the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast

Who decided profit principles belong only to shareholders when a not-for-profit could pay dividends to stakeholders and entire communities? Somewhere along the way the social sector picked up the idea that doing good and doing business belong in different rooms, that surplus is somehow suspicious. In this UNCORKED conversation, Tim Windsor sits down with Lisa Keys, Executive Director of Satellite Community Homes, a not-for-profit that manages affordable housing communities in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, and founder of a strategic operations advisory practice. Lisa has spent over 20 years where people, process, resources and infrastructure intersect, and she pours a Flying Monkeys Juicy Ass IPA for the occasion.

Lisa makes a clear case that doing good is a business. If you do not have money, make money, find money or get money, you cannot operate any organization, for profit or not for profit. Every organization needs to know its true cost of doing business, its fixed and variable expenses, and the margin it needs to keep the lights on and grow. Prescriptive funding gets capped, reduced or cancelled, so crossing your fingers for next year's cheque is not a strategy. Operating reserves, diversified revenue and fee for service built on what your team already does well are how a mission survives year after year without drifting from its purpose. She also believes the first step in a culture shift is language: when a not-for-profit starts talking about its work as a business, it starts to see its own value.

Tim pushes on the idea of buying groups, where organizations with 10 units and 500 units pool their power to negotiate at scale. Lisa says it is not happening nearly enough, held back by legacy pride and siloed thinking, and that it takes out of the box leadership to see that collaboration and confidence can live together. The deeper provocation is that the social sector and the business world are not that different once you peel the layers back. It is not doing good or doing business. It is doing good and doing business, mission and margin. Lisa closes with what a great day looks like, both as a business when her staff leave smiling, and as a community builder when a struggling tenant finds the support they need to stay housed.

Connect at https://uncommodified.com/

Tim Windsor

the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast, Host and Guide

tim@uncommodified.com

PRODUCERS: Alyne Gagne and Kris MacQueen

MUSIC BY: https://themacqueens.ca/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Put YOUR MONEY where YOUR VALUES ARE: from the VAULT with DIANE OSGOOD

What if your next shopping decision had the power to change a life, or destroy it? This is a VAULT episode of the UNCOMMODiFiED podcast, a conversation we are unleashing again because it aged forward, not backward. It was first released as Episode 173 on May 12, 2025. Diane Osgood is an environmental economist with a PhD from the London School of Economics who spent more than 30 years inside Fortune 100 companies helping them, and the products they make, become more sustainable for themselves, their customers and our world. Then she had a facepalm moment. She had been working the supply side her whole career, and the real power was sitting on the demand side, with us. Consumer spending drives roughly 70% of the economy. We are not victims of the economy. We are the economy.

Tim and Diane get honest about the gap between our values and our shopping carts. Nobody wakes up wanting to buy something made by child labour, yet convenience, habit and next day delivery keep winning. Diane explains greenwashing as a fancy word for deceit, why words like natural and environmentally friendly are often meaningless, and why trusted third party certifications are the place to start. She takes apart the assumption that ethical always costs more, and tells the story of a young campaigner in Paris writing letters about dolphins caught in tuna nets, only to learn 18 months later that consumer pressure from about 2% of shoppers had changed how the industry fishes.

Diane's invitation is refreshingly simple. There is no right or wrong place to start, so start where your heart pulls hardest. Make one swap a week. Aim for progress, not perfection. When we live aligned with our values we drop the little lies we tell ourselves at the checkout, and we win every day. Like a kayaker who looks at the open water and not the rock, we can steer toward thriving economies and better jobs for more people. You are the kingmaker, and demand is king. Could you be brave enough to make one different decision this week?

Connect with Diane at https://www.dianeosgood.com/ and find Your Shopping Superpower at https://www.dianeosgood.com/books

Connect at https://uncommodified.com/

Tim Windsor

the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast, Host and Guide

tim@uncommodified.com

PRODUCERS: Alyne Gagne and Kris MacQueen

MUSIC BY: https://themacqueens.ca/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What if the disaster you survived is the story someone else needs to hear? This is the very first Disaster CLASS episode of the UNCOMMODiFiED podcast. Think of it as the anti master class. A master class celebrates success, control and certainty. A Disaster CLASS is about losing, learning and leaning into the pain and provocation of difficulty. Tim Windsor brings Disaster CLASS from two live community events onto the podcast and frames three ways we meet disaster: the disasters we create, the disasters that conscript us into their service, and the disasters that compel us to respond and refuse to let us stay silent.

Ellen Lubensky's story is a disaster that conscripted her. She graduated from Stanford, clerked for Chief Justice Rabner of the New Jersey Supreme Court and practised medical malpractice law. At 16, in a psychiatric hospital, she was told she would never amount to anything. What followed was a quick diagnosis, 25 years of antipsychotics with almost no offer of therapy, 20 years of physical disability and a long benzodiazepine taper. All of it began with trusting the doctors and the pill in front of her. Tim and Ellen talk about our hunger for the quick fix, the hubris of thinking side effects only happen to other people, and the shame that grows when we hide what we cannot see.

Every disaster that conscripts us can also compel us. Ellen now speaks publicly and is building a not-for-profit to warn others. She is clear that no is a full sentence, and that a provider who will not accept your no is a red flag. Second and third opinions are a right, not an insult. Shame grows in the dark and loses power in the light. To anyone struggling, she offers four simple words: I'm glad you're here. To families and caregivers, she says to listen, collaborate and give a voice to the person who is struggling. This is not a conversation telling anyone to stop their medication. It is an invitation to be informed, honest and brave. If you are in crisis, reach out for help today.

Connect with Ellen at https://ellenlubensky.com/ and The Mental Health Choice Project at https://www.thementalhealthchoiceproject.org/

Connect at https://uncommodified.com/

Tim Windsor

the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast, Host and Guide

tim@uncommodified.com

PRODUCERS: Alyne Gagne and Kris MacQueen

MUSIC BY: https://themacqueens.ca/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

the COST of STAYING

Have you ever stayed at a party too long? The music fades, the night has already turned, and you are still standing there holding a drink you do not even want, telling yourself just one more minute. In this solo episode of UNCOMMODiFiED, Tim Windsor makes the case that this is not a party problem. It is a life problem. Some of us are still in roles, relationships, projects and identities that said goodbye long ago, and we call it loyalty when it is often just fear.

This is not a case for quitting at the first hard moment. Grit matters, and some of the best chapters of life only open after the messy middle. Tim is against self betrayal disguised as virtue. On one side of a fine line, staying is devotion. On the other, it is denial with better PR. Staying too long makes you smaller, more careful where you used to be alive, and resentful while calling it fatigue. Persistent dread, exhaustion from emotional labour rather than meaningful effort, and joy that now feels rare are not drama. They are information.

Tim draws the line between friction and corrosion: one asks more of you, the other takes more from you. He swaps "should I leave?" for a sharper question, "what am I protecting by staying?", and lays out a clear path. Tell yourself the truth without theatre, price the stay as seriously as the exit, leave clean, and make space on purpose, because that is the difference between escape and exit. Leaders get a challenge too: stop rewarding loyalty that costs people their self respect. If you have been softening a no into a maybe for too long, this episode is a mirror and a nudge. Every honest goodbye makes room for a better hello.

Connect at https://uncommodified.com/

Tim Windsor

the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast, Host and Guide

tim@uncommodified.com

PRODUCERS: Alyne Gagne and Kris MacQueen

MUSIC BY: https://themacqueens.ca/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

the LIE of ARRIVAL

What if the finished version of you never arrives, and waiting for it is the real cost?

In this solo episode of UNCOMMODiFiED, Tim Windsor takes aim at something most of us treat like a private failure: we are not done, not finished, and not whole in the way the world keeps promising. And while we wait to become that clean, sorted, wobble free version of ourselves, we quietly withhold the person we already are.

Tim names the LIE of ARRIVAL, the marketable finish line sold by performance culture, and the tyranny of waiting that follows it. Drawing on a night at the Stratford Festival with Waiting for Godot, he holds up a mirror: you can say “Let’s go” and still never move. Incompleteness is not proof you are behind. It is proof you are still alive to your own becoming. The danger is making unfinished the reason to stop living.

This conversation walks the two ditches that keep people ordinary: refusing to move until you feel whole, and never deciding because you are still becoming. The UNCOMMODiFiED move is living inside that tension with ownership, showing up as you are, telling the truth about what is unfinished, and still taking the next honest step.

Listeners leave with a sharper set of provocations. A finished product pretends the writing is over, while a human being is still a draft. Presence beats polish when it matters. Almost ready is often delayed responsibility dressed as humility. Incomplete does not mean irresponsible; it means in progress with your eyes open. The invitation is to try the 70% version this week, not the fantasy finished self, and to remember that admiration is cheap while joining changes lives.

Why listen: if you lead, sell, create, or coach while privately auditioning for your own confidence, this episode is a mirror and a practical invitation. Stop waiting to be whole to show up. Bring the unfinished you into the room, and let usefulness do the introducing.

Connect at https://uncommodified.com/

Tim Windsor

the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast – Host and Guide

tim@uncommodified.com

PRODUCERS: Alyne Gagne and Kris MacQueen

MUSIC BY: https://themacqueens.ca/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.