The Rășcanu Weekly Update Lesson 54: Impact Starts with Listening to the Community's Needs Hi friend,Happy new year!If you’re like me, you’ve set goals (or “resolutions”) for 2026. You may have goals that relate to your faith, your family, your work, your health, your finances, your personal development, and your impact in the lives of friends and the broader community. Through this life lessons-focused weekly e-newsletter (here are all the past 50+ editions of it) and through the monthly...
5 days ago • 2 min read
The Rășcanu Weekly Update Lesson 53: Community Is a Work of Heart and Hands Hi friend,I hope you're doing well!As 2025 comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on the fact that community is a work of heart and hands. Toronto’s Little Italy gives us a meaningful illustration of this truth. In 1968, entrepreneur Rocco Mastrangelo Sr. opened Café Diplomatico on College Street together with his brother and their father. Born in Anzano di Puglia, Italy, Rocco immigrated to Canada in 1958 and...
12 days ago • 2 min read
The Rășcanu Weekly Update Lesson 52: Build habits that will help you win Hi friend, Most people are already thinking about what they want to achieve next year. Very few are thinking about what they need to do consistently to make those outcomes inevitable. That’s the difference between setting goals and building leadership capacity. The life lesson: build habits that will help you win Outcomes follow systems. Systems are built from habits. And habits only last when someone takes full...
19 days ago • 2 min read
The Rășcanu Weekly Update Lesson 51: The Grocer Who Changed Toronto - A Life Lesson from Johnny Lombardi Hi friend, This week's story comes from the heart of Little Italy, and it is about someone whose life shaped the Toronto we know today. You may have walked past his statue on College Street without realizing that he quietly transformed Canadian media, community life, and how newcomers find their voice here. His name was Johnny Lombardi, and his journey holds a powerful life lesson for all...
28 days ago • 2 min read
The Rășcanu Weekly Update Lesson 50: Protecting What Matters May Involve Transforming It Hi friend, St. Joseph’s Health Centre, a community academic hospital serving Toronto’s west end and beyond, began with a courageous decision that still speaks to us today: sometimes, the best way to protect what matters is to transform it. In 1921, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto faced a difficult moment.Their Sacred Heart Orphanage sat on land that municipal developers hoped to expropriate with the...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
The Rășcanu Weekly Update Lesson 49: Read Stories. Tell Stories. Hear Stories.By Alex Rășcanu Hi friend, Over the last two evenings, I read two wonderful children’s books to my kids: Pickle the Pig and Lou Lou's Pet Dragon Goes to School, both written by Brenden Bott and published by Arete Books. Sitting in their bedroom with the kids tucked in beside me, smiling at Lou Lou's classroom experience and Pickle the Pig’s adventure, I found myself reflecting on storytelling. "Let me tell you a...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
The Rășcanu Weekly Update Lesson 48: Dream big. Plan well. Execute with heart.By Alex Rășcanu Hi friend, I want to share something personal for this week’s lesson. A few weeks ago, while visiting Yorkdale Mall with my children, we wandered into Indigo. Near the stairs on the second floor, an author was seated at a table signing books. It was Karl Subban, the father of well known former professional ice hockey defenceman P. K. Subban. We walked over, chatted for a few minutes, he signed a copy...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
The Rășcanu Weekly Update Lesson 47: What Marilyn Bell’s Swim Teaches Us About Courage and Finishing What You StartBy Alex Rășcanu Hi friend, What would make a 16-year-old dive into Lake Ontario at night, swim for nearly 21 hours through cold waves and darkness, and refuse to give up when almost no one thought she could make it? That’s what Marilyn Bell did in 1954. She wasn’t famous.She wasn’t the favourite, as other swimmers included a world-famous long distance swimmer from another...
2 months ago • 2 min read
The Rășcanu Weekly Update Lesson 46: What Sunnyside’s Past Can Teach Us About Change And LegacyBy Alex Rășcanu Hi friend, I've been researching the story of a place you probably know by name, but not by its full history: Sunnyside. Back in the mid-1800s, John George Howard (official surveyor and civil engineer for the government of Toronto, and the first professional architect in the city) bought a big piece of land just west of what was then Toronto.To the east of his High Park property, he...
2 months ago • 1 min read