Asante Haughton is a lot of things--entrepreneur, activist, organizer, speaker, writer, poet, and mental health worker--but stories and storytelling are at the heart of his work. Asante believes that stories have the ability to connect, build rapport, convey empathy, and forge linkages that support a shared endeavour in improving lives. Asante has leveraged stories, his own and others, to resounding success. His accomplishments include two TEDx talks and being named as one of Canada's top 150 influencers in mental health. Notably, he also co-founded the Reach Out Response Network, an organization whose advocacy directly paved the way to the Toronto Community Crisis Service, a new fourth emergency service that responds to folks experiencing mental health crises with mobile crisis teams instead of police officers.

Though his achievements have earned Asante a significant public profile (and even a Wikipedia entry), he is most gratified when a client or consumer of his work conveys that he has changed their perspective or even their lives. Nothing is more important to him.

A lover of celebrity gossip, finding the just the right .gif, and sports analogies, Asante's passion is for the betterment of all people as he is engaged in the lofty ambition of trying to change the world, one person and one community at a time.

Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.

Asante Haughton works out of Tkaronto, now known as Toronto, which in Mohawk means ‘where there are trees standing in the water”. Today, Tkaronto is covered under Treaty #13 and the Williams Treaties. It is the traditional territories of many First Peoples, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples.  

This territory is part of ‘the Dish with One Spoon’ wampum, a Treaty made between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas, and Haudenosaunee, where nations entered into an agreement to protect the land and responsibly care for its resources in harmony together. 

As settlers, Indigenous people, newcomers, refugees—and it must be acknowledged that many of us arrived involuntarily as a result of post-colonial conflict and the trans-Atlantic slave trade—we have all been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship, and respect. We need also be mindful of broken treaties that persist across Turtle

Island today and to recognize our responsibilities as Treaty people to engage in a meaningful, continuous process of truth and reconciliation with all our relations to each other and with this land. 

By being on this land, we are all responsible for upholding its treaties. Treaty agreements were made to last as long as “the sun shines, the grass grows, and rivers flow.” Truth and reconciliation are actions that must be included in how we live, love, and work every day. 

The Diary of a CEO

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

The World is Yours by Nas