Patrick Priestner’s memoir Notes for the Children contains life lessons to inspire us all.

We all experience a roller coaster of emotions throughout our journey of life. Every emotion, experience and interaction touches a different chord and leaves a strong impact. The people we surround ourselves with, especially our family, play a crucial role in this journey. The story of Patrick Priestner is a testament to how people around us leave an everlasting impact, and, no matter what, how self-compassion helps us sail along in this boat we call life.

Pat reminisces about his childhood, an interesting and difficult time for him due to his parents’ severe drinking problems and his own lack of self-compassion, both of which led him to mature beyond his years. He remembers his parents as being good people and he learned many crucial things from their journey. Reflecting on a lesson he learned from his father, Pat observes, “If you don’t work on yourself — your emotions, thought process and attitude — life will be difficult.”

Pat got his start in the automotive business at the age of 17 by selling cars at a dealership in Calgary. By the time he was 18, he was Canada’s top Chrysler salesperson. He bought his first dealership at the age of 26, and throughout the following 30 years he established and built CanadaOne Auto and AutoCanada, two of the country’s most prosperous auto companies, with billion-dollar yearly sales. His success draws immensely from his childhood insecurities and acts as the best example of how self-awareness can bring a massive shift in a person’s outlook on life. A pivotal chapter in his life unfolded because of his inclination toward Buddhist philosophy and mindfulness.

During one of his trips to India, he had a chance to meet the Dalai Lama, who stressed the importance of practising Buddhism every day. Since then, he has made a point of spending 45 minutes a day studying religion. This has helped him to not just develop more effective business practices but also improve his mental health.

He pays forward the incredible knowledge he has learned and adopted by talking about his personal experience with poor mental health. He talks about how taking care of himself and his team has helped his firm succeed, and he gives advice to entrepreneurs (and everyone else) on how to prioritize workplace well-being and more.

He provides his team with mental health workshops. In doing so, Pat wants to demonstrate that even people who are successful in business can still be going through internal struggles and can be transparent about their mental health. He has taken a big step in this direction by founding Well-Being Canada, a mental health resource for youth and educators.

With his incredible memoir, Notes for the Children: A Journey on Life’s Broken Road, he emphasizes this message of prioritizing mental health and self- compassion to connect and heal internally so that we reflect positive energy in the outside space. Asked what advice he’d give to his younger self, Pat says, “It’s not selfish to have self-compassion.” The more self- compassion you practise, the more you can give to people around you. He adds, “We are the gardener of our emotions.” Life gives us tough situations and we all have the choice to water either the positive seeds of gratitude and compassion or the negative seeds of jealousy and anger.

Through his inspiring memoir, mental health initiatives and life journey, he sets forth inspiration for us all to lead our lives with utmost compassion and gratitude.

INTERVIEW BY MARC CASTALDO

wellbeing-canada.ca
@wellbeingcanada