When I am able to work for free, or for an honorarium, I’m truly grateful. I’m also not shy about getting something meaningful out of the experience for myself. I believe we should be able to speak candidly about this benefit with comfort.
Listed below are five events in October 2026 that brought me joy, personal learning and professional growth. I either worked gratis, for a small honorarium, or for a fee that was below my standard rate. In this context, I’m talking about something I embraced as an entrepreneur years ago: “Atypical Transactional Value”.
Figuratively speaking, what this kind of “transactional value” means to me is a relationship where the value of my contribution is not measured by how much I’m being paid, the typical business transaction. Instead, the value is measure in terms of a genuine emotional connection and intrinsic worth to me, as well as my professional growth and innovation that come without remuneration.
For all of these events, I took the opportunity to test out some professional tools I’m developing for the long-term. Being able to explore my event hosting App to prepare for hosting and performing, and my new gamification App for trivia and audience interaction in real-time with actual audiences is extremely valuable. I get to see if the tools are working as designed, (they did), and I get authentic feedback, instead of simulated.
Look for atypical value in your work, as I did in the following five experiences.
Rumble & Roar: The Final Roar
Playing family games, trivia and a live auction raised over $12,000 to help safely bring refugees to Canada. This added to a grand total of $100,000 for nine events over 11 years. Canada was the first country in the world to create a private citizen refugee sponsorship program. Rumble & Roar was about bringing people together to support a newcomer to Canada, or provide health support to communities around the world.
The event has been the healing and inspiring passion of Carole Ito, in memory of her daughter Alex who worked on Cash Cab years ago. The R&R family and community of friends will continue to improve lives and create safe places for people forever. I’ve discovered so much about myself from Carole, her community of friends and the people who have attended these events over the years because of, what Carole describes, as “how they have chosen to be in this world”. They have chosen love, compassion, self-awareness and empathy. Priceless.
I also used my event prep App to make sure I captured the key message of the event in my scripting and performance and kept the agenda moving forward.
Laughs, Lyrics & Legacy Night
Parkdale Collegiate Institute Alumni Association
Supporting the students at one of the oldest public high schools in Toronto, originally founded in 1888. It’s a historic inner-city school that serves one of Canada's most diverse urban communities. A legendary Canadian comedian, and friend, Simon B. Cotter is a former student, as are his kids.
I don’t get to work with him much, so to collaborate with Simon and his daughter was really fun and important to me. When people from long-time gone reach out, I feel a special honour to be in their minds. The fact that someone from my past wants me to contribute to something that is so meaningful to them evokes deep gratitude for me. Over $6,000 was raised that night at Parkdale Hall and the sponsor, Schofield/Macchia, committed to funding two $10,000 scholarships.
I also used my event prep App to create some interactive trivia for a mixed audience that spanned several generations.
Chuckles for Charity
This was through another friend from years ago who reached out to ask me to be one of the performers at an annual event for which his partner helps organize. It was to raise funds for Start2Finish, a Canadian charity committed to breaking the cycle of child poverty by providing ongoing educational support to at-risk children throughout their school years. The charity was founded by former CFL player, Brian Warren, who is inspired to nurture young minds and kids’ social health so that they’re empowered to succeed and, themselves, become role models for change. He’s the QB of something meaningful after sacking dozens of QBs in his career.
Sean and his wife, Jen, and I had been in touch over several years to try and make this work, and I’m glad it finally did. I also used a new version of my gamification App to test if for interactive trivia and polls pre-show with the audience. Lots of fun and much needed money was raised.
Richmond Hilloween
This event was organized by a young, aspiring YouTuber named Graham. He has been a fan of Cash Cab with his family for years and we’ve communicated via social media and had online chats many times. This was the first event he ever produced, and there were a few false-starts due to random venue issues, as well as his learning curve and journey as a producer. As a passionate entrepreneur and neurodivergent young professional, I was inspired by his resiliency and the community of friends he brought together. They made the night so fun and interesting for me and the entire audience. I’m not speaking for Graham, but he should be extremely proud and impressed with himself. Plus, his Curious George costume was epic.
I also used this event to work with my new gamification App and test its functionality and audience reaction. Preparing content for a diverse group of participants and audience required the kind of custom support I’ve created in my event hosting toolkit, and it was gratifying to use it with Graham’s group.
FOOD FORWARD SUMMIT 2026
This was a massive, three-city series to bring producers, innovators, investors, policymakers, and communities together to turn connections into action for stronger food systems in Canada and around the world.
The organizers reached out to me within a couple of weeks of the Mississauga, Ontario event and I didn’t hesitate to join their ambitious experience. The objectives align with my global outlook and personal values of creating food security for all people and focusing our investment, innovation and policies on the common good.
In additional to amplifying the crucial conversations about food issues in Canada and globally, the series engaged over 1,000 participants and featured 55 exhibitors, with two innovation challenges awarding $10,000 in total to two startups.
As the host of the Leadership Theatre, my role was to guide a full day of conversations that moved from Canada’s place in the global food system and the future of the blue economy to changing consumer expectations and the commitments needed to move Canada’s food future forward. It was a dense Agenda with numerous key messages, guest moderators, panelists, sponsors and audience engagement activities.
The atypical transactional value was timely because I had just finished the baseline version of my event prep App. In it’s very first proof-of-concept use, it saved me a huge amount of advance prep time. That freed me up to ensure I was in the moment to listen to all conversations, effectively manage Q&A, and provide the audience with fun and interactive experiences for prizes along the way.
I look forward to seeing you at events, conferences, comedy nights and fundraisers this Holiday season and into 2027. My event prep tool will also be ready soon for you to use for your own events. Stay tuned.