makes her the most honest mother of all.If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm, please reach out to a mental health professional or crisis helpline. If you suspect a child may be showing signs of conduct disorder or other behavioral concerns, early intervention can make a significant difference.“I am a criminal without a record. I am a master of disguise. I have never been caught. I have rarely been sorry. I am friendly. I am responsible. I am invisible. I blend right in. I am a twenty‑first‑century sociopath.”Patric Gagne’s Sociopath is one of those books that leaves you sitting in silence long after the last page—equal parts disturbed, cracked open, and weirdly comforted. She doesn’t sugar-coat a thing. From childhood violence to emotional emptiness, Gagne holds nothing back, and somehow in that void, you feel everything. It’s not a plea for pity. It’s a dissection of what it means to perform humanity when you don’t feel it—and the loneliness that comes with that mask. And while the motherhood stuff is only touched on in the epilogue, what lands is the deep, unspoken ache for connection. This book made me question what we call empathy, what we judge as broken, and who gets to heal. It’s haunting in the best way.

How Joanna Johnson built a revolution from the wreckage of everything she thought she knewThe revolution wasn't supposed to start with TikTok dances.Joanna Johnson was lip-syncing to "Jesse's Got a Gun" in her empty house, buying guitars she couldn't play, performing for strangers on an app she didn't understand. Her friends were calling to check if she was having a breakdown. She was 44, recently divorced, trapped in lockdown, and according to every metric that had previously defined her life, completely lost."My friends were calling me, making sure I wasn't having a physical, emotional breakdown," she laughs, remembering those early pandemic days. "They kept asking, 'What is going on, Joanna?' What they were seeing—and I didn't know it then—was very much a level of authenticity."Three years later, that "breakdown" has become a movement. The Ajax, Ontario educator now has over 3 million followers who look to @unlearn16 for wisdom about identity, authenticity, and the courage to rebuild your life from scratch. Her memoir, "That's Not What This Book Is About," is a number one bestseller. She's a keynote speaker, a school vice principal, and—most surprisingly to her—someone millions of people turn to when they need permission to become who they really are.But here's what makes Joanna different from every other inspiration-peddling influencer: she's brutally honest about the fact that she's still figuring it out.The Perfect StormThe path to viral educator began with what Joanna calls "three things occurring at the moment in time to create the perfect storm: Divorce, COVID lockdown, and Charlie, my best friend's kid, persuading me to download the app."The divorce came first. After years of what she now recognizes as dimming herself—"not being the center of the room, not being the person on stage, just carrying the stuff, being in the background"—her marriage ended. But the real end, the soul moment, came later."There was a moment that I stopped being her person," she says, her voice quieting. "She would call often, especially very late at night, very upset, questioning, needing support, and there was a moment that I had the awareness to say, 'I'm not your person anymore.'"It was 3 AM. A friend had told her she was still only "75% out" of the relationship. "That was the moment I knew that if I continue trying to save you—I'm never going to be the person that I need to be. And even worse, I'm never going to—even if you wanted me to save you—I can't. One person can't save another."What's remarkable is how little of herself she had to grieve. "I had been packing away myself for a good chunk of that relationship. I'd been just dimming it, right? As soon as you have to go somewhere and be less to make them feel better..." She trails off, then adds with characteristic directness: "I wasn't being myself at all. I was limiting who I was, and by limiting who I was, I was standing still."Standing still wasn't an option during lockdown. Alone in her house with nowhere to go and no one to dim herself for, Joanna had to face who she actually was. Social media became an unlikely laboratory for authenticity."I accidentally said something about Doug Ford," she recalls. "Literally, I just blurted it out, and then people were responding. They were laughing and saying, 'Oh my God, you're so bang on!' That's when I realized people want to talk about things authentically."The platform grew because Joanna brought something radical to social media: the willingness to admit she didn't have all the answers while still standing firmly in her truth. Her approach to bigotry and hate comments reveals this perfectly."You can't talk to hate, but I assure you, ignorance can be educated," she explains. When trolls comment about her appearance or sexuality, she responds with curiosity rather than defensiveness. "People ask, 'How do you keep your cool?' I say, 'I just don't care. Here’s a guy that spelled ‘their’ wrong wrong. What do I care about this guy?'"But it's not sociopathy—it's privilege, and she knows it. "I've had the luxury of living a privileged life in the sense that it's not that I've never experienced homophobia or roadblocks, but nothing horrific. I'm not carrying trauma. So when people authentically ask, 'Are you a boy or a girl?' I can authentically have that conversation without it triggering something significant."The Teaching ParadoxHere's where it gets complicated: How do you teach kids to be authentic when you're still figuring out who the hell you are?"You lead with that, don't you?" Joanna says without hesitation. "You lead with 'I don't know.'"After 23 years of teaching, she's learned that the education system has it backwards. "I try to tell kids—do things that scare you, do things you're not good at, because those are the things that are really going to highlight when you have to dig down. If I was good at math, just taking math course after math course teaches me nothing. Being afraid but doing it anyway—that's going to teach you something."She practices what she preaches. Five years ago, after decades of refusing, she finally agreed to be in a school play. "I've never been so scared in my entire life ever," she admits. "The best part was I had students that I was teaching strategies to study history, calming me down and helping me go through a completely different skill set."The LGBTQ+ advocacy that has become central to her platform works the same way. She's not trying to convert anyone or have dramatic coming-out conversations with students. Instead, she exists openly, loudly, authentically—"a visual example of somebody living very openly, very loudly, very 'call me whatever you want, just as long as you compliment my hair'—so that they can see that when they go down their authentic road, they can have a good, happy, healthy life."When millions of people look to you for guidance, what happens when you don't feel wise?"Every day," Joanna laughs. "What happens when I don't feel wise? Every day."But here's her secret: "As soon as you know that you know nothing, I think there's a comfort in it. I think the wisdom comes from understanding you have relatively nothing on lock, but you're willing to try everything."This Socratic approach extends to her online presence, where she navigates the impossible balance between authentic and performative. "I am performative. If I wasn't, I couldn't be a teacher," she acknowledges. "You don't get the message across unless you keep somebody's attention. If I don't keep a 16-year-old's attention, I don't care—it doesn't matter what knowledge I have in my head."The difference is intention. On TikTok, every gesture is amplified because she's trying to hold attention for four or five minutes. On live streams, she's more natural because there's back-and-forth conversation. But the core message remains the same: be willing to be scared and do it anyway.Love After SupermanThe hardest comment Joanna receives isn't about her appearance or politics—it's when the right wing successfully conflates LGBTQ+ advocacy with the term "groomer.""Everybody has a guttural reaction—you want to throw up when you think about people taking advantage of or manipulating kids. And they've done such a horrifically good job at binding the two together that it makes it very hard to operate in that space."She refuses to repost such comments, even to discredit them, because "then you're adding to it." Instead, she focuses on what she can control: being an example and having authentic conversations when possible.This approach extends to her personal life. After years of playing "Superman" in her marriage—swooping in to rescue and fix—she had to learn an entirely different way to love when she met Ana."I luckily met somebody who didn't need nor want me to save them," she explains. "Ana said, 'No, no, I don't need you to do that. That's me. I'll take care of me. You take care of you.' We've had to have more than one conversation like that where I realized, 'Oh, my value doesn't come from making sure you're okay because you're making sure you're okay.'"The realization was profound: "If I would have met the wrong person, I would be in the exact same loop."What terrifies someone who has rebuilt their entire life? "Failing," Joanna says simply. But not in the way you might think.As a vice principal, she carries the weight of wanting to help every student who walks through her door. "I tend to try to think, probably sometimes with a little bit of hubris, that I can help. And I always fear that one kid that I can't."Her office reflects this philosophy—movie posters, pop culture references, things that make people feel comfortable enough to be real. "The more we can connect through those kinds of stories, the more authentic the relationship is."But success? She already feels like she's made it. "I'm good now," she says with characteristic directness. Though she has one big goal left: filling Massey Hall with people who want to have the kinds of authentic, difficult, necessary conversations that social media has proven people are hungry for.The UnlearningFor readers who feel stuck, who look at their lives and think "this isn't working but I don't know how to burn it down," Joanna has surprising advice: Don't."I don't know if I'd start with burning it down. I'd start with one thing—one thing that you want to do that you're terrified to do. It could be an acting class, it could be scuba diving, it could be writing a book. You start engaging in it in an authentic way. You don't have to burn everything down because everything else will just fall away."The key is recognizing what you've been carrying that was never yours to carry. "We need to recognize that you have to stop carrying that. You have to figure out -what can I put down? My 14-year-old can get their own lunch. I can go do the art class. We don't have to do everything together."Because here's the truth she's learned: "You can't make other people happy. You can't fulfill other people. You can't make other people feel whole and powerful. You can only do that for you. And the more you do that for you, people around you will say, 'Oh shit, I want that. I'm going to do that.'"If all of it disappeared tomorrow—the followers, the speaking engagements, the platform—what would remain of who Joanna really is?"It would all remain," she says without hesitation. "The connections that I've made, the idea that I could go into any business, shake hands with any person at this point, never feel that I was out of place, never feel that I couldn't belong—that would remain. The idea that I'll be scared but I'll do it anyway. That, I hope, stays."This is what makes Joanna's story so powerful: it's not about finding yourself through external validation. It's about finally stopping the performance of being less than you are and discovering that who you've always been is enough.Her book isn't really about the stories from her childhood, though they're there. It's not about becoming a viral sensation, though that happened. It's about the moment when you stop being who you think you should be and start being who you actually are.And sometimes, just sometimes, the world is ready for exactly that person."That's not what this book is about," she says, grinning. "But maybe that's exactly what this life is about."