What happens when you’re doing everything you were told to do — working, hustling, trying to build a life —and it still isn’t enough?

In this episode of Dare To Be Us, I sit down with actor, filmmaker, writer, and director Taylor Olson for a conversation that goes far beyond film.

We talk about the reality many people are facing after COVID: Nova Scotia’s housing crisis, invisible homelessness, the rising cost of basic necessities, and what happens when people are working two or even three jobs and still struggling to survive.

Taylor shares how witnessing people living in encampments and experiencing housing insecurity influenced their work and what it takes, as an actor and storyteller, to step inside a character carrying that kind of emotional weight.

We also explore something we don’t talk about enough: men’s mental health and the pressure to provide.

What happens when fathers are carrying financial stress, expectations, work, child support and the belief that they have to figure everything out alone? What happens to families when that pressure becomes too much? And what happens when mothers are left carrying the emotional and practical responsibilities that remain?

But this conversation isn’t only about what’s going wrong.

It’s also about what we may have forgotten along the way:

Community. Connection. Empathy.

Taylor takes us inside their recent and upcoming projects, including an experimental horror anthology exploring artificial intelligence, the OutTV workplace comedy Sexy Touch, and an upcoming dark comedy about a stand-up comedian who discovers what can happen when career ambition becomes more important than the people around us.

We also talk about Taylor’s deeply personal AMI project Look at Me, their experience with eating disorders, mental health storytelling, and why seeing someone’s reality can sometimes be the beginning of understanding it.

Maybe the question isn’t simply:

How do we become more successful?

Maybe we need to start asking:

What is our definition of success costing us?

🎙️ ABOUT THE GUEST — TAYLOR OLSON

Taylor Olson is an actor, filmmaker, writer and director whose work explores community, identity, mental health and the complicated realities of being human. Their projects include Look at Me, Sexy Touch, experimental work exploring artificial intelligence, and an upcoming dark comedy examining ambition, success and human connection.

✨ JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Have you felt like you’re working harder but getting further behind?

What has the cost-of-living crisis changed for you or your family?

And what do you think we need to rebuild, financially, emotionally or as a community?

Tell me in the comments. Your story matters here.

Dare to be weird. Dare to heal. Dare to be us.

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Website: https://daretobeus.com/

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