Latinx In Power

and it brought me a lot of really cool opportunities and i never thought about it because it wasn't the goal in the beginning right the goal was to help my community via storytelling and but it brought me really good opportunities i was invited by microsoft they brought me to seattle to be part of like their most important event and we did a live podcasting and i never thought about it i was part of a lot of different events and it was really good to to to be part of that the podcast was invited by hubspot to be part of their community so i'm part of the hopes hubspot created community it was something that i never thought that this could happen so it was definitely something that i never expected and it was really nice that i didn't not have this expectation because i could create something that are really believed instead of like having all those noise that i was like oh if i do x hubspot is going to invite me welcome to latin in power a podcast hosted by da fan hubspot helped tumblr solve a big problem they needed to move fast to produce trending content but their marketing team was stuck waiting on engineers to code every single email campaign now they use hubspot customer platform to mail real time training content to millions of users in just seconds the impact three times more engagement and double the content creation want to move faster like tumblr visit hubspot dot com good morning good morning we are here to to have an amazing session today and it would be a very different session i know we've been talking about this for some time that is so i wanted to first acknowledge and recognize how much i love you how much i've learned with you during the last almost ten years of our friendship and i also wanted to to use this space which is your space to talk more about you because today we we'll be doing things differently right so today will be the last episode of your amazing podcast that post that podcast that has been with all of us for more than ten years of around ten years in general but i'm sure that in your mind it's been more than that because i know all the efforts and all the energy that you put to everything that you do so i'm very excited about this episode again thank you for inviting me to bringing this new closure of our lives i know lives are open or are always all open and being closing the different closures and loops so i'm very excited about this opportunity so thank you for shu me to be the person that is closing your your podcast but more importantly thank you for allowing me to learn more about you and everything that you do and and all the great things that you bring to this world we need more people like this so thank you and let's let's have fun with the episode today so before we jump into the the cool stuff i wanted to just take some minutes to talk about you you are not only an amazing human being in a normal life thirty four seven but it's also during your daily activities you work more as a senior product manager you're also bringing your design skills and your enthusiasm to everything that you you do right i'm of creativity bringing new approaches building products building groups so we will talk more about that tay so i wanted to just start with this high level intro if you and tell us a little more about you because i know you're always used to be in this side of the the conversation so today is your your time time for you and we are grateful for that so tell us a little more about what you're doing today we are learning the power of being on the person and saying the right words today know what you're doing in general and let's let's take it from there amazing thank you so much very excited with this episode and i'm so thankful that you and accepted my invite and of course you needed to be you we have been friends for many many many years and always helping each other the first course of the interview for this podcast so i love how life is folks crow our way so you're now are interviewing me so i'm very excited about that so a little bit about me so i decided to create this podcast because i i wanted to consume something like that and i feel so actually i i i felt very inspired by i quote by thirty morrison that says if you're free you need to freeze somebody else you have some power then your job is doing empower somebody else and i felt so inspired when i met other latin latinos when i moved to the west so i i wanted to interview all the amazing people that i know because i think they're are so inspiring and amazing i learned so much from there and i selfish officially wanted to consume something like that so i think this is another part where i was like oh i interview this person i wanna learn with this person so this is the reason why i created it because i also truly believe the representation diversity it's important especially now that it's we can kind of not talk about that anymore and the stories are so inspiring my focus is always on people who working tech but honestly you can grab inspiration from like oh like no matter what you're doing i feel because there is a lot of life lessons a lot of interesting things and my full time of the house i'm a senior program manager i work for commas platform supporting product team and cross functional teams like launching and building new products i like to build things i really enjoy building things and i have a lot of energy and i need to express my creativity in different ways so i usually have some different personal projects the podcast being one of them i also have a blog where i write about program management tech product management in general and it's kind of like a community now because i have all the writers writing for the pm one and one which is really cool so you have like different perspectives about tech in general especially product management and i just launched a book i love books books are amazing and i love to cook i love to bake and i launched a cookbook that features especially brazilian desserts in a vegan way and also tells a little bit the story of my life it's a little bit memoir kind of thing and it's mostly brazilian recipes some american recipes because kind of like mixed with my time living in the us for the past decade the name of the book is bigger anniversary in the bay area i create this book in partnership with a friend za alvarez that i also interviewing this so she did all their creative direction the photography the design like everything is like her mind and i'm just so proud of this work it looks really pretty and i think that's it yes no that's amazing because one of the things that i i've always admire about you is a multi facet mindset right like you you learn something you you're passionate about something but you also elevated to the next level and and like i said i always say that passion is on the radar because i really believe it i am oh i'm also dream like in a world i always dream of a a world where people really understand that half a passion having a passion for something is pretty unique and that can bring you to unique places as well so i'm i'm always grateful for all of those manifestations that you have and how i learn from you so when we meant like i mentioned i then i was at least nine years ago we were kind of going through similar journeys right coming into the us pretty recently trying to enter into tech trying to break into the product management or at least on side product management was back in the days i think in our countries that concept of product management is a little different so by the time we move to the us we i'm sure you went through the same i went through on some other friends at that process of mapping things out what do i want to do where do i want to go and i remember telling to myself all the time like i wish i were a doctor because i know if i'm a doctor i what i want if i'm have lawyer it i know but been a product or project etcetera it a management part of things it's not always easy to find a one on one comparison so we were going through that kind of a professional identity journey if we can call it and we meant just very casually but we changed a lot of opinions and ways of seeing the life which is pretty unique and i also love the fact that although we might have different ways of seeing life in certain areas we still kick them together and and talk and enrich from me shoulder and say like oh oh that's why i haven't thought about this so that's that's pretty unique but so what has been happening for you in the last decade like what it's been in latin athena for you right now or so what it was back in the days when we meant how how it's been that journey for you of transformation and how have you actually been seeing that transformation happening in your episodes in with the different people that you connect and the content that you are published today like how is that been happening today and versus how it all started yeah i learned a lot from the people that i interviewed and i love how we all have a different answer for this question about like what it means to be a latin latino or latin person and i love that this can also change over time it definitely change for me and i think i have been reflecting on this answer for the past decade since i moved to do west because it was when i moved here that i discovered that i'm a latin i been like coming from brazil or being our own country you don't think much about like oh and tina like what am i i don't know if they don't think much about it especially because i feel like this country they like to put us in boxes and for a lot like brazilians and latin people from like no spanish is speaking countries maybe the way we see ourselves is different from like the spanish speakers but we always share like a similar story and also the fact that sometimes we don't feel baking a lot person until we move abroad especially the us and for me being latin means being part of a community that really big and caring super super smart talented and at the same time so kind and humble and i feel like i can also always borrow their restraint when i need so i feel like instantly connected when i see someone from latin america because this similarity bring those closer i think and when i moved to this country i felt like very lonely because it took me some time to met people who will look like me who spoke like me you have like similar things and until i i found like other latin people i feel like really part of a community and i feel this is really important to be part of feel that you are part of our community and if you especially now it might be harder especially for latin people because our community is under attack under attack for many many years especially now so i think us being closer being together being helping each other it's a lot more important now and this is those also also so important so i think if i would summarize being latin means don't know it means that i'm out of something bigger and i'm very proud of yes i i love that because i kind went through the same journey i know we talk a little bit about that but when i moved from cuba to venezuela i felt like i i was at need of hiding my identity as a secure person but then when i went back to the bay area and that was because of political situations and everything venezuela i was a little tense there but when i moved to to the bay area it was also like a new opportunity to recognize with those roots when i shy was saying a yes i was more in cuba the people reactions were like oh my like how is because again there was not a big cuban community in san francisco which is different and if you are in florida another states so back in the days i was of the case so i felt like wow that sounds great like why not why am i not saying this day and i had the opportunity to go back to cuba in two thousand sixteen with ebay as a new venture to kind of expand business and opportunities and it was kind of going back to the full circle where i reconnected with those routes so and then there were a couple of epic episodes i was struggling with a group of five or six people and they were literally seeing how we were leaving there and everything and all of them came back i said wow you have to be proud like the way you guys do this we were very focused on the auto car industry and they were all even the mechanics there the real mechanics one here no the ones that we have so i felt great when i reconnected with that so for me it's also sense of resilience but it's also about something that i think we need to learn as a latinos or hispanics in general say yes this is part of our entity our identity entity but it doesn't have to put us in a box or or just put us in a kind of a big team approach like yes that happens but let's keep moving so i think that's that's where we we can see in those examples are able to succeed somehow no so that's that's pretty exciting and in general they i also wanted to ask you more about different challenges that you've been seeing in your your life probably the language and know we've been talking about that in the past say yes how do i say this this way or not but specifically on the podcast like how what was the most difficult thing for you i know you you are a a multi disciplinary person with different skills as well but what was the most difficult part and also have you learned something not only on the soft skill part of things but also on the hard skill part of things during this journey interviewing people and and publishing in the different articles this is very ship but the most challenging part of launching a podcast was to start it was the most difficult one i think i stayed in my head for many years until really gave myself a deadline and actually started to do the work needed to launch a podcast because i was thinking doing research for quite a while and kind of like having this in the dream land and i was starting to get frustrated because i was ready but i wasn't doing anything to actually launch it and when i decided to launch it was actually very quick because i was kind of planning for a while and i found this like online podcast course of course because i've just like this is like my process i like courses nerves and not like to research and this course really helped me to stay focused choose the right equipment and like softer and learn more about the space from like a creator perspective and honestly i only bought a good microphone and i had hire an editor because one thing that's very important to me for my hobbies my personal projects they are my my professional development area and i don't mind using my free time my weekends to work on my hobbies but one thing that i decide is like as much as i can whenever i can i'm going to outsource the things that i don't like to do so i don't like to edit i don't enjoy editing so i hire an editor she's with me sinks day one and she's amazing so i have help so so this is another thing that was important for me and i think the fact that i have been muting and like creating products for the past decade did really helped me to launch the podcast stay organized and prioritize what my community wanted so and also i always say that like selfish lee i started the podcast because i wanted to consume something like that and at the time we didn't have anything like it and also i wanted to connect with people i wanted to learn from them so this was something that it was very very important for me and also give them visibility right increase their reach it was really important for me and then my problem became another thing my my problem in the end and it's still kind of today's to prioritize the people who that i'm interviewing because i decided to receive a lot of inquiries with like really really amazing inspiring people because they wanted to be in the podcast so i really needed to prioritize because i have my capacity so since day one i decided that my capacity was one episode for per month so more than that would be challenging for me and also because i had this go to interview one person from each latin america country and of course me being from brazil makes me know a lot of brazilians and i was like no i'm not interviewing brazilians anymore because we achieved our go i need to focus on like the other countries and interview i know a lot of mexicans they are amazing but i like though i need to focus on my goal to bring diversity in terms of countries and at first i wanna interview at least one person from each latin america country and then i was like oh there's the caribbean we are so close i wanting to feel caribbean people too yeah so i i prioritized achieving my goal and we achieved i achieved my goal we have a presentation from all latin america countries in the caribbean as well then this part was really really important for me so i talked with a lot of really really smart and incredible people answering your question about the soft skills i think the soft skills are very very important because during those interviews we are talking and for me was always very important that the person feel proud of the episode then feel like relaxed and happy a lot of people that are interviewed they never did podcast broadcast before so it's it's not easy it's really really hard so make them feel comfortable with really important and make me them feel proud of the episode as well so the soft skills were very very important and the hard skills like being able to launch on time use the technology editing promotion like there's a lot that comes into launching an episode so it can very handy that i'm have been doing that for quite a while yeah so i love the the beats that you were mentioning and i i can think of at least three things are important that you used for your but our skills and ways of thinking that can be applied to everything now the first one is pretty much recognizing what you love to do versus where you don't love to do which is more translated to what am i good at and what i am not good at right so being humble off have to say you know what not the hero of this movie so it's totally fine there are others that are stronger than me and when you use that in other corporate environments or at work etcetera it you you realize that you have the same part now wherever you go so that's a very strong piece the second one is the power of the storytelling i think you were mentioning and yes getting very focused or okay i want to get that diversity i want to get insights that are quite unique and at the end of the day and i want to tell the story in a way that people can feel proud of so dina that's also very powerful in the new era that we are living where everything seems to be about data and about analytics and behavior and and ai and all of that that's that's very important and at the same time tell me the story right when we think about how our brain works as well there are pretty much of different pieces of research that confirm that our default state is just up storytelling when we are resting our brain is still telling the story for the good for the bad we can all have different experiences with that but that power of the storytelling is quite unique and it will be more and more it goes very connected with the the critical thinking how you tell the facts and of these so you are applying that in each of the episodes or or into the last years and each of the monthly episodes that's very powerful and the third one that you mentioned is how to use different tools that can somehow help me accelerate certain pieces and i wanted to ask you if you shifted a little bit the the tools that you were using i guess now it might be easier to record a forecast or to create a script but i'm sure that back in the days when you started everything was coming from your brain from your mind sitting bringing probably translated to english to portuguese his back and forth it's not like the world that we're leaving today where i can pretty much drop a prompt and then get a beautiful script that it's not completely human crafted that is now with the signal of free from a yeah which is great i'm a pro i first on and everything but that sense of craftsmanship and that sense of the artist and value is pretty unique and and it's pretty funny because i the first episode was probably happening six seven years ago and when we look back and like oh you did it all of this like coming from your mind versus now like and you can say yeah anybody can't record a podcast is but it's not the case you've you were there where things were real and and and and very like raw and hand on and all that like have you experience all like now it's sister here yes or no like how that's that's been shaping you more in the inner part of things no straight path is hosted die ashley and is brought to you by the hub hot podcast network by shedding light on their stories behind the shiny resume social media highlights and job titles no straight path aims to human success from the millennium prospect hot it featuring guests from all walks or live no straight path aims to inspire conversations around the new perspective of success this show is perfect if you like interview style conversations highlighting diverse any important voices improper news marketers and sales people will love this show because ashley full inspiration and features guests from b and successful backgrounds listen to no straight path whenever you get your podcast that's a really good point i think i never thought about it comparing to my podcast and the work that i have been doing i think now we can definitely scale a lot more because we have a lot more tools and of course we have ai so you can scale more and two examples i used to hire a company to do the transcription because we also have a blog and again it was the a work that i didn't enjoy and it was very timing in consuming at the time i use some tools but they weren't super great so i hire a company to do the transcription and now i use ai and it's great it's so much easier and for me as a like a podcast one person it helps me a lot because it's an extra cough that i don't need to have right and this is important because i'm small and also another thing i had i hire someone who did the voice over and like a real human and she's great just latin and it was great to experience to work with her but again if it was now i probably i don't know what i would do actually because is important to me to i think this is another thing that a lot of people don't know but the folks that are hire for a podcast i only hire folks from minority groups and latinos especially like most of the people that work with me for the they are all latin people or folks part of like minority group so this is always always important to me and it's mostly w so this is another thing but it's also like a balance right that sometimes i don't have the budget so of the transcription part was something that it was it was a lot of my budget so now i use ai so i think this is another thing and also ai is great for brainstorming so it's another thing another tool that i didn't have in the past i think in the past i used to spend a lot more time doing research researching about the person their life and now i kind of can expedite this process a little bit like with the help of ai for sure but it's important to me to still have the time and for like experimentation and for forgetting about this can what ai a lot of times being us which is like things look the same the questions are very similar from like other podcasts and all stuff out there and this kind of like perfection that i feel ai sometimes bring us so for me it's very important that the podcast it's real it's like real people real question so this is something that to me it's very important although of course i use all those tools because it helps me and it helps me swiss scale and this is important when you are doing something by yourself in your free times yeah the ai can release those from those mundane things but you are a obligation of expanding your mind even more and bringing in some other aspects so having the opportunity to kind of release your always on activities giving us also the responsibility to elevate the game even more not like be more present in the conversation how can i ask the right questions questions how can i learn more about the person that i'm interviewing and therefore take the most out of that conversation so i think that's that's pretty unique and what have you learned i know we we didn't include any of this in the general spirit but i'm i'm curious to no like what has surprised you from the human being after this journey like are there things in specific that you have found unique like let's say we all like to talk about ourselves yes we know that but what else what else have you seen that it's kind of unique what is that aim for us to tell story to to let me show you where i what go let me share my fears like what have you learned and what have surprised you in this journey about those interactions i think the first thing and this is one i interview friends on they all my they were all my friends because they're first of all amazing inspiring and because i wanna do this thing so and they trust me and i'm very thankful for that and but since the first season i started to receive a lot of requests of people wanting to be in a podcast and sometimes like a lot of times actually very famous with people so they ate their agents were reaching out to me and i was like oh my god so cool that's really cool so this was something that or i wasn't expecting at all and like being part of like best top in latin podcasts to to listen so it was really really cool and another thing in general no matter what like how famous the person was they are always like very kind and they wanted to help they wanted to share this story not to promote themselves but to help others so this was very inspiring and to me especially in the beginning when i was interfering like very famous people we feel like a lot of experiencing podcasting and public speaking which i'm not i felt like very nervous and but they all all great and super super awesome and kind so it brought me this closeness you know because in the end of the day we are all humans so it was really really good i think this was something that was really special and they brought me a lot of really cool opportunities and i never thought about it because it wasn't the goal in the beginning right the goal was so to help my community via storytelling and but it brought me really good opportunities i was invited by microsoft they brought me to seattle to be part of like their most important event and we did a live podcasting and i never thought about it i was part of a lot of different events and it was really really good to to to be part of that the was invited by hubspot to be part of their community so i'm part of the hubspot created community it was something that i never thought that this could happen so it was definitely something that i never expected and it was pretty nice that i didn't not have this expectation because i could create something that i really believed instead of like having all those noise that i was like oh if i do x hubspot is going to invite me if i do this other thing microsoft will see me like no i just did what i truly truly believed and things to happen so it's really really interesting and i'm very proud and happy about it yes we are all very proud of everything you've done and i really love how you you frame that because sometimes particularly when you come to the us for the first time it's always the thing i need to prove it myself i need to do this i need to do that and it's this fear and it takes you takes you probably a couple of years or bored to realize realize i know way i don't have to prove anything everything's is fine and in your case you started with the mindset from the beginning and hey i'm doing this because i'm passionate about this and then the opportunities will follow right so that's kind of a how we should see life in general but sometimes it take us more time than where we want to to realize all of the so that's sas that's pretty unique and i know the main intention or that intersection in the podcast was not only about speaking about our cultures and our ways of living it was also about something more on the hard skill but the things product management project management etcetera i mentioned in the beginning we all been going through that process of mop cells like what i was doing before what does i mean here set so back in the days when we met in the bay area it was a big thing just working in product was kind of the hot topic right like everybody wanted to do it etcetera so it's a little different now and all things have been trending in i'm being moving more to other areas expanding so i'm not necessarily doing pure product today although i always feel like probably is embedded across everything we you do you're always a problem on regardless of where you are right so all of this started with that do you still feel that this is relevant to talk about this and and just to continue bringing that intersection or if you need to open the second phase of this episode what it's going to be the other topic is it going to be about what human behavior or is it going to be about analytics or what are you what are those connections if you need to kind of be build that group of knowledge you started with product but what might be next for you if that's the case if you want to bring something irrelevant yeah that's a really good question i think the podcast started to focus on product management because it was something that it was i was focusing that's time i was transitioning my career a product and i knew a lot of product managers and for sure it was a hot topic everybody was talking about product managers so i think like the podcast followed my journey but also followed what my users my listeners the community was interested and so it was very important to me to follow the trends and what people are talking about what they were interested about and you're right it changed over time so in the beginning it was heavy on product management also designs design i interview a lot of designers and then over time i started to interview other their folks from other areas within tech engineering as well like different areas of engineering and different focus areas starting to talk more about ai since the gaming so which which was very interesting and it was definitely following what my community wanted and also what i wanted so i think yeah i was i was always like part of like this process because was i know as a product person first thing you need to know you're not your user but at the same time i had my interests too and i wanted to bring a different perspective on a lot of other things so i always need to interview people who working tagged but from time to time i brought people from other areas to talk about other things for example impostor syndrome burned out i brought some my orders as well because i thought it was very interesting because there was a lot of like even within tech we are also in the intersection between my art as well in some areas so it wasn't important to me to bring on the artist to the conversation and a lot of other things that i feel that i feel like relevant and from time to time i was always kinda like doing search asking the community what they wanted and they couldn't rank like topics you know things to talk about it was something interesting as well like i brought people from like hr so i tried to diversify as much as possible because i think in the beginning for folks who started to listen to the podcast i didn't don't want them to feel all this is only about product management or this is only about design or this is only about engineering because i don't know i received this feedback the people were like oh i thought it was very technical and then i listened to the episodes i could understand and i was like yeah this is the goal so it was it became very important to me to for like anyone who wanted to consume the podcast to have this sense okay we might be talking about with this engineer but you can follow the conversation so it was something very important to meet the accessibility part of things not just in providing the podcast via audio but of your video and be like blog post as well so people could have access in different mediums it was another thing that was important to me yes because particularly now now in the new world that we're living where you can just saw listen to a podcast so you can read a book where you can just have access to information and suddenly understand about themes that were more technical back in the days like again ai i machine learn everybody talks about that stable coins and this and that so now i feel like that's so in the surface that everybody can have a conversation right so at least to start with so it's our commitment so definitely just debrief as much as possible but also is something i'm very passionate about how can i bring this and show the new generations that there are new ways of building careers of growing etcetera i mean the problem i mean the design ux it might be in the payments or it all depends on on those different that that pulls spectrum where you want to go where you feel happening and it's not only about the traditional job positions that we use to to know on in the past so that's that's exciting i mean and i know we we are about to close this time for now i just want to close with a very question but what is next for you what is next what is next i don't know and i love that i'm giving this answer because i'm a planner and i love to think about the future so i don't know what is next i have been enjoying the uncertainty this days and i love that i started this podcast and how much i learned through this process and how deeply connected i feel about my guess and i feel that we truly connected and i have like a lot of my new friends which is awesome and then also extended my world i remember some is not feeling so great but interviewing people because i plan to record and after we record her i was like oh i feel awesome their energy it's amazing if you inspired and also how those conversations lift by mood as well but i feel that is also important to make space for the new and for rest is this something really important to me right now i have been reflecting how i have been working nonstop since the dynamic because i felt like my time had spend and i didn't realize how i'm like always working for the past five years so i wanted to take a step back and recharge and the podcast we always leave of course we are now streaming platform you youtube blog on medium so we are in the internet so it's out there there's no way of turning back which is awesome and perhaps the podcast will return in another form i'm not sure yet but when the timing feels right the latin power will definitely come back and i feel this is not a goodbye it's see you soon and i don't know when but it's going to happen yes stefan i love the fact that is yes it's been in the press and the power of doing nothing which is a very interesting philosophy that i've been frightened fly as well so those moments of rest of rest that's where again the creativity comes back the storytelling comes back as a as a result of a very strong before that puts us in the next stage so i'm forever grateful for our first coffee time forever grateful for the first meeting back in the google offices with the women in tech and latin latinos in tech group so those are beautiful memories formed the foundation of who i am today and you were part of those so i'm i'm i'm very happy for that i'm sure that we we're we will start together a new officer whatever that means if it's used with a microphone or if it's you just with the notes whatever but i'm always sharing for you and and looking forward to seeing that next level of expansion that you always have so thank you for this and on i'm sure that we were we are on this together you were not gonna we are any of us you know that we are are and before we finish i wanted to share five behind the scenes stories because i feel that they are very funny a lot of people do know that because i was behind all of about and the first one one is that podcast is my worst nightmare i always felt more comfortable with writing the recording especially reporting something my and second language and putting out there in the world it's very scary and the second one i told this already you my first guest and i was very nervous when we recorded i have no idea what i was doing and i was like oh i created this script i think i dove but you know it was awesome i actually listen to our episode not a long time ago and i was feeling very cringe about myself not really you're perfect but then i was like oh this was actually very nice i enjoy listening to this episode you know how you feel cringe about your cell sometime so i i recommend people listening to your your first episode you actually have two episodes three right now and the other curiosity is i used to record this those the episodes the podcast with my two cats and my pug very very brave and one of my cats he was very talk and so episodes people can listen to him talking and my cats passed away with eighteen years old now i have two dogs but they are too noisy to be together while i record so i usually record with my older pug not like two of them together another one i don't think you know this i create you know the podcast music intro i created this music in my ipad yeah and i have a lot of fun doing it and i'm not a musician but i'm very proud of that result it was something interesting that people might not know and another thing i hire like a professional voice actors to record the podcast intro as i said was latin tina she's also like yes this is really cool and she had a hard time pronouncing seeing my last name and it was very interesting because i actually pronounce my name different from the right pronunciation like since to this country i say fernandez but it's not the right from pronunciation is not like fan and i asked her to pronounce the right way but it was very hard and i to when i listen to the podcast the intro i kinda of always laugh because i'm was like oh it's not there yet but it's close enough so i think this it comes to another thing like how important it is to try to pronounce people's name although sometimes for like language but years we might not be able to pronounce it perfectly but the fact that you are trying that means a lot so try and ask people how to pronounce some people they have like really good tips to help you to remember how to pronounce their names so this is very very very very important and never ask oh they have a short name like no don't do that don't be this person i love it and also the pictures remember you also build the whole identity with the pictures and the the purple colors and that i thought that was beautiful when i got my speaker and and everything i was beautiful identity the others so yes i love the journey and and again we are here forever and ever so let's let's go to the next level whatever that means even if it means is breath stay in the person and and listen that's that's already a big thing so thank you ta i'm sure that i'm not saying that fernandez with the the brazilian accent i cannot you guys have a lot of unique fans that we don't have in the spanish so but yeah thank you for everything i always struggled vr i feel there's never good enough they are in spanish so we are in this together but we are trying and this is what matters thank you so much thank you all the best that's it for today everyone thank you so much for your time i will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast and the episodes please message us with any insight any feedback you might have and also guest suggestions messages in your favor social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us and then review we will love that to write us review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you like thank you

do i really like this am i proud of what i did and i think it's important to ask myself those questions before before publishing it or before sharing it to the world because i personally i have attached too much value in the past to what not only all what other people think which i think in one way is important but sometimes we place all the weights all the power into what other people think and or on the likes like the reality of it or like how well it did in numbers in views and subscriptions and all of that but as long as i am happy with the result as long as i'm proud of what i did i am holding some space so to speak to be like no matter how what happens with this piece of something that i just did i am really happy with it i am really proud of it it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audi attracting a lot of leads scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekends a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tools is easier than ever for marketers to attract audience increase leads and its core customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot celebrate but visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more welcome to latin in power a podcast hosted by fan welcome to our power we are talking with from today i'm also so excited with this conversation from is a queer illustrator author and content creator based in brooklyn new york while working on projects in comics p enjoys sharing her life ups and downs on her youtube channel and social media welcome oh my god hi thank you so much for having ma'am really really excited to be here amazing in this episode trump will share how her cultural background profoundly influences her work highlighting the impact of personal heritage on her artistic expression from we will explain her create process and concept to completion and discuss the significant challenges faced at the full time creator along with this strategy used to overcome them first names first what does it need to be a tina for you oh my god pe when you send me this question i this is the one that makes me feel nervous the most to answer because and we were just like chatting before you we started recording but like as an immigrant you kind of don't think about this you don't think about race and ethnicity which is kind of a privilege if i think about it but you don't think about and not when you're living in the country you were born and i have seen other authors and artists say this out loud like express this because when you live in your own country you're just like being surrounded by people who are like you who behave like you you just it's natural everything seems normal but once you are kind of like uproot and place in another place in another country in another city you start thinking about this and like how people are looking at you differently or like suddenly your accents look your accent makes you stand out and so it's almost like an invisible thing until you're removed from that context and so to me being latin athena is intrinsically linked with being chile like so i was born in raised in chile south america and in a way being latin is all of those things that i miss about my country so i think like one of the things that like i don't know they're very in like intertwined with my latin latino identity is so mesa which is a word that is so difficult to translate in english but so understanding spanish is basically the time you spent with loved ones after you shared a meal and you just like talk and talk forever and ever and just like one meal starts blending into the next one usually happens over weekends when time is not a constraint is not something that your oh my god i have to go someplace so that for example the so is something like very special and it means it's it's very intertwined and linked to my latin latino identity entity and in that matter all the words that are hard to translate in english i will say also like we were talking about this but my accent is very like i i see my latino coming out when i talk i remember feeling deeply ashamed of my accent when i moved abroad because it was something that i had to conceal and like keep close i think like because i grew up in like in i'm really nervous i love because i think in a way chile in in many countries as we see globally in in this day and age are experiencing racism and a lot of shame with our roots and like what makes us special one makes us unique i remember growing up being grace and like being taught that if i'm ever gonna live abroad i need to kind of like mimic and blend in with other people and my accent was absolutely the opposite of that and so i remember when i moved here i'm like no i need to have like the perfect accent like no one can tell that i am from any like someplace else and it wasn't until i read a comment and someone say friend actually the thing i like about you the most is your accent it makes you stand out and i never saw it at something positive you know and so all of those things in a way make me feel latin latino in like a positive sense you know like chilean jokes and the fruits that chile grows like we have such a fertile so soil in chile so every time i go to a supermarket and i see fruit that it was grown in my country i'm like oh my god yes so if you're really good about that and also i think like as everything there is like a kind of like a downside of being latin as well like the other sign of the coin so to speak because being latin latino also means existing while being removed from your country and so it also means being away from loved ones also in this climate being latin latino means fear and uncertainty for a lot of people and inadvertently you fall into stereotypes as well and i know like living abroad there's a lot of people that don't have ill intent when they say these thing's out loud but i like being latin latino also mean being placed in a very tight box of like oh all latinos like tortilla and all latinos habanero and like this same music and talk about the same things and so it's been really interesting trying to get out of that box and being like again there's no ill intention when people say these things but at the same end i think at the same time it seems red productive like not because i am latin it means that all my work and identity has to be around being latin latino you know and so i think like trying to hold all of these things at the same time makes it a very tricky and sometimes f balanced to hold at the same time yeah i love your answer and i feel maybe especially now because this country they like to put people in boxes right they like to classify people in boxes and i think maybe now people are realizing that okay not all latinos are the same and we are a collection of many many many many different things and we shouldn't be boxing people you know and also it makes me reflect on something that someone that interview that share that even like the classification being a latin i understand how important in power it is but sometimes it's also important to be specific and maybe while you identifying in different ways and there's a lot lot more other things can say about yourself besides being latino although you're like very very proud to be latino we love our countries are heritage and everything to there's a lot more and i love out this conversation i don't know i feel that it's starting to happen now i agree yeah because like in and i've i've lived in in many countries before moving to the us i i lived in germany for a little bit and in the uk as well and all of those countries are big big countries that have place and hold a lot of influence in the rest of the world hence why when you move here part of being latino in a way and part of being an immigrant means also having kind of like an educating role towards the people around you and this is because i guess like especially i don't know if this happened to you as well but like not a lot of people know what chile is like and and when i say like oh i come from chile people don't know that that country even exists and so i'm like oh yeah it's a very long country and of south america and it's not until i say is the country next to argentina people are like oh you know so and it's it's not a role that thought i was gonna have when moving to all of these countries and that i i i had the the luck and the privilege to live and yet i have to in one way or another do it because yeah we live in a in a very we live in a world where certain countries whole a lot of influence hence why there's a lot of people don't know a lot like they don't know much about what happens outside of those countries so it's natural that we have kind of like that responsibility right now yeah absolutely and can share more about your cultural background and how it has influenced your work as an artist oh my god yeah okay so this is another question that i'm like god things that you don't think about until someone asks you so i thought said this is weird but like i didn't have much cultural but background around when i was growing up i this is the biggest irony because both of my parents went to university and my dad used to be a teacher and like a very cultural like so much background into intellect going on in his life habit rid reader and like he loved talking and reading philosophy and all of that but when me and my siblings we grew up in an environment that was super precarious both in an emotional and an nurturing way and also in a financial way and so when you grew up with a with a parent that is emotionally unstable and unpredictable and sometimes abusive your whole attention goes into not being a new nuisance to your parents and kind of like again the the word that we already used so far and was like blending in trying to not be an inconvenience and so i became really good at reading adults when i was growing up and so my whole attention went into surviving and so i didn't have i wasn't encouraged to ask question because again asking questions was annoying and i couldn't explore much a sense of curiosity or like oh what are the sort of books that i enjoy reading or like what is the music that i like to listen to and because again they were no money or resources to buy books or like go to the movies or go out for dinner as a family or go traveling and whatnot and it wasn't until i went to university where i realized or all of these things that i was missing and it kind of like i realized that this was going to be in my task like it i depended all of those things dependent on me like for me to figure out what kind of tastes do i have or like the things that i wanna cultivate or do research on and so i realize i wanna be an illustrator when i was in university and so in chile at the time there was no references around illustration so i was forced to look abroad for references especially this is like not the be early internet days but there were no like blog starting coming out when i was in university so i'm like okay since i i'm not able to find people in chile that i can look up to or like see how like to figure out how they're managing to survive or like freelance i was looking into a lot of like references from north america and from europe at the time and like i started devour books on illustration and art and i guess like the most honest way that i can answer these questions i says i'm still figuring out i'm still like getting all has meant realizing many things and one of those things is like how much shame i grew up in and i'm again parenthesis i'm sure this is happening in a lot of places right now but chile in many countries they like we feel a lot of shame for anything that is uniquely chilean we place a lot of worse on other cultures and other countries and we romantic romanticized the ways that other countries function and how other places and countries they do things and so there's a lot of embarrassment with anything that is uniquely chilean and so i i feel so ignorant when it comes to my own country for the same reason because for the longest time i had this internal bias this internal internal you know like will people say like sometimes you have internalized homophobia or internalized racism i had so much internalized like a shame around my own country and my accent and my roots so to speak then now i'm just starting to un ent all of this in the last couple of years and so i've been trying to be my own source of culture background in i think like since i started like mid twenties so like early thirties so yeah that's the most honest answer that i can give you right now i love how transparent and honest you are and i love how your illustrations are personal and relatable and i love the colors that you use so especially because they happen to be with favorite clothes especially purple pain and blue and i love the combination that you use and i wanted to ask you what initially drew you to illustration and comics as a form or expression i think like everything's i could hold a pencil i was very drawn to comics and making my own i think that's the that's what pull me in in the first place how i love being able to create like entire worlds and stories and characters out of nowhere like i the process of like seeing a page that is fully blank and turn it into something i thought he was unreal like i can't believe ten minutes ago there was nothing here and now there's a whole story and like characters and whatnot i didn't need anyone else as well like it was something that truly depended a hundred percent on me and so that autonomy it was something that are really cherish when i was growing up it was also a way of self regulating i think there were so many things that i i didn't that i felt that they were unfair growing up or that i didn't understand that they were hurting or they were confusing times that i feel deeply alone and the the adult world seemed very weird and strange with rules that i didn't understand and so comics were my own way of just giving sense to reality and find a place of belonging and in a way they were also kind of like my escape to our reality that i didn't subscribe and understand at all and i think even till today that's exactly how i feel around comics and illustration as an reader for the longest time like i couldn't read books that changed in the past four years but like i also saw comics that in general comics are very easy to digest they are very visually powerful and fun to read as well and so i'm like oh my god if i can communicate the things that i'm learning in therapy or the things that i'm witnessing when i go outside on the street or my thoughts are like my beliefs and all of the jumped jacks that i do as a person who struggles with generalized anxiety disorder i'm like i can convey those feelings to people it's almost like you're taking someone on a ride and so you're holding my hand as i'm showing you something a process my trauma something that happened to me and you're able to witness it as a firsthand as i'm witness it as well and and i think that processing comic is just like insane you're able to stand on my shoes or i can i can stand on other people's shoes and i love that empathy side of comics as well they're able to transport you to other places and so i i really like the freedom and the autonomy that comics give you and also again growing up in a having no means or like no money for doing a lot of things you just need paper and pencils and so i love how much you can do with so few fewer resources so that's why i love comics so much incredible and in this podcast we we may interview folks who working intact and a lot of those folks they have hobbies a lot of them they are artists as well for example i interview a bunch of like designers well also on artist and i wanted to talk more you about your creative creative process because i feel a lot people might be feeling stuck they don't know how to start and like doing like both things perhaps on top of like better time job so can you walk us through your creative process from initial concept to finish this and if you have and devised for folks who struggling at the moment yeah sure so i think like it all i guess like this is the most common answer but it all starts with an idea because i tried to have always with me or like as as much as i can pen an something that i can write on like i have like a tiny notebook where i keep track of like the things that i am thinking or like while i like no matter how crazy or silly or hard to do idea i will just like write it down so it all starts with an idea and then i usually go into a massive rabbit hole that yourself like doing research on that idea and seeing how how much and how far it can take me and naturally what happens at least to me and this is like very personal i led the idea sit or like i led the idea go on pause for a little bit because time right now for a lot of people myself included is cars and because i am trying to move more intentionally in my life and be more careful about why project i say yes to sometimes saying yes to an idea saying yes to a project a comic illustration it means saying no to another thing that i have going on or that i wanna do and so by placing the idea to the side and let it sit for a little bit i see how how truly excited i am about this and i will just almost like go to bed think about it and then a couple days go by and then i will think about it more and see like okay yes i'm still thinking about this idea i'm still drawn to do it and so if i'm still thinking about it i will notice how excited i am how like it's potential and whatnot and then i turn it into the developing stages and so for example if is a comic i will start writing a scripts or like doing almost like a like a bullet point list of like all the things that i wanna do in this comic script ideas it is almost like a brainstorming session i will start sketching experiment play trying different things etcetera and then once i have a more or less good sense of what for example this comic will look like i will take it into the refinement stage and so i will start like cleaning taking things out change tweak modify see what works this is also the the the time where i will ask a friend or appear why what they think about the comic if the the joke works if it reads well because this is the point where i've been so close to the project that sometimes like lose objectivity or if it actually makes sense or like if it weeds well it's almost like when you're asking your friend to read something out loud and they read it in a weird way and you're like oh no this is not working out and so i will ask for feedback and all of this trying to not to get to attach to the final result because i think it's really important to be like is this is this line really working can i change it into something else and so when you're to attach to something sometimes it's harder to make adjustments or to take things so anyway then i will paint the illustration i will ink the lines this is me some like often the the time like the funniest part of the project because more of like you're not using as your creativity as much but you're using more of like your technical skills and so will put a podcast on the background or i will listen to music because there's not a lot of decisions to take you just like inking and painting and the last test i will like the last step i will test everything out see if it still works if the jokes still make sense and i will ask myself and this is like a very important step i will ask myself that isa do i really like this am i proud of what i did i think it's important to ask myself those questions before before publishing it or before sharing it to the world because i've personally i have attached too much value in the past to what not only all what other people think which i think in one way is important but sometimes we place all the weight all the power into what other people think and or on the likes like the reality of it or like how well it did in numbers in views and subscriptions and all of that but as long as i am happy with the result as long as i'm proud of what i did i am holding some space so to speak to be like no matter how what happens with this piece of something that i just did i am really happy with it i am really proud of it and of course like it's normal to feel sad if things didn't turn out the way they did i'm not gonna say like don't think about relevant other people think because it's normal we're humans of course we think we we care about whether what other people think but having those questions answer from the get go it's at at least holding a little bit of space before this project this process is completed and so then i will just publish and then it no longer belongs to me it belongs to everybody and so that's the whole process i love that i love everything you said because i feel sometimes people might think that the creative process is linear and super straightforward yes and a lot of times it's not it takes time and as you said you even your time to to paint to process and then you come back to it and i love that you also mentioned research right like sharing your friends so they can share feedback it is a joke you can like understand if they got the joke core if there's like any misunderstanding i love that portion that as well yeah is there anything else you you you you wanna share and yeah i i'm not like crazy because i'm like yes yes especially like what you saying about how linear the that's the thing like it's the process is never linear because you will go back to it or take another route or sometimes like the project will take you to a new direction but then you have to go back and then take another path sometimes a a friend will give you like some really good constructive criticism and it makes you think the whole project all over again and so it's very important again like to not be attached to the idea too hard and also be open minded to change it like the the biggest changes that i have done around like scripts and graphic novels and like comics and whether that's like a long term project or a short term project like for example comic for instagram they have changed tremendously because people told me their thoughts are like what they like friend this joke like you i don't understand them you're like okay so it's a it's be willing to be wrong the willingness to accept that sometimes things don't work out and be willing to explore other alternatives so i'm basically guessing all of all of it what like everything you said around the linearity of like the lack of linearity around a process amazing marketing against the grain is brought you by the hubspot podcast network they out of this destination for business professionals if you wanna know what's happening now in marketing what's ahead and how you can lead the way this is a podcast for you the hosts share the marketing expertise unfiltered featured in the details the truth and like nobody tells it to you listen to marketing against the grain whenever you get your podcast and what are some of the biggest challenges you face as a full time creator oh my god i part me i love vulnerable questions that and when i read this for the first time i'm like god there's so many but i think like i can group them in three i think like the first one the first challenge is uncertainty especially as a full time freelancer like living by like months by month not knowing what's gonna happen is scary i think in my case i i am really lucky in the sense that i have a patreon account and i think patreon does help because it gives me some stability but with any platform i think nowadays you never know what the ceo is gonna do or say or like like you have to be prepare for any contingency so uncertainty is like one of the the major ones another challenge i will save is that in my case very personal experience but i am carving my own path in the sense that i am not following any other person's journey but my own i used to have an online store and then i i realized it wasn't working for me and i i wanna be an author but i don't know how to be an author and how how to be an author in the us and like trying to i don't know like right this graphic novel but i'm trying to do something that it hasn't been done before i'm like is the it's sometimes it feels isolating and lonely when you like as an artist as a content creator as a freelancer you're forced to re almost like i i don't like this word but like re brand yourself every a couple of years because you as a person you as a human change every couple of years and so you like the the resilience and the the act of being flexible enough again to be willing to change and to notice yourself like i don't wanna do this anymore what can i do now is kind of again is one of the challenges of like carving your own path and not having like a straight line that you're gonna follow like this is what i'm gonna do for a living from now until i die and that's not at least something that i wanna do and so that's the that's one of the challenges and the last one and this is very personal and maybe not applicable to every freelancer but i am single fa and as a single person having no one to rely on as a freelance is very scary because both financially and emotionally sometimes it will be nice to have someone like if i can be absolutely radically vulnerable with you like sometimes i wanna go home and be held and like someone to tell me that everything's gonna be okay or hey do you know what friend don't worry this month i'm gonna pay the bills while you do this and not having that person sometimes is nerve racking especially like when you have an elder pet like my cat is fifteen is gonna be fifteen this january and every time he gets sick i'm like oh my god okay i'm on my own and again might not be transferable to every freelance freelancer person in the planet right now but is being on my own both work wise and emotionally wise is very scary so right now those are like the three challenges that at least i'm going through as a freelancer thank you so much for sharing and you started to to answer my next question already i love how you are really good in building a community i have been following you for many many many years since you're living berlin and you know i i bought some some things in your store i still have your stickers and your mission of a patreon it's an amazing way of building community but i wanted to ask you like what role does community support play you know creative process oh man i think like it plays such an important role but part of me it's also if i can confess this i i will love to like for it to be bigger like not to have necessarily a bigger community but i i'm hoping illustrator as a whole can be more united especially with everything that is happening with ai art and how tricky it is for content creators and artists to survive in this the i i'm like you guys we need to union we need to like more of like i admire so much what is happening with like the at at least like the this script writers and like the writers skilled to in the us and like how much they have accomplished because of everything that has been happening with strikes and stuff like that i'm like god we need to do this like it will be so cool to be able to do this as well with ai but i think it's also tricky when you're dealing with a community that is also not always but often introverted and so i'm like okay how can we how can we real the community amongst introverted people and so i i'm trying to do my part in regards to like sometimes i i'm having the judgment and the self in validation thoughts of like god i i wish i could do more and like what i'm doing is not enough but i guess like the my tiny grain of salt or or sand as you will say in this in this community effort is to create youtube videos that try to talk about it like mental health and like how to how to make money as illustrator how to make money as a as an artist trying to share ways in which i am learning and improving my skills but i i see the efforts also by other people when they share for example pricing or on projects or what it's happening with again sorry for com like bringing up this topic but it's it's it's just happened to me that this week i share this like big brand who was using ai and and it's placid on all of the subways of new york city and so i can't help but mention ai so much especially this week but like i this is why i think community so important like how can we unify this the the voice or like how can we both point the finger to the brands who are using ai how unsustainable in terms of the environment it is ai and how can we make it better how can we support artists online especially the end of the year and holidays coming up and so all of this to say that are like i wanna do more and i i'm just like hoping that we can achieve something especially with everything that is happening with ai so i don't know if anything that i said makes sense no it makes and i love that to mention ai and also the fact that the maybe the illustrator community should like work more closely which is hard when you are introverted i can relate to that but i feel like as an extroverted you can do a lot maybe we won't be the loudest part person in the room like for sure we want but there's a lot of other things we can do you have your youtube channel and you you to share a lot of personal very important thing so you're doing a lot and it's very very inspiring so but it's that really good conversation to think about like how they illustrated our community can like work more closely together help each other i love this i agree it is it is definitely gonna be a challenge because i think and again this is a an assumption but like i think most of us work remotely and alone and so it's like how can we join forces this when most of us are chronically online and at the same time how can we make this boy how can we like make this voice bigger and how can we refer what is happening with ai and so yeah i think like just like yes to everything that you are saying because god we need to what we have to mh yeah absolutely and how do you maintain a health work life balanced especially when you're work is so personal i was thinking about that it is hard it is hard and like this is not this is gonna be no surprise for people but fa is setting boundaries baby setting boundaries and like i know this is a word that people are dropping a lot like this is my boundary but like what does boundaries what those boundaries look like to me are for example i try as much as i can for weekends to be for resting and that means like no answering work emails trying to be away as much as again from social media because again the dopamine addiction that comes from scrolling instagram is real and i don't luckily and unfortunately i don't have tiktok but i i've seen people just like oh my god i love it and also i hate it and so i'm like i'm gonna stay away from tiktok because i can at this point i think it's it's okay if i'm not anyway so trying to rest during weekends as much as i can another boundary is not reading all the comments i i'm trying to be good at not checking for example comments on older videos or videos that have been up for like a month or something i've had i love reading comments and i love answering comment when i share a comic or i upload a video because it helps me be connected with the people that are watching my stuff and i get amazing feedback or like hey friend this was really useful and so i don't wanna miss that opportunity to connect with someone but at the same time the trolls usually are lurking or like they show up on like after a while so i'm trying to like be really good at that boundary as well also when i'm when you were saying about like how can you keep work life balance when your work is so per personal i think like when i am dealing with filming myself or when i'm dealing with creating a a comic that is very personal to me i will ask myself is this vulnerable or is this private and i think there's a difference between like i can be vulnerable with you that you said and like tell you all of the things that makes me feel scared about being single for example but private is something that for example is this my story to share is there is is this like someone else's story or is this something that i will rather keep to myself because i don't know like it's private for me or i still haven't figure out how i feel about this i think like checking in with yourself before you react or you do something is very important and also like i and and this is linked to the other one is like the way that i i had i keep a healthy ish work life balance is also be good at reading myself and so noticing my feelings noticing my thoughts and being also gentle with myself like do i really wanna film today do i really have are am i in the right head space to turn on the camera and talk to the camera right now because there are times more often than that where i don't wanna be perceived where i feel really insecure about my acne or to my the way i'm aging in the face of the internet and like sometimes i don't i feel very depressed or like anxious and i truly don't think i can i'm trying to be as honest as i can with who i am in front of a camera but at the same time if this is not conducive if this is not a face that i wanna on unnecessarily showed or like this is am i forcing myself to again be perceived is something that okay i need to check in and maybe not do it today i can totally do this tomorrow and also try not to fall into the comparison trap sometimes i god if i can be honest liza sometimes i i see other people who create youtube channel and they film a lot and i'm like god i wish i could be as comfortable to film as much as they do but they people have we all have different limitations we all have different bandwidth and again going back to being gentle with myself this is my capacity for today this is as much as i can give today and that's okay so that's how i'm i tried to keep a health work and personal life balance amazing i'll be thinking about that the difference between and and is so hard to this work being vulnerable versus like being private i will be thinking about that a lot and i love this question because i got a lot of different answers and like get inspired over time so i which resource helped during your journey that we wanna share with us today oh my god there's so many resources fa the i i think the first one that really helped me was therapy but if i can be like very very specific about therapy it was db which is called dialect behavioral therapy and it literally save my life because it gave me so much so many tools around how to cope and like with coping with very difficult situations how like you makes skills to have difficult conversations to be good ish because i i i'm still like working it but like how to be assertive how to share what you want and need and become good at reading myself and like reading my feelings the more mindful and intentional and so db seriously save me as well as anti the antidepressants i am trying to become really activist about anti antidepressants because i think they have a really bad reputation nowadays i'm so happy that people are way more open to talk about therapy but i think anti antidepressants and medication in general they still carry a lot of weight and when you think about anti antidepressants or medications the media and hollywood and movies and series have portrayed such a at look with medication that they make you feel weird and you're not yourself and like and you change and you become this other human and yes medication has side effects that are unpleasant but not all the time and so i i'm not currently taking presence but i did for the longest time and it really helped me during one of the toughest moments on my life so antidepressants is is one of the resources that i wanted to mention another one is journal journal i started doing it during the pandemic because i was doing the artist way this book by julia cameron on everybody seemed was doing it at the time and i it's a practice that i do it now three times a week and i really really recommend it for people who are not only i was gonna i'm gonna stop myself because i was gonna say like i really recommend this for artist and creative but i've recommend to anyone it's the only time in the day that you said that i have an actual like active dialogue with myself thinking is it can be control like sometimes you're actively thinking about something you'd be like oh but most of the times is automatic yet you can control it and so when you're journal and especially if you're doing it with your handwriting forced like when you're drawing like when you're doing when you're writing with your hand it forces your mind to slow down and you're thinking like oh there was something that bother me the other day or like oh my god i can stop thinking about this thing that this person told me and because journal is also a non judgmental place you can say whatever you want as many times as you need you can war vomit that those are the times that i think about like how to resolve a scene how to resolve a comment that i don't know how to end or like how to practice saying something difficult to a friend of mine or to a relative and so journal is where so much of my active thinking happens and so hence why i can't recommend it enough and i wanna recommend one book that is burnout by emilia and emily na gulf and this book i came very hesitant when i started reading it because i've been i've i've read so many books and like articles and podcast episodes on burnout and so i'm like oh my god another book about burnout and i am i was so wrong because it actually gives you tools about burnout and how to handle burnout how to heal from burnout how to end and like come to your the stress cycle how to bring it to closure how to end a stress cycle and why patriarchy plays such an important role on burnout culture and like the stress culture especially on women and so i'm so happy that they address this because it's such a source of stress and pressure on today's society and so can recommend that book enough even if you're like oh my i don't know if i wanna read it just like borrow it from your library i listen to the audiobook book really funny actually the audiobook and so can recommend enough i've been recommending it to all of my friends and peers amazing i long everything you sad incredible and it's actually a great to remark from me because i was thinking about buying the artist way book really so i just took notes so yeah so i'm going to do this i wanted to thank you for your time this is incredible i told you i have been following you for many many many years and i love how i'm i love how a lot of things in live sometimes they are kind of like full circle so you are the one who inspired me to put myself out there a little bit more i feel as an introverted as an immigrant someone with english as a second language podcasting it's very scary yeah like this scared thing sometimes people say to me all that's so nice you have a podcast casual natural like no i am not also because they a you have to listen to yourself and you have to edit yourself and listen to your voice and being like god i i used the wrong word or like i pronounce that word the not the correct way and so it's so challenging i i yes i basically validate how you feel because it is weird or like that's a judgment but like it is difficult to be a content creator when you're speaking on a language that it's not the one that you grew up with yeah yeah absolutely and having you it's just like amazing food cycle moment and also because this is our last episode i i'm not sure if it is ever but for a while so this is our last episode so i'm so excited we are anything with you so something else it's going to happen next year so the podcast will live in like maybe a different form so i wanted to take you and i wanna leave the last minutes for you to share anything you wanna share and where people can find you we are going to link to the description of the episode and i recommend people to check here our youtube channel i'm not an artist maybe i am i have some many issues like saying that but i don't know her draw and i remember that i saw a video that you may made about like the art supply materials that you like that you make you have like five different type of eraser and i was like so interesting i do i have any eraser issue oh my god okay so yeah people can find me on most platforms youtube patreon instagram at nerd everything i'm sure is gonna be down below in the description because i know nerd is kind of like a mouthful but it's under my name as well friend and yeah thank you so so much i for all of the kind words it's it truly what an honor to be in your podcast and also what an honor to be maybe we don't know the last episode like i really wish you the best in this new chapter of self discovery and i can't wait to see what is gonna happen in what you do so thank you so so much i really appreciate thank you that's it for today everyone thank you so much for your time i will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast and the episodes please message us with any insight any feedback you might have and also guest suggestions messages in your favorite social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us and then review we will love that fits to write and then review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you like thank you

it all started when theresa told me that she was doing like ten years as a vegan ten years later in the us and then at the same time i was like yeah let's just create a z let's celebrate it with a z and then she was like yeah sure and then we started to plan it and then it turned into a book and we it it it took it became so much bigger than we thought it would be but that's great because we learned a lot so and i all i think that that idea came because i started to explore with an instagram account where i shoot recipe videos i i photograph food like whatever is on my mind just like as i said experimental space and i i always wanted to do a rest at the book to work on a arrested book welcome to latin in power a podcast hosted by da fan this isn't an your typical marketing software ad because hubspot isn't typical is marketing made easy turn one piece of content into assets for every channel convert leads in no time your and get a crystal clear view of your campaign performance pug hubspot can do all that and get your results fast like double your leads in twelve months fast see told you this wasn't your typical software end visit hubspot dot com slash markets to get started free welcome to lot in power today we are talking alvarez is a graphic designer and our director with fifteen years of experience blending editorial of design branding and experiential design she feels design as a catalyst for meaningful social change and tribes some projects to celebrate collected intelligence and diverse perspectives fun fact part isabella food is modern sustenance sustain it's her news whether she's cooking creating collage photography or few recipes videos food consistently inspire and nourish nourishing not only her body but also her mind and her soul welcome hi thank you it's great to be here i'm very excited for our talk i'm so excited in this episode isabel shares insights for her role as a creative director on a new cookbook blending recipes with storytelling we will discuss her career inspiration and the power of design to a evo emotions and connect communities is the way i call her also offers advice for designers meaning to create socially impactful story driven projects he's what does he mean to be a latin tina for you so that's a very good question because as of brazilian you don't actually learn that you are latin tina and brazil is such a huge country with so many references of its own that you spent like a a lifetime trying to understand what is to brazilian and then when you leave and you go to you go to another country especially here especially in california with there is this amazing cultural reference from latino community because it it was mexican until last century so then you start to realize that you are latin latino and then i started to realize that i was a latino woman and i've been here for only three years so that's has been a journey and i'm still finding out what is that to be tina person tina won't i love what you said about taking some time to figure out what is to be a brazilian and then you move to another country like okay i'm also i'll let you know what does this mean exactly and then you start to see how how many references we share with everything food and culture and in television and music so you start to connect the dots like oh yeah we are together yeah yeah that's amazing and some things we thought oh this is super brazilian and then you're like no this is super latino exactly and we have so much i don't know i think about the all all the latin tv shows that we had access when we were when we were a child so yeah these are very special absolutely sweet and can you give us a number overview of your career sure so i started my career as a theater student i was acting and that was my first bachelor and one year and a half later i started to realize that it was not going to happen it was not going to pay my bills unfortunately so i changed it to graphic design and since the first semester of graphic design i already started to intern and working so i've been through the almost almost all of the graphic design fields so i worked with a lot of branding i worked with a lot of editorial design a lot of exhibition design so i think all connected and they all brought me different expertise which i can use today and my work and now i'm slowly shifting to do more our directing with photography and videos so that's very exciting and that's how we end up with our book so that's very cool and also as a graphic designer i spent a lot of years just freelancing and then i had the opportunity to work with a lot of small companies from the third sector so it's like a lot of ng ngos a lot of institutes a lot of small collective so that's that was very rewarding maybe not financially but for sure like it was great to work with so many special people with purpose so i think that's a a big part of my career as well which i'm very proud of amazing it's incredible how you were able to navigate those different fields in design and graphic design and also transition into the the creative creative like director side of it and it's very interesting but how was this process for you it was like linear it was you figuring out by getting curious about different areas and like navigating those different areas it was more natural on the bikini it was more like about the studio that you went i i end up working so my the first studio it was focused on branding and they did a lot of packaging so and a lot of editorial so i wasn't on the editorial team so i had the chance to learn how to make books how to work with type how to work with print production papers and c and etcetera so after i went to this place where there was even bigger focus on a tutorial design but there were also a lot of exhibition design so i had the experience to go to places and learn how to like to print production for big events for big exhibitions so that was something that's something that i bring with me as well and i think the art director part was more like me what my interest so i started to get a little bit tired of graphic design like i love it but has been so many years and have so many good tools and so many good people doing great graphic design and i was just just wanted to feel challenged and going to our direction towards a more like a photographic perspective really made me like excited again so yeah that's where i am right now just trying to navigate this space that's amazing this super correct inspiring and people might be wondering what is this bulk right what happening and i think when the episode is going live the book is going to be launched but long story short is a eye we have been working together for the past year to launch cookbook the name is vega anniversary in the bay area is that did all the art direction the photography like everything i created the recipes and they sorry that follows the book and today we are going to be talking more about her creative process and how this journey is being for her and will love to inspire or the people to write their own books and do whatever project they have in mind so it's been just the two of us for the past year like he is super creative and it's crappy and experimental yeah it's been it's been a journey and a very exciting one it all started when theresa told me that she was doing like ten years as a vegan ten years live in the us and then at the same time i was like yeah let's just create a z let's celebrate it with a z and then she was like yeah sure and then we started to plan it and then it turned into a book and we it it it took it became so much bigger than we thought it would be but that's great because we learned a lot so and i all i think that that idea came because because i started to explore with an instagram account where i shoot recipe videos i i photograph food like whatever is on my mind just like as an experimental space and i i always wanted to do rest the book out to work on a recipe book because i think this the most fun kind of book that you can work on but i didn't thought that the scene would become a book so i'm very happy that it did it's and yeah so we took references from like punk scenes and that is also like a big part both of our backgrounds so yeah this this experiment with food imagery plus the bunk of scene experience that we lived throughout through our teenager years plus this awesome reason there's like ten years being vegan so like i thought with myself she probably has a lot to share about about it so yeah she did sw she did so yeah here we are and i feel just book very unique in a way that we have the the brazilian recipes and american recipe they happen to be all vegan and that is also they stories behind the recipes and i wanted to ask you how was your process and how did you envision bringing these recipes and story to life through your design and to me when i saw your process all your design and everything i was like this is amazing because it typed like everything together so so beautiful and the the photography it's just so creative and unique and i was just so so inspired you know that because i have been talking and saying that you for the pet here i not sure how to answer this question because it was a very natural process i think one of the most important things i didn't want the book to be a boring recipe book because you are not borrowing at all so i will i really wanted that people could know a little more about you through this book and i really wanted them to feel what i feel when i go to your house because you're like you're such a warming person and you're always giving us food and it's amazing i i feel amazing so i wanted people to to know a little more about you and also like i think there a a political aspect that is very important to you and as is important to me so i wanted to make sure that we could that we would have fun imagery that people would find approachable and make it easier the process of cooking and baking which is so much more complicated than cooking so yeah and i also wanted people to see all the details see the the easter eggs and the little references that we put in each image images so there is a a a quirk in each image we made sure that we we would always put something a little a little something a little weirdness on it so it it wouldn't be like just a rest at the book yeah yeah inclusion and marketing is hosted by sonia thompson is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the auto destination for business professionals inclusion and marketing digs into important topics like the belonging customer experience and diversity and how you can practice inclusive marketing authentic because when you lead with inc you win the attention racial loyalty and trust of a broader group of consumers listen to inclusion and marketing whenever you get your pathway cast and what message are emotions do you hope readers experience through both the content and design of the book yeah so i i think that's it like i think i i really wanted people to feel like they were in your place just having a nice time with you just like listen to your stories because they are very personal stories and that very special and having fun cooking yeah i think that's that's the main emotions i want people to feel but and i also want people to look at it and say like wow this is this is a beautiful book of course because you're yeah yeah and i was thinking about that i think in the beginning i was really overthinking because this is what i do and it's interesting right because i'm on a chef i'm like a program manager a working back and it's very interesting when you do something that is so different from your area of it expertise and it's very scary at the same time but it's also very interesting because you can bring a different perspective and i think the thing that i wanna share with the folks who are listening to us this actually can be your advantage and you can have a lot of fun doing something that is so your area of expertise because you can create something very unique and fun and you know and learn at home during this process that's true and there there's so much that we took into this project that it's ours so for example you as a project manager there's so much you did from management perspective and myself i all i also brought a lot of organizations skills that it's not necessarily a creative skill but it was really important for us because it was just us we didn't have anyone else to check whatever so like we made sure that everything was like running smoothly because of those other skills that don't have anything to do do with being a creative or cooking yeah and i will argue that you a designer with pm skills so it was amazing for me to see how organized you are even with the fig file or the beautiful and the fact that you cook as well i think it it also helps a lot understanding like the process and like the food and the process of like sometimes like waiting and i don't know like the the best time to take this specific picture because the type of food we are like taking photos off so it was really amazing yeah that that was really really cool to to think about the photo concept based on your stories and taking one detail and like maybe we can use this and turn this little bit detail into a big thing that would be the whole photo concept that was really fun that was really fun yeah good i love to talk about personal projects i understand that it takes a lot and a lot of times is our free time so i recognize that but also i like to share folks how fun it is and how much you can learn using your free time for personal projects so i wanted to ask you did working on this projects spark new ideas or direction you want to explore in future design projects absolutely i learned so much about through throughout the process even technically about photography because i am not a photographer so it was just a do witch yourself spirit that made me do all the imagery because we couldn't go after a photographer we couldn't hire photographer and we were so excited to do it and i was like yeah let's let's do i can do it and i did and i learned a lot and even with the with the fig files that you that you commented the four to have like a sketch of everything like very organized so that wouldn't just like spend a lot of time on the day because we spend like one year of our weekends basically just cooking and eating i was eating a lot and it was great was amazing and photograph so we would spend a whole day on this project so there was a lot of compromise and responsibility and that that was great to like that that shows so i'm really proud of our projects pre refill and and yes i'm super excited to keep exploring i want to do my own recipe in i wanted to see how like how the the z format will look with different printing techniques i also got very inspired by because i'm always the kind of person who oh i can cool i i cook but it's just like with no recipe and etcetera but it's so important to have a recipe and especially now that i'm going i'm going to have a a little boy expecting a little boy and it's very important to me that he learns how to be like a a a functional teenager a functional child a functional adult and i think that keeping the rest of the piece it's an important step to say everyone can do it you just have to follow the steps and the oh i i do it by by by eye i don't i don't measure anything that gives so much space to like oh only you can do it so it's better when you do it and that's that's not exactly what we want for we for everyone for anyone like we have want people to be able to to cook and to do every everything they they want to do they they can do absolutely and i think it makes the experience of cooking a lot more present i remember my grandma teaching me how to cook some things that i liked and she was like oh you hear the sound that the peanut made and this is when you know it's ready i never was able to hear the sound and i was frustrated because i was burning to peanuts and i could never do it and i was like a teenager trying to figure out and i got frustrated if i have like the recipe and new like better about their mountain regions the timing and the temperature would be so much better in my experience exactly that that makes that that was like a big inspiration to see everything like and to see how hard you worked to create those recipes as well like it's not that they were some of them were super ready but they all they still needed a lot of testing from your end so it was just it was not just cooking the final product it was a lot of testing so sometimes we would shoot something on the weekend and she would spend the whole week just doing the same recipe forcing you try i was i was met at all and remembering the beginning i was like he's please tell me the truth what do you think and either it's not vegan i'm vegan and there are some things that i cook that i never had the non vegan version so i have no idea what to compare with my memory and we know like it's it's just it's tricky right so it was really nice to receive feedback and like s work like your insides and a lot of my friends do like testing my neighbors it was a community work yeah and i think that's super cool as well like the feedback part because we had to exercise our muscles of feeling uncomfortable because we don't like to to be unpleasant or like making people uncomfortable but you have to it's part of the process like to be really honest so we could come up with really good recipe right so i think that that connection brought us closer and that was really like another pro another pro point of the the whole process i think you're started to answer my next question already what a device would you give to designers who like to work a boots or projects that combine storytelling and social impact so i would just say to do it to have us schedule that i think that was really important and that was something that we kept repeating to each other like no we have to do it until because when you were working when we were working for like four months on the project and then you know things that start to hit and start to get a little tired and then it's like oh we should skip this weekend and we were always aware of like yeah okay we can skip this but we have to do it until this date and really compromise and really make it work because again there's there's no one just saying like when you have to deliver when is the due date so we had to work on that ourselves and i think it that worked really really well between the both of us and i think it also really helps to pull a lot of references and one thing that i did that i tried to avoid references that i thought it was like oh yeah i think this book is perfect i wouldn't even look at it because i was afraid that it would influence me too much so i had like different references and not looking just one place not looking just at one thing just collect references from everywhere anywhere all the time to have like have like a to train your eye you'll find those references in different places and keep your files organized really keep your files organized and you like imagery that you have to re touch keep them in separate folders i mean basic stuff but when you are working by yourself this is the kind of thing that you just like yeah i can i can do it later and then it gets really like it turns into a massive thing and it can become a problem so yeah just organize yourself believe believe yourself and just do it may not look perfect but it is what it is and it will look better the next time and that's how we evolve you know yeah it's a really good device and which way resource helped during your journey that you wanna share with us today so i've been loving to live in subs i'm loving this comeback of the newsletters this blog post format smaller communities so i've been there a lot and i collect a lot of references from there pinterest of course but pinterest into like a place where people drink from the same source a lot so i try to void it a little bit i also always have bon tea magazines at my place a lot the bike i i subscribe them so i it i love i love it i love their imagery i think this very great reference as well yeah movies anything movies fun scenes and records and books sometimes you're reading like a book and it's scribes a feast a dinner or something and then you can take some ideas for that i don't know just anywhere no but this is amazing we are going to link to the description of this episode where you can find the book so you can take a look and maybe buy it and he's this was amazing and so so so inspiring i'm going to leave the last minutes for you to share anything if you wanna share and where people can find you well so you guys can find me my portfolio you can find in isabel alvarez dot com and and there you can also find this project that i that i've been working on that is just like experimental space with a lot of food imagery some food recipe videos it's very mixed don't judge me it's i love it it's my safe place there so yeah you can find me there and yeah trying trying to not be aligned too much so yeah you can just find me on those two places it was great was so great i told you that before but working with you was so so special i'm really glad we did this together i'm really glad we have a book to call our own and yeah i'm so excited to to to the launch to the official launch to too recorded some few days before the official lounge i'm trying not to get emotional here and it's being i'm so grateful for you saying has to a scene and then you're like here let's do and then yeah it grew and i love that you're being over achieve all the time and one wore and it was so fun and it's it's been incredible and we going to remember this forever i love that that's true thank you thank you that's it for today everyone thank you so much for your time i will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast and the episodes please message us with any insight any feedback you might have and also guest suggestions messages in your favor social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us and a review we will love that if free writers us and a review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you like thank you

and they made around like six figures like started right for context when during those times my parents collectively los they both made twenty five thousand dollars together if i were to get a job right out of like college i would made five times as much as they would and i knew like my parents knew or i knew that they were dependent on me and i needed to be successful fast so that's kinda what attach myself to that and also was like hey you know i like computers i enjoy up had access to one of them but i'm like i i bet i can try if i you know i'll figure it out and that's really what took me on the past or swap software engineering welcome to latin latinos in power a podcast hosted by da fan picture this you are at a party and someone asks you what you do as marketer how do you even begin to describe it you have to generate leads discord and contact them create content get data and tomorrow do it all again and wonder if it is even working marketers are spread way to think but hubspot has a better way with a help of breeze hubspot collection of ai tools and feature like content we're mix thermal one piece of content into a suite of assets pinpoint the best prospects with predictive leads scoring and level up your campaign kpis if a new analytic suite so your day to day becomes less busy wood and more driving revenue through the roof and most importantly you have a way easier time describing what you do at parties visit hubspot dot com slash markets to learn more welcome to latin power today we are talking you with martin vargas vega martin is a traditional software engineer with a hard for philosophy and a passion for community empowerment his impressive experience benz leading product development from front end to back end mentoring the next generation of engineers and making significant contributions to company growth he was a founding engineer at a company called hub which has recently acquired for two hundred million dollars exciting and exciting number i'm so happy to have you welcome well thank you no i'm excited to be here i'm excited to to get this going and i'm just thankful that you invited in beyond yeah fun fact i saw him first on doing the tech area event in san francisco and i got so inspired i love your story the way you tell your story and and just so excited to have you on the show we were nervous we didn't think anyone would show up but it was a full house it was also and i think for me it was refreshing too it's been a while often to events and you know it was amazing so so inspiring it was nice to see all the least to so interview her for this podcast i was really really cool mh and i got to know more about you and in this episode we learn more about martin's deep commitment to elevating black and latin x individuals in the tech industry we'll hear more about his story will led him to pursue a career intact and the advice he has for those inspired to join engineering roles very important topics and what does he mean to be a latino for you great question is there for me being let latino is very central to i am now but it it wasn't always like that because growing up i didn't really think too much about it because i was surrounded by latinos so i'm just like i am who i am but it was only as i got older and like i started kinda getting access to like media that i realized that you know these kinda like negative perceptions about being latino just from because we grew up we were very wealthy so we only had access to different media resources one of them and i'm not like proud to say this but one of them was fox news and they don't have a great perception of about latinos but it was really the peep but you know thankfully leads through my education and my parents they were the ones that could really guide me in the way to like find pride being that they know i find pride in being for me mexican and just you know really being able to own that my dad was actually the one that told me like you have so much value because you can go between two worlds of being able to speak spanish and and you know being able to speak english right like most people don't don't get the ability to do that and you do but today you know being that they know a huge part identity it's who i am it's how to present myself how i go into meetings where my energy comes from like i don't back away from it anymore or now and it's just my people know they're like oh hey so that's awesome yeah i love this journey i feel that so it's so interesting to talk with people where they share about like the progression their identity and how we change as well and we feel more comfortable being ourselves and sometimes i don't know there some specificity specific some people share with me before like okay i'm a latin tina but i'm also at chi sometimes i wanna be called chi or like you know like many many different things and i feel i very fascinated about hearing they started and talking about the stories can give us an overview about your life and your career yeah so my life in my career very in line my career is very driven on me helping my family so from a young age you know i grew up working in the fields of of california so me and my family would grow up picking raspberries and strawberries since i was like those are like my early memories most people think about like running or playing my early memories is i was picking raspberries and or eating fruit while i was working so does it when i was like five to like in high school which is like what fifteen sixteen was working in the field so i like my life which i thought was normal was working in your school which i realized now that's not what people usually do they either go to school or yeah they just go to school but for me you know that was my life growing up and i got like my first job ish in high school was in fast food because at that time i was like i don't wanna work in the sun anymore i don't wanna not be having access to a bathroom so that's kinda where i went and how it that all led to banking in tech was in high school up until like when somebody if someone were to ask you hey about at what do you wanna do as a career i would said like i don't know maybe like an astronaut or maybe a doctor but that's only because those are the only careers that i knew if someone were to say hey have you ever thought about being an accountant in or a software engineer or whatever i'd be like i don't know i don't know those are because at that time i only knew what a doctor was because we went to a doctor you know and i only knew some other things because both that's who i saw bid in high school because of my health so i went to a city where the highest education rate was like a middle school level or that was the highest right you're lucky if your parents graduate high school and you were even even more lucky if they went to a community college or a four year school because of that there was a lot of programs that try to reach out to us so people growing up there to say hey go to a higher like go to university and the first thing you have to do when you go to university is a and say choose a major and like i don't know what that is little do i need could choose here right but tripping that list when they showed us what majors were they i put how much money people made and when i was looking to the list i was like like a doctor that's way too long in astronaut that's way too long at least in time wise but then when i went to a software engineer i saw how much they made and they made around like six figures like started right for context when during those times my parents collectively they both made twenty five thousand dollars together if i were to get a job right out of like college i would made five times as much as they would and i knew like my parents knew or i knew that they were dependent on me and i needed to be successful fast so that's kinda what attach myself to that and also was like hey you know what i like computers i enjoy the i have access to one of them but i'm like i i bet i can try if i you know i'll figure it out and that's really what took me on the past or swap software engineering there was a couple little bumps in row around around the way i was on the past to work in education just because i tried getting into software engineering was really hard until eventually i was able to get into a program with adobe where they paid for some of my education and i got my first internship from there it was like a non technical thing but i was excited i was like i made it i i know one can tell me anything but that didn't leave to a full time role i didn't know the difference because no one i didn't know anyone in tech but they just said hey it's an internship pro for three months and then after the those three months we might you know make you full time obviously it didn't didn't pan out in that way i was unemployed for like about a year but during that year that's where i think i really dove into like hey i really wanna do this because everything we i did was me trying to be a software engineer so i did everything that you can think of i did uber i did lyft i did door and then i eventually did costco where i would do the graveyard shift so i would start from like two in the morning or like one in the morning to like one pm but i did it strategically so that i can have all my interviews in the afternoon and not lose like a day of work you let them let me know at the end of all that i got my first break as an intern at this software company then that eventually ended up being the company that was just sold and how are here so oh yeah i like how you always very strategic although your goals were very setting the beginning the financial aspect of it but also trying to figure out things that you enjoyed and had like possibilities and you mentioned something that i wanted to ask you more how being the first your know community you your family very lonely and also the fact that sometimes you don't have someone to ask questions that can support you and can guide you and how has this process for you were you able to find maybe that the university a mentor or someone who could help you so you can ask those questions because it's it's very challenging territory to navigate by yourself especially when you're much younger right and something that's like okay software engineering like what is that yeah no that's a good question yeah before i got an actual job in tech the my mentors in my community were the kind of the thing that kept me going you know like i'm you know i'll show up and do the work but between like zero to one and getting there i was really relying on my my community to name a couple people maybe like two or three one of them his name jacob martinez and he's really the one that pitched the the idea of the vision because he you know he came to a classroom that i was in he's like you know what if you all got paid and got health insurance you know got you know a high paying job and you know and you you you were you were out of the sun and i was like i'm it right he wasn't technical by any means but along the way he helped found an nonprofit that i helped them create as well and known as the digital nest and there you know it was more of just a connection it wasn't his his his impact was more into like motive motivating me to keep going because he knew how hard it is he knew that there wasn't that many of us there but just him being there and porting this idea in this vision that i had of be trying to do this was more than enough another mention that i had his name is joseph and the wild he did work in tech but he wasn't a software engineer and i could remember one of our conversations where he's like hey i'm not technical i don't know where you're going and i even know how to help you apply but if you just need someone to talk to you to be like to say that i have your bag until like that then that's what i can provide and i remember told like bill that's all that i need i just need someone to give me or believe in me and that's enough confidence for me to like you know almost we if i knew how hard it was maybe i wouldn't have done it but because i had the the community around me like that was enough for me to keep going and i'm just like i'm gonna figure it out some way gonna break in in some way i'm not sure how it's gonna happen or when is gonna happen but i definitely have all the means to make it happen and that was enough for me and i'm and i know you heard this before was the the counseling part that helped a lot therapy definitely helped a lot just because it allowed me to see things that maybe you know where opportunities and success were knocking at my door but because for whatever reasons you know whether it's growing up whether it's how i was raised or whatever it was or even myself right like i couldn't see them and i was able to kinda like work through those things and now be able to open the doors to success because i'm sure success was knocking but i was just like no because of some habits or stuff like that but i haven't worked out through that definitely helped that as well amazing i love the animation therapy we love when people mention therapy this appointment as we need our community to have access to and you mentioned two really good things i feel like sometimes people say oh my friends are my therapy like no your friends are your friends that's good that you have friends but my also need therapy those are two different things i wanted to my life as well and then the something think that you mentioned that i feel it's very inspiring you are not beginning a very complex situation technical and it was the first time you were doing this and sometimes you might think oh i need someone very technical to help me that's great but also help can come in different ways in different areas as you said your friend was saying oh not a technical person but i'm here to help you if you to talk i'm here in this awesome because we need helping in different areas people have different cues and they can definitely help you and sometimes i feel a few people don't even realize maybe you are this friend who is helping someone not even realize realizing i think the fact just like being there or maybe connecting you with another person i think this is incredible and i love that you mentioned that no it i think it even now like those are you know you don't realize the the relationships and how much they'll still be there right and to me you know now being in this space it also helps me realize like oh you know they they're not in it to gain anything right like i didn't have anything to give them i was like i have no job i have no money and i have nothing to offer but they you know when if you can are able to see that and recognize you're hey like this person is really trying to help me out and you know with them i also learned how to network and how to do and ask and how to like pitch myself and they were very open and honest with me that i hit my team like this is how should probably communicate or i think you're trying to say this you know if you're meeting with someone else like try this strategy because for me like my background was in agriculture i picked like raspberries and strawberries right i would didn't know what the silicone valley software engineering language which definitely they have their own thing but you know because of those interaction that was able to learn oh amazing two important things how to pitch yourself and ask for what you need what would you say to to the folks listening to us they struggle with those two things i feel i talked a lot of people they are like oh i don't know how to ask or help or to pitch myself i feel that i'm bragging and don't wanna do that like what a device would you give to them if they're struggling just two hours yeah i would say some practical advice and this is something that i use a lot to other like people who might use ai like mh before ai you probably couldn't you know type it prompt me be like hey i'm trying to ask this but i'm trying to not be i don't know banging or something right but let's say you can really but you know say you know how to do that now now when you're talking to someone being able to read someone's like body language to say well are they trying to leave how much time do they have and then also when you're you going up to them just being thankful be hey you know i appreciate the time you know this is a couple minutes and not asking for like a job to like for example i can't you people but hey i'm looking for a job that's very clear but also about hey but i have some advice i looked at your company i'm thinking you apply what are some other things you'd recommend right because you know hopefully you'll be able to get some information from that interaction and i think people love to give advice and love to talk so you have given and invited someone to have a conversation with you the other thing i would say is depending on your situation for example if people are looking or listening to this and or trying to get a job when you're speaking to a recruiter know that they're been talking to like fifteen fifty people so you really have to learn like your elevator speech if you don't know what that is it's just you learning kinda of pitch yourself what your name is what your intention is kinda what you're looking for within like a two to three minute window right and then from there that person if it's a recruiter they'll know kinda where to send you however let's not talk recruiters it's just stock in general learn things about this person you know maybe they release a podcast maybe they release a book maybe you know bring some of that information in and so they know how invested you're in right because you can clearly see when someone is just there to like hey i just wanna make a connection you just so don't look school my linkedin you know like okay well that's great and i'll say this for myself i don't usually like and receptive to them just because there's so many people that i know need to be helped and i just wanna make sure that i can help as many people as possible right but if you are like hey i just i don't know i know you or someone like help me i don't know how you can help me that's a great start right like don't pretend like you you know that you need to have all the answers to show up mh that's awesome i about that enclosure and marketing is hosted by sonia thompson it's brought to you by the hub podcast podcast network the out of this destination for business professionals inclusion and marketing digs into important topics like belonging customer experience and diversity and how you can perhaps inclusive marketing authentically because when you lead with inc you win the attention loyalty and trust of a broader group of consumers check their recent episodes and listen to inclusion and marketing whenever you get your part yes and i wanted to ask you what have been some of the biggest lockers of barriers you face as a latin person in the tech world and how did you overcome them yeah i'll give you a couple of them and then maybe i'll just see you three one of them for sure was so i am a i'm an traditional engineer so what that means is i don't have a computer science like a formal computer science degree however i can do the job but in the world where you know it's structured to be like hey well i know you can do this up if you have a degree it's really hard to say to like look at me and be like well i don't know i don't know if you can do this and it's even more harder when you're like well you're also i mean i don't think people will say like you're let latino know but there's definitely a culture class right like i'm one of a thousand or even more than that right and then you add the no t no he degree then that makes it even harder to be like i understand who you are i i understand what you can do and i think the the cs degree is important just because for a lot of latinos in especially in software engineering that is becoming more and more of the trend not because we don't wanna get a csr degree it's just because it's really hard to get into a cs program right and that's not because of lack of effort from and i don't understand that the end know but you know it's been the numbers of graduates that are both latino and black are very very low right the number of latinos and graduates that are applying to these programs is very high but the a number of latinos and you know and like individuals that are getting accepted is very low so there is a pipeline issue and then when you get to the end that becomes even a harder thing right so now you see a bunch of other latinos you know and black individuals go through your non traditional pathways because that's the only path that we have going forward la i think the other one was the the therapy part it's a different dynamic being in this space you feel feel very alone you can feel and like no one understands you and it's a different pressure as well because there's one thing where your work doesn't understand where you're doing there's another thing where your family doesn't understand what you're doing like why are you working so long why didn't it right for example i remember when i i told my mom that i gonna ask for a raise my mom was like what are you doing like why would you ask for a raise you get paid so well blah blah blah but my mom didn't know that there was a discrepancy compared to everyone else like i found out that i was getting paid list so that was like messing with my head and i told my mouth like i have to ask for more because this isn't this is messing with my mental but then you know obviously she's like but you're getting paid so well like why would you like rock the boat like don't you know like i just be okay like be okay let you have a job so it's one of those dynamics where i get what she was saying right like survive like have a job and just don't lose it but on the other side it's like there's this dynamic that's going on that people don't realize that it affects you you know when you find out that you're not getting paid as much of your colleagues are yeah and i feel we don't talk much about it because sometimes we talk a lot about like the number or folks latin america who are intact those percentage and it's great but at the same time when those folks they are working tech how do they feeling are they getting paid are they like are you listening to them are you giving them credit and i don't think we talk much about it and sometimes there is also there my progression that it's it takes some time to understand and they are not like in your face right sometimes you don't even realize what is happening and this is so sad and i'm glad you talked about therapy as well because therapy can definitely help you navigate those spaces because it's very lonely and it's very sad as well yeah and you know and i think we belong in those spaces right and just because the infrastructure of the company isn't there doesn't necessarily mean that you don't belong to be there you know sometimes the company is five seven years behind you know or they'll eventually be out you know what maybe we should provide more resources and it's unfortunate for those that have to leave or at the left not to their own account you know mh yeah and in what ways do you think the type industry can do a better job of creating pathways for black and latin individuals to thrive i think one of them and this is obviously a sad thing to say but i know the tech industry is moving away like d and i i think for the last two years or at least within the last year for sure a lot of those programs a lot of that funding has been being cut for different reasons but that is a huge obstacle now because a lot of the programs and a lot of the outreach and a lot of the opportunities we're coming from those areas so now instead of like d and i giving strategies to the company of the whole now the top leadership pretty much where or before we have to believe and hope that they've been listening for the last x amount of years then that they'll continue to provide more resources they're not we'll see more or less the same one of the things that i think they can do is let's say for example like for being in my case if more companies offer a an idea of an apprenticeship program that would work i think would work out really right but also ear marking it for under underrepresented individuals i think that would make a huge difference and give people a better entry level position as of now right now it's a little bit convoluted because there's been so many layoffs and now you have like very very senior people going for like very very entry level jobs so like that is making it really really hard the other thing for sure would be once they're there right like that's just hiring once they're there is doing like a one to one match with especially for you know black and latino individuals so that they have like a champion during their first year especially because something that i learned as i went through it is you need to have someone that i will advocate you in rooms that you're not in because of not right like it's it'll be very hard for you to get a promotion it you know it can be very hard for you to get feedback and without before you know it you're like hey well i'm not even like progressing in any way i see all my peers getting raises and now i'm beating seen and shaped as someone that you know hasn't done a raise or a promotion within the last you one to two years and that makes a really big difference because having that individual be able to like it's one thing if you're in the room and you can advocate for yourself which is a hard thing on its own it's another thing to have someone else to be an advocate for you right but you don't know those things unless you have someone that's been through it right like in some of these tech places it's like generation and low families like like oh hey talk to your manager like this oh hey talk to whoever like this i'm mean and you're just like oh okay then you know so those are just two little things yeah yeah especially i feel our culture we talk a lot about like doing the work and we focus so much in doing the work that and we also don't talk about those other things right that like that you making mentioned sponsorship as well if we talk a lot of mentorship which is great but also importance of having a sponsor or someone that is going to talk about you in the meetings you're are not part of so a lot that you mentioned that and i wanna come back to the mentorship part since he was a key process of your career year and i wanted to ask you what a device would you give to junior engineers or those inspired to enter enter the tech industry i would say and and this is for me like five years ago i would say it seems hard you know because for me i think you i went like a year and a year in a month like thirteen months of just trying and getting denied and i understand your frustration because you might be looking at a company saying you want diversity you wanted their diverse workforce and you're at their front door and they won't let you in so i understand why you'd be the frustration that you have i also understand if you wanna say hey i'm gonna take a break because i need to live like i need to survive i can't continue applying for six more months because i need to buy myself food like my parents can't keep paying or you might be at that stage right now you're like have no money and i'm here trying to apply the one thing i would say is fine community if you don't have it if you if you do then awesome then you know be able to reach out to them right like when i was going through one of my programs i created a go fund me and that took a lot for me to do the go phone wasn't in a lot because i felt some kind of way about asking about it now looking back i probably could have asked for a little bit more for context it was like around like fifteen hundred dollars like the one thousand five hundred or a thousand six hundred and and i just asked for the bare minimum and to my surprise and this is kind of the message for a lot of it us is if you if you ask people will show up like feel free to tap to your network linkedin whatever wherever you're tapped to to say hey you know i'm struggling this is what i need and seeing who can show up for you and being creative with it right whether it's go find me whether it's like selling some things whether it's maybe you do a little bit hybrid like you work part time that's just kinda of the reality of where it is now hopefully in a couple of years it's not what what it looks like right now but that's like the truth right like i'm not gonna lie to you pretend like oh you know in three months you're gonna get a job now if you're trying to get into entry level role you have to have like know what your your your your runway is you're like okay i can continue applying for two months without me having to work but maybe you're like well if i get a part time job now i can continue applying performance then maybe that's to me i'll make that one makes sense like get a part time job that i can help you extend your runway and now you can apply for performance months right obviously it gets significantly harder when you have like full time job that isn't what you're trying to do but if this is an industry you're trying to break into that has that might have to be what it's gonna be right i wish i could tell individuals it's something different but that's really what and you know being able to love to optimize some things like hey maybe i don't eat out twice a week maybe yeah know once a week right like being able to sacrifice those things and you know and those things will work up however if you already can do some of these things like making a website making an app you can offer offer those services on some freelance so auto websites and also also leverage ai as well right like you that can be your half an engineer that can help launch something that can help you fund this group and also it works in your favor because then i'm when you're talking interviews you can say hey this is what i did during the situation so i love i love everything you said i love how strategic you are and all this our device it's amazing especially considering the what is happening tech at the moment and also one thing that i wanted to add is when i moved to this country i didn't realize how personal projects and can help you during the interview process i remember was working some like in a blog that i created and like some app that i was working by myself and to me it i was like okay i'm learning with this and i'm you know and then i'm going to find a job and then i remember interview that i have that they asked more questions about the app that i was creating that my actual like work experience the places that i work with and i was just so surprised because for me i was like okay i'm i'm doing this i'm learning and i think they were impressed that i was using my free time to work on something that i believe while i was learning so it it's very interesting so i just wanted to highlight don't underestimate the power of personal projects that you can deal by yourself or with friends because you can learn and there's is also a topic that you can discuss doing the interview process yeah and i mean to to add to that as someone that's interviewing individuals and candidates i can give you my like kinda of what i look at i know a lot of interviews don't like to say that which i think i'm like give them the context so they can do as you know the best job so well there's two things that i look at one of them is when we're doing it like an on side or whatever mind one thing is can i work with you and what that means is when you get locked us questions how long does it ask take you to ask that question so if you come in your thinking like i can figure this all out blah blah blah blah that'll works a little bit against you because most of the times when you're gonna come into this office i wanna know need to have confidence in you that you have enough confidence in yourself to say by thing i don't know how to do this where should i look right now tell me the answer but at least come in like ask me so i can guide you because i'd rather you ways not ways try for three to six hours and then after that six hour would be like hey thing i tried here's the things that i tried what am i missing instead of you've won a whole week and then they're not working out and be like hey i don't know what i'm doing i would have like should have asked me the first day like try try for three to six hours and then after that reach out right that shows me mean like okay cool this will work because i have confidence in you knowing when something's wrong that you're gonna reach out the second thing is at least for self engineering master one language doesn't matter which one it is if you're gonna ask me give me one either dollar group python go maybe java but like one of those three or four because everything else i can teach you right as long as you can understand some logic and you we can kinda work together on like it's a it it's a logical thing the how you write it you know whether it's with the code or a pencil sarah you can learn that on the job and then to way back to what you said yeah personal products are the best thing because in those thirty to forty five minutes i have to figure out how you learn what you know and the easiest way for me to find that out is by talking about what you build right it gives me no i learned nothing if i you know how to do an algorithm or this like structured thing that you practice for five to ten hours but if i ask you about what you're building that gives me such an insight of how you're thinking how you unblock yourself how creative you are way more than hey here's the standard question solve it that i alright cool he can solve or they you can solve this question it'll the personal project that is a lot easier and i can understand that a lot more about who you are as like potential candidate eat those yeah yeah i love that and you're starting at the beginning about you don't need to know everything you don't need to know all the answers and thinking about tech especially because a lot of the time we are working with complex things things that were never done before so you don't know that answers but we need to work with someone who is helping you to find the answers and this includes working with a lot of different people a lot of different personalized personality something that is stressful and is difficult but if you have someone that is like a truly team player that is going to find a solution with you i think this is a game changer if you are able to identify that during the like okay let's hire this person like right now right and i think it's we don't focus on that right when we are in this process because we are like okay i need to be perfect i need to know everything and no no not at all absolutely not a hundred percent i and you know you do hope to not be perfect i i hope people know that because if you're perfect the first time you implement then that's not that probably means it's not good because it shouldn't your first idea shouldn't be like you know you should be able to put it out get feedback make it better right it should be in that way and if the first thing you make is like the best thing then that's probably every you're trying to sell something then that's probably not a good market because then there's no way you can make it better but if they're like hey someone hey i love if you did a and b cool and oh cool and i'll do this and this and that's how you spin out and now this is me from the start that's how you spit up a really good product amazing i love that and talking about resources is there any resource that helped you a journey that it we wanna share first today so when i was thinking about this the one thing that i could just channel everything to myself or to like it was just therapy there's probably some books about just like personal development and stuff like that but i think therapy is the biggest one there's also learning how you learn and what that means is you identifying the best way that you learn and what that means is if you're listen that like say we're working together and you're like hey i really learn best when i can read stuff great i will give you documentation but if you don't know that we have to figure that out together but if you're like hey i am not the best reader i can read some things but i get like distracted it or whatever but if you're like but i'm more hands on perfect then that means to me here's something you're gonna do hands on you know brute for some stuff and that's how you're gonna learn right but if you don't know that from the beginning everything else just becomes a little bit hard or a lot harder right but then once you figure that out learning becomes fun because you're like oh i don't have to read like you don't necessarily you don't have to do that you can just try it like by you know by doing hands on things so that's what i say martin that that that was awesome i love your story in your practical advice that was amazing alright thank you for your time and leave the last minutes for you to share and if you wanna share it for us and where people can find you yeah you can find me on social platforms instagram it's called dev underscore lab latino you can find me on linkedin feel free to be hey my and i heard you on the podcast out and then you know make asks as well just so i know because if if i just see hey like great job like oh cool but then you know feel free to say hey like i'd love to know more about this or know about with that and i'll try to get back to you actually with that no you can message me more than once if anything i encourage you to message you more than once and this is this isn't an advice set applies to everything else from recruiters to hiring managers and stuff like that at least to meeting what works and i encourage people hey message me two three times even four times and and don't take it don't be offended by it i sometimes we'll see it and i'll get back to you as soon as i can i remember when i was going through it i was like they hate me they don't wanna they all talk to me and whatever right but no it's just there's just a lot of noise at times with different things from like work slack to like social media thing that you're just like i sometimes it just skips so when someone says hey i'm sure you're you know da would love to connect that helps me because it reminds me be like hey i'm gonna get to you right now and so i would just say be persistent with that and you know be okay doing it two or three times and you have to a third time be like hey you know what it's fine like seems you're a little busy whenever you can you know message me back in more than more than likely than not i'll i usually end up responding the people that are persisting and it's not because i don't like everyone it's just i have a fine amount of time and in that fine on time i try to respond to as many people as they can yeah that's a really good advice and i like why you said about being specific too and it sometimes people i don't know it's latin pain we just say hi how are you and we wait for you other person's service respond this doesn't work we can be specific hi martin how are you i listen to you on i'm very side study i wanna be a software engineer i wanna talk with you about this topic but your thing and i think it also helps to for you to prepare i was like oh i actually can help this person i'm going to reply to them because sometimes you don't even know how can help them right yeah no a hundred percent i'm also it's especially because of stuff like this i'm gonna try to update a website of just like like if i were to do software sharing today like what would that look like and i'll try to do that once a year i'll try usually doing that in june so end as a resource whoever looks at this and if you're like hey where's your twenty twenty five resource because it would be next year that mess be like hey you actually hear this amazing thank you so much for your time of course thank you for inviting me that's it for today everyone thank you so much for your time i will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast and the episodes please message us with any insight any feedback you might have and also guest suggestions messages in your favorite social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us and then review we will love that you fits your write us and then review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you like thank you

before join my current company hubspot i was a uber driver in in san francisco in california and driving every day of the time i met a lot of people at our folks inside of my car and i remember we had people from everywhere in the road work tech in the bay area and i was always thinking maybe one day i can join them so so when i had opportunity in twenty twenty one she start trying to find a job in the corporate welcome to latin in power a podcast posted by da fan welcome to lionel power today we are talking with tai campbell tai is a customer success manager specializing driving product adoption and empowering customers to effectively leverage hubspot software we've over six years of experience about marketing community beauty and customer success that is it's passionate about building strong client relationships and enhancing customer retention so excited with your conversation and welcome to the line power thank you so much hey them so have to be here and share a little bit about my experience and background our podcast i'm so excited with your episode i love your work and you're so inspiring and also i feel this is a very unique moment because you are going to have ta and ta in the same sure so our name the pronunciation we yeah yeah and you you probably the same thing happened to you a lot of people don't know how to pronounce my name so today we have two variations of our name so personally very excited about that as well yeah in this episode ty shares her experience transitioning into the tech world ronald technical background she offers insights on navigating this shipped building confidence in attack focused environment and using her journey to empower others what does it mean to be a latino for you i well this question because growing enough i did recognize myself as a i moved to united states so when i was many anyone years old has an up care that's exchange program when you come here to leave from our family i care of their kids and throughout these years i realized the united states was pushing me to always define myself i was black i was a teen i was hispanic i didn't know and when i needed to take my driver's license or fill it up forms that's when i always need to say what i was and the beginning issue ride all and in brazilian and then after a few months i realized that i was on latin i start to search on the internet tina means everybody that i was talking to you like oh yeah from brazil latin tina so little bay i start to join communities and online and offline has well connect with other folks in the bay area because i looked in the bay area and i for me being a latin tna is only my story that's something that i learned the past few years it's really understanding my roots and only it in the really like it's a self discovery i am i am brazilian i want to connect with my community so it's is shipping be a journey and i i love being a latin tina and of course being a hearing in our podcast led tonight in power is such important thing for our community incredible yeah i love why you sad and i was thinking also i feel the forms changed over the years because i remember when i moved here i used to see hispanic and then i was like no i'm not hispanic my country was colonized by the portuguese spanish is not my main language and i think now they are using sometimes only latino or sometimes his hispanic slash latino and i love this angle when i interview latin america that came from countries there weren't colonized by spain because we have the z go where okay we have other language in hispanic it's just not represent us so this is very interesting if you to see especially like you know when you we have latin hispanic heritage month for example in my company i start talking hey i'm latin and i know we have a lot of events that are jose spanish and i wanna host one portuguese because it's part of the community and then you know like little by leader we can together share that brazilians are like latino has as well yeah yeah absolutely and coming from a non technical background how just navigate the transitioning into the tech world how how was this for you so before join my current company hubspot i was uber drive in in san francisco california and driving every day at the time i met a lot of people at our folks inside of my car and i remember we had people from everywhere in the road working in tech in the bay area and i was always thinking maybe one day i can join them so when i had opportunity twenty twenty one she start trying to find a job in the corporate here in united states i took a time to think okay what was gonna be my strategy because i was pretty frustrated with myself i thought i couldn't do it because it's it has been like a huge career get my resume and i decide to think about some strength because usually when you are looking for a job we always focus sometimes our why we need to improve but then i took a time to to see okay i'm i'm a good for communicator i speak portuguese maybe i can try to find a job that needs my portuguese that is not everybody that speak a second language so that was my approach i start to try to looking for jobs that they need portuguese and i really wanna transition to tech so i start to go google and communities and trying to find those type of jobs and when i saw the opening role in my corporate club and it has a customer support specialist specialist that's when i decide to apply and they needed a someone that speaks portuguese so so that was definitely something that i like to share with my community you are somebody looking can for another country it takes a lot of resilient and courage starts from stretch in a new country so try to show this during the entire interview process and using your language to highlight your experience so it was definitely something that the recruiters and how your managers gave me a good feedback that i was using my experience to shine that's amazing i love that you said transitioning to tech career gap and strategy in the same sentence because i think this is the key and as you said not focusing on the things you like the things you need to improve and learn whatever but your strengths the quality and the skills you already have and how you can combine those to your next role an opportunity that you can stand up that's a really really really good tip and i feel sometimes for people it might not come naturally to think about those things right they can not if they should be honest like it took me a while to try to change my mindset and really change my perspective okay i have skills i have trust skills so how i can highlight that and share with the recruiters or the hiring managers so it's definitely a hundred percent what we just said mh and what would device would you give to folks who are listening to us if they personal they just heard about it then they are like okay i need to to think about my skills like how was for you did you write things in paper like google docs how how talk with people how was your like brainstorming process i have a doc on excel that i have a lot of skills for example communication stakeholder management and then throughout the the days hours i sometimes i think oh when i work in brazil at this company had very hard moment with a coworker what did i do so i start riding now because i start to see on youtube videos what type of questions the recruiters or how managers usually asked you and like i don't know if actually answer these questions tell me one time when you need to deliver a hard feedback for coworker worker like i don't know but then when the day is going on i searched no it happened to me in the past so having a document it can be you know like slides for a bunch word your phone on the notes doesn't matter when these stores come share i write it down and then i start really using youtube i was searching tips on how to do a good interview they start to show like star method things that i didn't know at all before so i start practicing i don't like practicing with someone so i started recording myself talking about my experience to develop the skills to talk on the camera out or somebody else and sometimes i was like wow it wasn't good at all let just try again in keep and keep doing it so was definitely like the internet helped me and look at my experience and documenting because we forget sometimes you know we are driving and like all i need you do some something on my day and then you forget the next they are gonna remember so it's really keeping an document of your success and challenge because during the interview they asked you a lot of about your challenge as well yeah that's amazing and have view this process of writing down and reflecting it helps you to remember some key information and better structure the way you are going to answer those questions and i feel this is the key and i think sometimes when we are not prepared we might come out as all over the place and it might be hard for the for the person who's interview you know to even understand the whole situation and you mentioned they star a method and i'm really really big fan of that because i think it helps you a lot in terms of like better structure the delivery of your story or whatever you're are going to tell so basically star is an acronym the s main situation the situation you had that you have to deal with the t is the task you're giving to do so first you talk about the situation then you talk about the task and then you talk about the action the action you took and the r is the result and i think this method is very very straightforward and it really helps you to better structure and deliver something that very impactful and i feel i don't how you feel about that to me i feel lot of people that are interact if they are really really good in storytelling so it's something that i get so inspired this so something that i took some time to improve meet you like when i bought my job and then after while i start doing like internal interviews to move under department and i i received it that need to improve your star method you use it but you should need concise it so like okay let me practice i practice over other other items when older share so it's definitely a skill that you need to develop and learn from from it amazing and you have such an incredible energy and passion for helping others and what rules your drive to support and empower your clients so have a customer success manager mike customer success is my success right so it's definitely understanding my customer goal and using my tools to help them succeed so definitely being present when i'm talking to dan and having active listening to understand the end goal and working internally with my core all with other departments to deliver what they need and be real if we can't achieve what they want right now be honest you know so that's something that i feel that's how i really connect with my customers it's because i'm honest with them and transparent when i can do something i would do and what if you i can i can't but i get i gather the feedback and maybe the future we can change something even it's the product or in the service to them share so it's like it's a trust we need to build trust with my customers and coworkers as well it's all like one community to make them achieve their success incredible and i think we are started to touch in my next question as also i'm excited to hear more from you and building strong relationships is that the heart of what you do what's your secret to creating genuine connections with your clients and helping them succeed when they talk to my clients really once you make sure they are agree i i already mentioned i feel sometimes we want to over deliver or share value but we don't know if the value that i'm trying to to share each what my customer wants so for example i know a lot about hubspot part of product and we have a lot of different features but if i start a conversation just saying know how incredible the crm the squad doubt listen to my customer's pain points first it doesn't matter how amazing our platform is so we're really understanding the customer business how they grow how they generate a revenue so then i can't make sure i use these strategies to help them grow so that's really how i feel when i connect with customers and my community in general is listening actively listening and that's something that you time you know like being silence and really giving a safe space for people share their opinion their values their frustration you know because in general people have frustration about different products or different service and how you're gonna show up empathy that's definitely something that it's practice but you need to be intentional something that i always talk to my managers my my my coworkers are i day everyday i tried to being intentional about the day what i wanna deliver in the day what i want to talk about and then we go with my because otherwise no we have a lot of a busy and if we are not intentional things can just be more automatic so that's definitely something that i use i always have like a post everywhere to remind me what is important amazing and i love that your answer can be applied basically anything we do and it doesn't matter your role so it can be applied to a lot of different things so i love that and just such an important thing to keep in mind and i think the next question i wanted to ask you especially for the folks who work intact but doesn't have a attack off background and also for the folks who wanna join tech but doesn't have a technical background they didn't study like cs computer science like anything related to that so i wanted to ask you how like many people feel intimidated by the technical aspects of the industry and even look at kronos the way we speak sometimes it's super intimidated sometimes i joke that if you're like change jobs it's almost like you need to learn things from scratch the way you speak the language you use might be different right and how did you manage to gain confidence and drive try in our tech focused environment it's definitely in your language that you just said in the beginning i had good mentors within my company that they reassure me it's okay you're not understanding everything so having people like me here on the you're talking to you all it's education do not know everything and giving yourself space to fail because for example when i join hubspot i didn't know what of api is that is something very technical and i needed to talk about topics and technical topics many times and to really observe it and learn it so it's definitely like a curve learning that is gonna happen with you and you need to remind yourself i don't know this i'm gonna learn and i'm gonna fail i think especially like being a a t nine tech i didn't want to show i what's failing i was like i'm here i was able to get the job so now i'm gonna be the best of the best of the best but no like has anyone else you're just starting a new role doesn't matter have so much expert or not starting a new role is is ji from the beginning so how you space and remind myself was okay to fail and then trying again was definitely something that i tell new hires when they join my team or other departments because it's hard and saving some space for you to go on youtube or google or communities i really like linkage communities or any general community first example finding latinos in customer success now and there's a lot of people there they they share a device on how it is to be a latino customer success and it really inspires me because i'm i just started this new role and i can see the representation matters so if you did feel recall today maybe follow someone that looks like here they have a a similar background background as you and you're gonna it's gonna give you a little bit more confident even it's a little bit more like they can do they did it maybe i can do it too so so they expect something that i like to do looking for people that look like me in places that i wanna be so that's a really good size because i feel sometimes at the company new work you might not have a lot of representation in terms of folks latin america and perhaps doing what you do especially when you think about the numbers i think in general you have we have like around three percent or less than three percent a folks one america tech which is a very very low number but there's all communities is out there so that's a really really good insight for folks to maybe look outside for your organization so you all can help each other so that's a really good inside yeah join like communities outside of organization or even linkedin was something that helped with my personal branding i start to see that when i owned my story and i shared it it's empowered people that i don't even know these people that reach out to me like oh i saw your post from one year ago about this topic and inspire me to start applying for job as in text for example or sharing my story on linkedin that's something that you think of who am i to share my story but your story is available and your experience matters that's something that i like to share with or latin immunity mh yeah yeah and this reminds me i feel this is a very latino thing right who am i to talk about my work or my experience because we feel oh i just need to do the work because they're going to see the result and they're going to recognize reorganize me and now i used to think like that and now i'm like okay if i don't tell what i'm doing how are they going to know right they just it's really hard to guess and especially guess a lot of detail with a lot of like interesting things that might be doing because you might be working with a very specific group of individuals or you know is you we have different interactions with people right so if you don't tell how they're going to know so this is a really good reminder and hey another thing is scam a dog with all your wins are challenged that you're are having not just to try chi find a job tag or in another industry it's where your performance really real right so you need to have a document with everything that you're doing your impact so when you're gonna get a job or or or if it's doing your performance in a performance review with her manager you have the power and the resources to discuss it so that's definitely something very important too yeah and don't really in your memory only because we forget things we're busy and it's just like a wife it's moving so fast so i love that and i love that you talked about linkedin i'm nice to you last time we talked and how i love to see your post only thing especially because you're always helping people and i love the energy that you bring and i i know there's like a conscious effort to you know be kind and bring this energy because i don't know things are challenging life it's very chill challenging if feel especially now so having someone and i'm working with someone who brings this positivity in a way that is like very strategic as well so it's amazing i love to work with people like you because i feel we'd helps me a lot it brings me a lot of energy back i get so excited thank you so much chad that was something thing that i talk with friends and for that i know it's not one hundred percent has saying portuguese flowers and happiness but if you don't try to be a little bit more positive unfortunately there is a lot of reasons for us to be negative in their room right now so i tried to change this perspective a little bit so i have i have your life yeah love that i love that and i think a big component of the immigrant life is learning how to be yourself in a new country in a new language za almost like you have two different personalities that opinion on the language you were speaking which is very interesting i think there's is language research backing that up that says that people who are bilingual their brain changes during this process and wanted to ask you what our device would you give to other professionals who want to bring more energy and passion into the roles while i was staying true to themselves you definitely should know who you are right and when i start looking for a job when that that's when i hire a therapist a a therapist because i needed help mentally to put me in a place that i felt confidence in myself because before i wasn't i was afraid thought i would not be able to get a job in the united states because of my accent because the way i talk and having a therapist was something that helped me steady about myself that's how my therapist and i would like to to say because that's it's like a project to understand fu where why she's like this what happened in her past so that's definitely now i would say that knowing who you are is safe for you to grow so looking in the past now being a t nine tech i see that my experience is important so for example when i joined my company i was helping portuguese speaking customers so most of them are from brazil and one of my mentors they only were helping english is speaking customers and he was reviewing some of my interactions and he was like face why you always send kisses and hugs to customers i don't understand i just want you to give me a background of that because he was using you know like the google translator and like yeah is because in brazil at the end of every interactions say okay hugs yes is bae other and that's what i see like wow my experience here they need to have it because even if somebody like american they speak portuguese maybe they would not say this because it's a quicker thing it's something it's a localization you know so that's i think most very the beginning of my career hubspot but like wow i very i'm very i'm different friend i know how is that it's a business asset i'm a business asset because i can't show my clients they can't be themselves in this company so that's definitely one of my devices is knowing who you are yeah and i love this as a a example because it shows how only translating something to whatever language you need to speak with someone is not enough localization is important and there are some very local things that if you don't say it if you don't speak the way they speak you might sound different and they might feel that you don't be long or you're not part of it and i was talking with you how for me now feel that i'm doing the other way sometimes i translate things in english that doesn't make sense in portuguese for example here we usually send emails hi how are you i hope you are well if i stay spread of bang i hope you are wearing portuguese the person might re oh my god what happened am i sick do i look sick i'd like to what happened because they i might think that's something wrong with me because we don't say that we only say that if you're sick and you are recovering and the person wanna make sure that you are okay exactly so being able to be like to understand that you need to see how valuable we are like your experience coming coming from where you're coming is important amazing love that and i wanted to ask you about the resources that helped your your journey that you wanna share with us with size therapy and coaching i love like you mentioned that this is just such a an important thing that i feel especially our community need to take advantage of yeah definitely derek is my first one it took me three months to really having the courage to stop reworking has a uber driver to then start trying to find a job in the incorporate because i was like no next week next week next week and then my therapist was like okay you you told me we're ready last week and now you're doing mexico again what's going on then little by little working on myself i couldn't understand why it was so great so it's definitely something it's my first resource that really helped me and youtube youtube it's my love language i just love to i love to see people that create content there and they can share how to understand what is the interview they star method they already talked i just went i don't have like one specific one but i just went and search how to improve my interview skills what is star with things like that in linkedin linkedin was something that was very shining during my my process to get a job or to get confident because our representation has you already talked i start to try to find people that were talking about topics that i was interested in the corporate and then i saw that they were able to get a job having the same background has me and it it really inspires me a lot so thanks to our representation matters that much because then you can see yourself somewhere or if you are in a place that is not a lot of representation you can be the representation representation itself and that's another thing that when i share my content or ranked that like maybe it can help one person already gonna be enough because i wanna be a visitation for my blockchain ex community mh yeah and with that i feel a lot of other communities can also identify and you can like help a lot more than like how own i feel and sometimes people that we don't even i don't know you think about it so i think this is is really cool i love your work i'm going to link to the description of this episode you're linkedin and so people can follow you and i wanted to thank you for your time that that was incredible and i wanna leave the last minutes for you to share anything you wanna share with our community and where people can find you anyone can find linkedin my name is stacey kim there you can give me a follow send me dm with your questions i'm very happy to connect and something that i i want to make sure everybody knows that your personal branding is important you know like this nobody can take from you like the way you talk your communication your experience and you know your story is important so make sure you have everything in document about yourself because it really can help you grow has a personal has a person or professionally so i love that and this reminds me of some people that are interview for this podcast how the this process of answering the questions that i ask help them to reflect on the own journey and i you will like if you wanna be part of a podcast we always be receiving guest suggestions but sometimes you can do this exercise for yourself right just like reflecting about your career your journey writing that down whatever method on your computer your phone paper i think this is a really good exercise especially because sometimes we might change careers and we might do different things and we might not realize how one thing kind of helped the other and sometimes we might think oh i studied this and now i do other pain what a waste and if you never a waste because you're always using those skill so i think this is the exercise very interesting so i wanted to invite folks perhaps doing this i love that yes please do amazing thank you so much that's it for today everyone thank you so much for your time will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast podcasts and the episodes please message us with any insight any feedback you might have and also guest suggestions messages us in your favor social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us and then review we will love that we fits writers us and then review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you like thank you

you know all these teachers are trying to when doctor his students is not really that at all i actually use critical theory it's a framework a theoretical framework in order to understand how society works and in order to understand or or hard worse in terms of distributing resources and are based on race so it's it's certain way it's certain principles perhaps we could ship we could say about how to gold go ahead and to how to analyze what happens in society so it's more a it's more like an academic framework for us academics to use in order to understand what we're observing it's not really something that is taught in high school welcome to latin in power a podcast hosted by da fan ninja with the smaller budgets and sky high expectations growth is feeling pretty painful right now but hubspot announced more than two hundred major asian product updates to make impossible growth feel impossibly easy like breezy a suite of new ai power tools that help you say goodbye to busy work and hello to better work bra intelligence to give you the richest most comprehensive picture of of your prospects and customers and reimagine marketing and content hubs to attract and convert word leads and send you revenue sorry visit hubspot dot com slash spotlight to learn more welcome to line power today we are talking with louder chavez modern louder is an award winning researcher at ucla specializing latin education with a deep commitment to understanding and addressing systemic races in educational settings to study the impact of bilingual education programs on latin students barr excited with this conversation welcome thank you so much for inviting me i'm also very excited mainly in as episode laura discusses her journey into the field of lot education and the systemic beau that hinder affected bilingual education she will share in insights for educators parents and policymakers makers aimed to ensure equitable educational outcomes from all our next students and this is one of my favorite questions the questions that usually start the podcast what does he mean to be a latin latino for you okay thank you and again thank you so much for inviting me so i think that for me it reminds me of how race and racial constructs racial ideas are very context based so depending on the context i'm seen by others as latin latin latin or for example when i go back to mexico ramp from i'm seen as mexican and in terms of race i'm seeing as different based on where i am in mexico and then also where i am in the us but it reminds me that the term latin is really a race racial category in the us since it's not really something that's understood in latin america yeah that's a really good point i just discovered that i'm a latin tina all it years ago when i moved to the united states and i can see a lot of other folks that are interview for the sharing the same thing and i think the experience of folks were in europe a lot bit different than the ones who migrated are in your united states yes yeah that's so interesting love to hear more you thoughts about it like the the depending on where you are in your united states or in europe or your your your main country you might experience your latin latin experience differently interesting to think about race as as a way that people see you but it's also interesting to important to remember that the different context and how different people assume what is race is also different so even though in the us for example we talk about race that as if it's something that we can see that's actually something that society teaches us to be able to see so it's not just a normal way to evaluate people it is something that we learn in society and because societies are different in terms of what is it that they teach in terms of the that society it is different in terms of how people are seen in terms of their race something else that i'd like to mention is that the racial categories are different based on the context so for example in guatemala there's a racial category that's called la latino so it's different from la latino and la latino it has a d that's a racial category that for example if someone in the us said like oh identify as la latino no one would understand that that's ill eligible here in the us so the same thing happens for example if you were if i were to go to another country in latin america and i say or latin latino it's not understood in the same way as it is here in the us and here in the us is important to note that the term nothing next comes from the term hispanic which comes from the term spanish speaking and it is a way to just lump people based based on what is imagined in terms of what their experiences are what their languages are etcetera so it's really a this process of lump people together whether they would want to be in this group or not you mentioned for example you didn't know you were nothing think until you came here to the us this is exactly what happens in terms of this lump of of people into this category and what race does is it does this in service of or in order to op press certain groups so it's not just something in terms of lump people together in order to class by them and then that's it everyone is you know oh we have differences it's it's nice to have differences rationalization is actually about the process of doing that in order to d certain people incredible i realize this by conversation i'm enjoying us so much i think it's so so important to talk more about that and can you share more the pivotal moment or experience that inspire you to focus on latin education and what led you to research this topic thank you so it's interesting because i wouldn't say that there's just one pivotal moment but if i had to think about like what were some of the instances in my life that i have really contributed to the questions that i'm that i'm interested in it has to start with my education as an immigrant student here in the us and noticing how it was that why it was that for example in mexico i was seen as someone as a student who was smart who was able who had good parents who cared about me and then just crossing a borderline line just ten minutes from one place to the other all of a sudden i was seen as this english language learner as someone who was who was struggling in schools who maybe their parents didn't even care about them there's all these different ideas that people have had about me that were different and i noticed this in a child in the sense of i'm the same person but here in the us i was seen by teachers as not as smart not as capable as i was for example in mexico so it started really early for me and in and when i was progressing through school here in the us i noticed that a lot of students who booked like me in classrooms were receiving an education that assumed that they were also deficient so it wasn't just me as an individual it was as a group we suffered through an education that really looked upon looked down upon us and provided less services to us than other students in my school who were racial as white yeah yeah and how was this process for you it was something that you noticed right away was something that you needed some time to realize what was happening because i feel like sometimes especially when it comes to my progressions at least with me there's some certain of things that happened me then i was like oh i know what it was that i felt weird but i didn't know i didn't have a language for that and now i understand oh that was bad that was right but at the time i didn't not even notice didn't it happen to you how how was for you in this process well i it it's hard to say i know that it was throughout my life and it was not something that happened immediately it was something that i would notice and then i would reflect reflect upon and when i was studying education as of for example but as an undergrad or as a graduate student that's when also ideas that stuck with me in terms of my experiences in childhood that's when i started understanding certain ideas or certain experiences in a way that was racial or racial so it did did take learning from me in in the sense of i did the racial imagination and the racial landscape and the the way racial rationalization works for example where i'm from in mexico was different than in the us so as an immigrant i had to learn what those differences were and it wasn't immediate i had to learn through it through for example in school and through my experiences so it wasn't it was a whole process throughout my life and i'm still learning about it now yeah yeah and thank you for sharing all this knowledge with us i i love doing this podcast because of that i feel like selfish officially i learned a lot but also hopefully we also helping other people and talking about helping how can communities and families become more involved in a advocating for education practices and ensuring the while next voices are heard in decision making sure i think one of the things the that's a big lesson in the book is for communities and for school schools to recognize that we live in racial society and because we live in a racial society are institutions for example are schools which are a very important institution in our society contribute to what our ideas about what race on is which is actually why i what i mean by when i say schools make race which is part of the title of my book so schools make grace because they are an an important institution in our society and they teach us in indirect ways and in indirect ways what are what is rates and what is racial groups so for me one of the things that i'm hoping the book speaks to and and families and communities can take from this is that we have to recognize that this is already happening in our schools and because it's already happening we have to be intentional in making sure that the lessons that students are are learning are progressing their racial ideas into critical racial consciousness yeah yeah that's so so interesting and how parents can be part of this process and i think it also comes to you as an individual individual because i feel when you are an immigrant there's this new language this new culture this new world that is almost like you have a new personality in maybe a different personality from your main language and this entire process is already very very challenging i think i'm like one in portuguese and i still didn't figure out way my english language and how i can be the way i am in portuguese and maybe i never be i think this is one thing i thinking as you're talking about it yeah yeah it's it's it's interesting thing what our language also allows us to express about ourselves and how our language sometimes inhibits us in certain ways or shows different sides of us perhaps we could think about it that way also so yeah i i've have also experienced the same thing and i and i have many family members who also have experienced the same thing and what do want you advise would you give are someone who is listening to us and it's maybe they just moved the or they are considering moving to learn another country there's new language in the culture and i don't know what i your thoughts sure so i guess because i'm i'm a researcher that's focused on on race i would say perhaps think about how that society constructs it's different social groups so what are the different social groups in that society and in the us for example if we think about what are the social groups in our society there's lots of different ways that society groups people but one of the ways that the us has been doing historically and is still doing right now is it it constructs racial groups based on how it distributes resources so how does it just how does the a country for example the us distribute resources to these certain groups in order to form these different groups and maintain qualities and and press certain groups so that's something that i'm always interested when i travel for example to different countries i try to learn about how that country or how that region creates these different social groups through the ways that it it distributes resources in mh yeah that's so interesting i love that the the research angle of it and in what ways can educators audio cake for anti races teaching practice within the classrooms particularly in the bilingual setting sure so i think i think one of the ways that they could advocate for this is through recognizing off that's always point one recognizing that schools are part of our society that could contributes to ideas about race and then be very explicit and intentional and systematic about how we're teaching about these ideas so that we're teaching towards teaching practices that will help students engage in anti racist activities so i think that's one of the important ways i think it's also important for educators to connect with communities and communities also recognize that teachers our professionals and the teachers need support in order to engage in this work because in the us it's very difficult right now because there's this national debate that is about banning teaching about race and banning critical race theory and i use critical theory as what they described but it's really not a critical race theory but i mentioned that because that's really the wrong debate for us to be having what we should be talking about is how to improve instruction that teaches critically about race so that's one of the things that i think we really need to advocate for and to make sure to have a progression of ideas so that students are taught about our racial society in ways that is appropriate for them and when the reason i say that is because in my research in the book i found that sometimes students were very bored with their lessons about race and about like social justice and then when i asked them why and when also what i observed what happened was that they were learning the same lessons over and over again since they were like in kindergarten in our elementary school but once they were in high school they were really ready for other and more advanced ideas that's so interesting and how would you define critical race theory can share with us sure so it's definitely not the way that most people will have probably heard about it in the media in terms of this very scary thing that you know all these teachers are trying to win doctor as students it's not really that at all i actually use critical race theory it's a framework as theoretical article framework in order to understand how society works and in order to understand or or how it works in terms of distributing resources and are based on race so it's it's certain way it's certain principles perhaps we could ship we could say about how to go go ahead and to how to analyze what happens in society so it's more of a it's more like an academic framework for us academics to use in order to understand what we're observing it's not really something that is taught in high schools i mean there may be one or two high schools that that teach about it for example in an ethnic studies program but it's not really a widespread thing that schools are teaching and i'm not saying that it actually shouldn't be maybe maybe we should have that as part of lessons that high school students learn the what what is going on though right now in the us is this attack about critical theory i'm saying that in quotes in order to just do away with anything that the extreme right objects to yeah you kinda started answering my next question about it which was like why do you think they're typing this since is not even taught in school but you think it should have their like distort the the the whole idea like oh i think it's a it's a it's really an attack on public schools and on teachers because teachers are professionals good teachers follow the questions of their students and change their teaching based on what students questions are so in my classroom when i was a classroom teacher and in the classroom that i visit students have a lot of questions about race so a good teacher follows this the student questions and has them explore gives them resources goods etcetera so what happens is this movement to ban critical grace theory is also attached to other movements that are anti public education and def funding our public schools is not alone in the sense of like they're focusing on race just because it's really a concerted effort in order to for the public to lose faith in our public institutions and to lose faith in public schools and def defend them i thinking that this more not not empowering people but it's more than that right that's pretty sad yes and we have to be very very carefully and very vigilant and that's why i emphasized for communities to so support teachers who are engaged in this work mh yeah absolutely marketing makes simple is hosted by doctor jj j peter song and is brought to you by the hotspot hubspot podcast network the out of this destination for business professionals marketing made people brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly make it work i recommend checking the financial therapy you didn't know you needed episode i really like this episode and i had a lot of fun a listening to it listen to marketing made people whenever you get your and what do you see as the primary systemic barrier year that prevent bilingual education programs from effectively serving lot access students first of all i wanna mention that i'm a i'm a big proponent of bilingual education bilingual education is something that is needed in the us because historically the us has just focus on immigrants or other racial students just learning english and and not caring about whether they maintain their home languages which is not a good way for education to function so bilingual education is an important corrective to that but just because it's an important corrective doesn't mean that it doesn't have flaws right that bilingual education is in a context that's that is very it wants to maintain the status quo it wants to not discuss race it wants to maintain inequities equities so bilingual education is constantly having to fight against this and one of the things that i think that we really should focus on bilingual education and improving it in terms of it effectively serving latin the next students is for bilingual education educators to recognize that by that bilingual education is part of our racial society so there's no way of escaping teaching about race and because there's no way of escaping this we should do it intentionally and in critical ways that advanced critical racial consciousness one of the things that that it has happened in the us though is that bilingual education has really focused on just english learning and just advancing english and just language education whereas bilingual education in my point of view really should be drawing from ethnic studies in order to improve how it delivers an education to racial students that so interesting i'm running a lot i think for me especially because i moved to this country as an adult i speak portuguese with my family very comfortable with my language so i did not have this process of you know although i i was fluent in english when i moved but when i moved was almost like i was learning the language again because i feel it's so different like leave in your second language than my as a tourist vacation it's just so different right it's just yes especially studying i did a lot of like different courses and extension course and i have like this math class and i was like i need to translate all the numbers and do the math that's really hard because the teacher was saying like what we supposed to do and i was like oh my god is so overwhelming because i need to translate everything even the number so i can do the calculations yeah yeah it's language learning is an intense process for sure it's not only language learning it's also when we move to different country it's also this language learning but also learning about the context for history the manner is so many different things yeah yeah absolutely and i wanted to talk more about your book how schools make race you discuss line realization and can explain more this concept and what is means and how it manifests bilingual education programs sure thank you i talked a little bit about what i meant by how schools or schools making race what does that mean so let me focus on what i mean by this latin next visualization and what i mean by that is that bilingual education programs because they're they are implemented in order to fight a against racism i discussed earlier in order to fight a against just for example learning english and simulating latin students into the us it is a program that is anti racist but in in gathering students in order for them to be in these classrooms that process of lump them together based on what is imagined is their their spanish language we lump them together and then that reinforces the idea that there is this latin group in our society and then along with that but what the program teaches in terms of the latin culture and i use that like in in quotes because it is really undefined when i asked teachers what is latin culture latino culture they they really gave me very vague very vague ideas that could be for any group and then when they were very specific in terms of like oh well this is this celebration or this they they they talked about it but in terms of what we're in someone the subgroups so for example mexican americans do this and dominican americans do that so it wasn't really something specific to latin next that was a shared cultural practice it was more examples of what is what our other subgroups for example so again in this process of limp people together bilingual education helps form our ideas as a society about what is latin as a group and in the program they they did this explicitly and implicitly mh yeah yeah that's so interesting yeah and i quite often think about that and how the sense of like being a lot acts latin person latin whatever you wanna call it's so personal at the same time and it feels weird when we are grouped and this huge group that is not we don't even have one language it's not only spanish we have many many many many others and celebrations and you know it's so so so interesting and as you did all this research and like you know like learn a tom with this process what would you say to your younger self after doing all this work perhaps when you go like in school or like you know well if i if i could talk to my younger yourself i would say more i didn't actually like reading until i was forced to read in my phd program so it was interesting because it wasn't something that identified with i didn't really see myself as a reader let alone a writer that came way later so i would say to to my younger self like explore different different worlds through reading in order for for you to also expand your mind so i was as a as a youth i was very interested in learning but i didn't think about reading in terms of learning then there's different ways of learning obviously but it wasn't not something that i that i really gravitate gravitate to mh that's a great advice so yeah and then you wrote a book that's incredible so we are going to link to the description of your episode where people can find your book so you're going to do that and talking about resources i feel i love this question and i love this idea of getting tailored advice from amazing inspiring people and i'm with you i think books are a game changer because it can help us so much and expedite our learning process and i talk about this in the the already but the public libraries in us are great so i just wanted to encourage people to go to a public library you can also access a lot of different apps audio books there's like a lot of like really really really good resources that people should take advantage of even like movies i i i always check canopy app so watch great movies via my library card so i just wanted to mention that that's yes thank you yeah i i love the plate for public libraries yeah and can you share some resources that helped you your journey it can be anything sure well in terms of the journey for writing this book one of the things that i really really loved was reading act butler books so those were were a good way for me to withdraw from my own thinking about my study and also to enjoy reading because for some of them academic reading that i was doing some of them i i enjoy but for different reasons and then reading non fiction was helpful for me in order to also see different write writing style that that i was a towards because i wanted the book to be accessible to educators and i really wanted the book to have a style that was appealing and and was a story more storytelling so during the time that i was writing the book i also reading a lot of non fiction in order for me to see different styles of writing and then to also help me find my own writing voice that's a great advice and do you have any specific device for how always talk about like how excited i get when i see latin people writers so if there's someone listening to us that are thinking about writing their book or they writing the book already which buy we do keep them besides like to it yeah well it's interesting when you said besides do it because the process of writing is really what developed the ideas of this book also so i didn't start with the book already in my mind and i just had to type it down it was through the process of writing and through the process of reading and thinking that i was able to then come up with this book and one of the things that i that i advise friends or people ask me about the process of writing is that if you have writer's black there's two things that i suggest you do one is read because that helps stimulate ideas whenever i feel like i'm not really understanding something i don't really know what to write about it or i have just i'm not really sure what it is that my point is i read something related so that i could spark my ideas about what it what it is that i'm arguing for example that i wanna convey and then another thing is when you when you're when you're writing you just have to make sure to write even if it's something that you think you're gonna throw away it doesn't make sense etcetera the process of writing will help you also clarify your ideas so really it's the process of engaging with your ideas and sitting down and really having uninterrupted time that's so important for a writer to be able to sit down without distractions so when i'm writing i turn off my my cell phone alerts or any other thing i don't check email i put on the timer for thirty minutes and then i'm just concentrated on writing because distractions are the worst thing for writers in terms of like how you're able to focus on what you're doing and it really let the fatigue my brain at least if it ticks me and it really makes makes me like lose my my train of thought when i have a lot of distractions when i'm writing well that's a great advice i feel some people might think oh i need to know what i'm writing about and what you're saying no you need to write sometimes in order to know what you're going to write about what your book is going to be about that's great advice wanted to thank you for your time that was amazing reading joy out conversation i wanna leave the last minutes for you to share anything you wanna share it buzz and where people can find you i have a website it's just louder at chavez mona dot com laura chavez mona dot com and if they'd like to sign up for my newsletter i do post events that are that are coming up i also am on linkedin in and i'm on twitter or x no and if they'd like to purchase the book it's available at harvard education press at books shop at barnes and noble and on amazon and i'd love to hear what readers think so please post a review on it that's also amazing we are going to link where your book and find you and of course your book thank you so much for your time thank you thank you so much that's it for today everyone thank you so much for your time i will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast and the episodes please message us with any insight and if should back you might have and also guest suggestions messages in your favor social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us and a review we will love that we fits to write us and then review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you like thank you

just like with any skill right we're not born with it it it takes a lot of practice and failure and retry i've been at google twelve years and i will say and i'm gonna be honest here for six out of those twelve years i was not managing up i was sort of as an analogy right like not managing up is just being in the passenger seat and letting somebody else drive the car the car of your career the car of your dreams and your goal you're just along for the ride you're not controlling anything welcome to latin in power a podcast hosted by fan lunges with his smaller budgets and sky high expectations growth is feeling pretty painful right now but hubspot announced more than two hundred asian product updates to make impossible growth feel impossibly easy like breezy a suite of new ai power tools that help you say goodbye to busy work and hello to better work breezy intelligence to give you the richest most comprehensive picture of of your prospects and customers and reimagine marketing and content hubs to attract and converge word leads and send you revenue sorry visit hubspot dot com slash spotlight to learn more welcome to line power today we are talking with vicky miranda nick miranda is an engineering program manager at google cloud dedicated to empowering google users to work faster smarter and more securely he holds a bachelor of business administration from the university of north texas and an nba incorporate strategy and data analytics on the context school of business and technology welcome to the podcast thank you it's so great to finally be doing this we've been looking forward to it for so many weeks i've been putting it off i'm sorry but it's great to really be having this conversation for years no not that bad i mean you know no i i have been looking for this this conversation and i'm like really excited to dive into these topics six and thanks for having me honestly i'm so joke okay that think years maybe a year or six months probably a year yeah i think that you're right yeah i'm so excited to be a part of this podcast also thank you so much for accepting my impact and in this episode nick will discuss the impact of his cultural background on his work and leadership the importance of mentorship and the concept of managing up and it's different from traditional management you also offer advice for newcomers in the professional world first things first what does it mean to be a latin latino for you yeah you know it is i'll be honest right it it's it's a very complicated subject for me so you know i'm the son of argentinian and cuban immigrants they immigrated to texas and i would say from the age of five right like spanish is my first language but being in dallas texas there was a sort of like need to assimilate to like the north american way and the culture and you know those principles so like during my formative years in texas you know i was say i didn't grow up in the most tolerant neighborhood and so i had an accent right i would probably make mistakes in my english and there's a lot of like you know people who say you know speak english and like you're in america right and so my accent over time drops and i think another thing that sort of dropped to right was this like connection to my latino and cultural roots even though when i got home from school only spanish was spoken in my home and we would be eating like cuban food and it was great but when it came to needing to perform and succeed at school and in business i i almost had to put on like this mask and sort of mute this latino side of me you know for so long so what does it mean to be the latino for me it's complicated but honestly i i think it's still having that like really deep connection with my community and my family trying to get to know people at a personal level like you know you and i haven't talked looking for so long and bringing like the beautiful things about our culture and even like turning this whole thing on its head right like now i've had time to reflect and grow and now i i really take what i love most about being a latino into the workplace now and i really try to focus on these things instead of really hiding it so right like at google where where i am there's this big push that they call like bring your whole self to work and i've been involved now with a few of the the e at google and one of them is is called ola which is just you know latino google and i've been trying to involve myself more you know especially in boulder colorado is not like the most latino a heavy community just to really show like all the the beautiful aspects of our culture and getting involved in giving back like there's a program called code next where google will go into really underserved communities and they will build out computer science labs and programs and really take high school students and and provide them with the tools the knowledge the skills to become computer engineers or get into the computer science field and i've been participating in that for over the past four years and you know because i wanna see us grow and i wanna see us have more impact and to take up space in these organizations and i think it really starts you know when i look back at like my younger self i wanna do the things that i think i needed then if that makes sense and so yeah that's what it means to be latino for me it's it's a bit of a mixed bag but i think i'm embracing it more these days but i feel like now i have more of the psychological safety to be myself no one's gonna judge me but i think you know thirty years ago that was not the case and so i'm almost relearn learning how to be able with that makes sense does yeah does that answer yeah that that's kind of what it means i think this is the perfect answer thank you so much for being open and as just just ask oh what being latino means i'm making wings a lot of different things and we are this huge area with so many countries so many language besides spanish so there's multiple ways are being latino feel and i feel also a lot of people they they like to tell us what is what are you're supposed to do and feel because you are a latino but i i don't think no one should tell you what it is because you you you are the person who knows especially because we are so so diverse and we hear some pieces of it right it's just like i'm a small portion of us it's out there especially in the media so it's just there's multiple ways of doing so you gave the perfect answer i couldn't said it better absolutely yeah you're absolutely right like i i think we're really a magical group of people we not to say others are not right like i i think though we can bring different perspectives and you're right i mean latinos it ranges so much and i love that about it right like i love the differences even just from brazilians to colombian in mexico like i love everyone's backgrounds in their approach to life and what i see at google too is the diversity of latinos that you know i can see that you know we're we're something like five percent of google by the way i think is the last metric i saw i which is a good number i think it's not good but compared so the other company is i think yeah the other like the the norm like the medium and whatever is like three percent so five it it looks a lot if but it's not okay you know i'm still not satisfied but i yeah not i like not i do but i i i think i can see where even this five percent is like striving to change things right and like build representation but also just like add our own flavor to how we do things at the company but at the same time and we'll get into this later in the interview i can also see where a lot of our culture old norms and upbringing can like get in our way in the business setting because i mentor quite a few google especially in latino and latino google and i see this come up all the time so yeah maybe like let's talk about that more for sure yes tell me how has your cultural background influence your approach to your work and leadership style yeah so you know working at google i work with so many like like very analytical people you know people who just kinda get down to business and it's you know it's all about business and work but we spend so much time at work right when you really think about breaking down our lives in terms of like how much time we're asleep how much time we're not at working how much somewhere at work we're spending forty plus hours with these people and i i noticed that like most of us don't take the time to actually get to know our colleagues and so like how has my cultural background influence my approach you know growing up you know i i i had lots of aunts and uncles who would drop by all the time right and it cuban will just make coffee and you have to sit and just talk and right i'd be like nine years old and my uncle uncles would just be talking and talking and i think it i was probably a little annoyed back then but i think it taught me to like really be able to sit and listen to someone and pay attention and not be distracted and be very present with what they're saying and in terms of my approach to a work in leadership like i do take the time to peel the layers and really get to know the person inside and out because at the end of the day right like we're a team we need to know each other's strengths and opportunity areas and like there's so much going on in people's lives it's not work that we want to support or you know strengthen you know one example i think it catches people by surprise honestly is this is how my brain works they'll mention something once right like oh my daughter is you know studying dun dentistry at the university of michigan and i'm so excited because she that was her like top choice school and this and that for some reason it goes just sticks into my head and weeks and weeks later i'll see that same person i'll say hey hey brett how's your daughter doing how's is dentistry school he just be shocked like how do you remember this right i guess sometimes they're like a little like whoa dude what are you but you know but now every time he sees me in the hallway it's like hey nick how are you how's your daughter how's your family and right like especially when when work gets really tough i think it's it's the people right they either keep keep us there or push us away so yeah in terms of like my leadership style you know a lot like my mom i guess is like firm fair right she i i don't like to see people not reach their potential i almost can be like too emotionally invested in my work and the people around me and i can really struggle internally when i see somebody struggle or not get closer to the goals that they've set for themselves but i would say you know one interesting thing is i really have a big disdain for like hierarchy and like top down structure i don't know whether my cultural background influences or not maybe it does and this is more like a rebellious thing because you know we're i don't wanna generalize but i think for the most part we're taught to just kinda like listen to our elders and just do what they say and i think when we get to the topic of managing up like i feel like this can really hurt us sometimes in the workplace but i'd like i love to debate i'm willing to hear a really good argument and like update what i believe and and yeah i'm like extremely flexible but yeah i think i'll give you like one quick story and example and then we can move on like well actually like two which is kinda interesting i i feel like my background prepared me for these moments so when i was like twenty two i was working at the start up was like my second week and my manager at the time i was like still ramping up he's like nick wanna to let you know i'm resigning and you're gonna have to kinda take over some aspects of my my job i'm like wow okay and you know it sounds very like start up life right and he said like look our customer support team and our engineering team are based in russia right i'm like okay he's like so we're gonna go get you a visa and we're gonna you're gonna have to spend some time in russia i was like doing what and he's like getting to know your new team but i was like what so i'm like you know fresh out of college i'm like what are you talking about like i this was not the role i signed up for and i like arrive in saint peter's petersburg russia and i opened this door right and there's like twenty rush like employees there from russia and i i feel right like some folks may have had like a meltdown at that point but to me i was so ready and interested in each person and like i knew nothing about the russian culture and i was like dying to learn and get to know them and like it turned out to be like you know pretty successful and later in my career when i was at google almost a very similar thing happened where my leadership came to me and said nick we need a an international presence for the team we're only in the us but we need this like sort of follow the sun model where if we have something that goes wrong at you know two am pacific we need somebody to to step in and fix it so do you think you can help with that like okay so like embarked on this journey to build this team and i ended up building a team comprised of like folks in ireland japan and india and again where how does my cultural background influence my approach i think as as the leader of this team i was able to see everybody's cultural differences their differences and strengths right like someone in dublin ireland works very differently than somebody in tokyo you know and i was able to like get everybody to see each other and allow them to be themselves on this team and i think i built a very psychologically safe place for them and that team was able to thrive even after i left that team it persisted and everybody is just like super successful in doing really well so i think it just just to kinda conclude on this question like open minded ness like flexibility and being open to understanding each person at an individual level i i think that sums it up for me yeah incredible i love your overview and how the sense of everything kind of being full circle you'll learn something at a very early age or your culture does something that is always kind of like helps you and then you're going to use the same skill and develop and improve whatever whatever you're doing so i love that especially for the focus thinking about transitioning their careers that they might think oh i was doing x and now i'm going to do this new thing and this work that i did that's like x is going to be like a waste or like no you're actually can use this whatever skill you have in this new job and this new role you wanted to perform so i love that you give examples of that so that that was super cool yeah a hundred percent like it's all about mindset you know as cliche as it is right like if you look at the glasses as have them deal all the time you're not going to approach new challenges and opportunities in a way that is just gonna build on your experience if everything is like a challenge and a tragedy i i think you know to your point we need to put on different lenses and look at that experience in a different way and say like what are the positive things that came out of that way one real quick thing is like i worked a lot of jobs i mean my friends and family and my wife especially make fun of me because you can name some kind of job i've done it like i sold men's suits when i was like fifteen i worked at restaurants grocery stores and tying it back to what you said i could go back and look at that stuff was like oh i had to mop toilets i had to like buying mismatched suits and shoes but i think it taught me a lot of valuable skills it also taught me what i didn't wanna do it pushed me to the next thing because i knew i didn't wanna do that thing so yeah a hundred percent amazing nick can you share with us and define what is managing up what does this means i don't see a lot of people talking about it i'm very side of with our conversation and why it is important in a professional setting yes okay yes so i'm just so happy to get into this so it's a skill and i just wanna be front end transparent with everyone right just like with any skill right we're not born with it it it takes a lot of practice and failure and retry i've been at google twelve years and i will say and i'm gonna be honest here for six out of those twelve years i was not managing up i was sort of as an analogy right like not managing up is just being in the passenger seat and letting somebody else drive the car the car of your career the car of your dreams and your goal you're just along for the ride you're not controlling anything and so i noticed that colleagues who started at the same time were probably equally talented were getting promoted faster right why they were telling their manager what they needed they were being very assertive they rocked the boat they took risks so to me managing up is really like extremely strategic it's a strategic approach to like building and fostering these relationships and not only just between you and your manager but your skip level people around you and i know i'm mostly talking about a business context but this could be a school if you're a student with your professor dean other extracurricular or communities in in any context really managing up is such an important skill to build so there's really like three key things i mean there's a lot more but i'll just get into these three so there's this concept of like owning your career and like aligning strategically with what's going on in your organization at a micro level like what's going on on your team and at a macro level like what's going on organization wide and i feel like if you do not understand what's going on if you're disconnected with the problems your company facing the problems your managers facing you aren't really going to see the success that you wanna see because you have to align your time and energy to those same objectives and so managing up of give you an example of managing up i recently transitioned teams and i got a new manager and along with that i had a lot of projects that i had been supporting for like a year because then i was given this like pretty critical ai projects and at one point it became very clear that i could not do it all right so i had to sit down and actually create like a stock rank for my manager and say i'm doing a b c d i know that when i look at our strategic priorities as an organization this project aligns most closely with them so if you agree i think i need to get rid of these other three right that's such a tough conversation to have i think most folks will try to do it all and by doing it all by saying yes to everything we're not giving the biggest strategic priority like the time and attention it needs not only for the business for ourselves that's the first thing the second is relationship building right like i know not everywhere is google okay and so like i might be living in a bit of a a bubble but i i think our leaders are people to and they make mistakes i i think one thing where latino culture and again i'm general can get in our way sometimes is just like not questioning authority listening to our elders respect your elders you know they're right even if you think they're not right they're right and i think when it comes to the workplace we can have a big problem taking up space and pushing back on someone who we feel like has all the knowledge right like this wizard of oz like figure or they're like how could we ever question them like they got to director or vp like they know everything no i i think relationship building is pushing on them and allowing them to push on you it goes both ways so if your manager you know is being unreasonable or is just throwing too much on your plate you cannot just accept it yeah i mean you have to have a conversation like the one i described so asking for what you want one of my favorite quotes from my my coach is like you can't be a smarter and complain about it right like you can't just complain all the time but also just like you know be a victim about everything you have to take the initiative and have the hard conversations which takes me to the last point right so like taking initiative and really anticipating needs working in like the traditional sense and not managing up okay if you're constantly reactive and you're just being if you're just waiting to be told what to do you're not managing up right managing up means constantly looking at where you spend your time in your energy and making sure it aligns and really it's about being proactive if you spot an opportunity to have impact take the initiative go do it go put together a proposal stop waiting for the perfect time like just do it ask for forgiveness right your manager and your manager's manager will be so impressed that you didn't wait to be told what to do you just went for it that i think when it comes to growing in your role in the organization going for promotion right those are the things that are gonna stand out to them oh you know nick spotted this problem i we didn't even know and in this meeting in our one on one or whatever he came prepared with a proposal to solve is much different than there's this problem oh this person sucks to work with i hate this project i'm on or this is so inefficient this process is broken is a much different conversation right because then your manager's kinda like okay you know let's sit down together and build out a plan i i think real leadership comes from just being vulnerable enough to try tackling this your own way so take the initiative for real yeah i mean that's to that's like my perspective on managing up to to just kinda close on it summarize like don't be so behold to hierarchy and like top down you know you wanna ask for a race go ask for the race right like your manager has asked for a race they know what it's like right your overloaded your plate is too full create a list stack rank the things you're working on by impact and time and go to your manager and say like you know this is does not have to be personal it it can be very objective and say like i have written out all of the work i'm doing and i feel that i could have more impact if i focus more time on this less time on that they will understand and just like have the hard conversation sometime right like i feel like you're you know every time a really important project or opportunity comes along i feel though i'm not you know first in line for these can we talk more about why i'm feeling this way like is there something i can be doing differently can i be growing in a different way so yeah i i think not having an ego will serve you being completely willing to shed the person you were yesterday and become somebody new today and tomorrow to get closer to the goals if you have to be open to listening to the and asking for that feedback and then following up on how you are working on those things so that's managing up to me mh i love everything is that especially because it relates a lot for us i feel our community the latin latino community but also a lot of immigrants a lot of minority groups and also i think it comes to our cultural a background that might be more hierarchical perhaps you're are in this new country that you feel behind so you compare yourself to the native folks and you have the sense where you need to work a lot all the time no matter what is happening but at the same time the person your manager might not know what you're struggling with or even like whatever is happening in your life right for example yeah if you're sick and you're working even though you're feeling sick but no one knows you sick like what's point and i feel like now i i i used to be this person who used to work no was what's happening in my life i was sick whatever and no one knew what was happening with me and i noticed that now if you say to someone oh we talked about doing this i'm actually not feeling well today i'm going to work on this tomorrow and share with you by end of week okay okay that's it or no we actually need to prioritize maybe there's someone else that can start working on that are you okay with us so i i i feel like people really appreciate understanding what is happening with you and your priorities and your personal life and your health then just like doing the work you know so i love your examples as well marketing made simple is hosted by doctor jj j song and is brought to you by the hubspot podcast net for now out of this destination for business professionals marketing made people brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly make it work i recommend checking the financial therapy you didn't know you needed episode i really like this episode and i had a lot of fun are listening to it listen to marketing made people whenever you get your cass and i wanted to ask you how does managing up differ from traditional management or leadership roles i think we could notice how different it is but i i was wondering if you can like point some specific things yeah yeah i mean i i kinda i do wanna zoom in on like what you said to me when i hear traditional management and leadership roles is very much like you're in your lane i'm in my lane you're my boss i'm your direct we don't really i don't really wanna get to know you you don't really have to get to know me we're just here to do the job but i think one thing we haven't talked a lot about is like trust i think being vulnerable about struggle and where you want to improve and having that open door policy with your manager to say like hey i i wanna be clear like i know that i wanna build my communication skills so i i wanna build my influence without authority so when you see that i'm not delivering there or i could do a better job you have my permission to please just give me that feedback in a constructive respectful way and if you're sick and and you can't work or like these by not speaking up and being transparent i think we degrade trust and this goes both ways like for the leaders out there for managers you have to show your vulnerability to your people and that you're not some infallible superhero they need to know when you're struggling with things they need to know the why behind some of the decisions you make because that builds trust even if it's something they don't wanna hear they will respect you if you're just upfront with them right like we were talking a little bit before the call about you know sometimes people can be so scripted and rigid and how we can't we don't feel like much a can of a connection when people are that way right i think sometimes latinos right we wear our like emotions on our sleeves and we can sometimes find it really hard to like hide our body language and emotion when we just feel frustrated or whatever it is and yeah i think managing up is just really taking this leap and being extremely vulnerable with your with the people around you and letting them know too that you're gonna push back on them from time to time you're gonna challenge the status quo sometimes you're going to disagree and they need to be prepared for that managing up is again it's being the squeaky wheel it's rocking the boat it's taking up space it's asking for what you need and it's calling things out when they don't seem right i think too often we just kind of wanna be you know all the way in the back kind of invisible accepting things as they are not rocking the boat not asking for the raise not pushing for the promotion and then we wonder why right years later we're so unhappy and frustrated with our situation so managing up as being in the driver's seat not being in the passenger seat really taking control and like going after what you want yeah incredible and also i wanted to share something you said that having this open conversation where you disagree and then you try to figure out and also i feel sometimes you also disagree but you commit right because not all cases you are all going to agree and have not anonymous vote and like move forward with the project whatever sometimes you or a group of people say i don't think this is a good idea but then then team thinks okay we are ready to test and see how this goes okay okay let's do it and i think this is also important to keep in mind i don't see a lot of people talking about this sense of like okay disagree and commit because sometimes i hate when there's this person or a group of people where they don't agreed they don't think keeps a good idea but maybe they don't say it but maybe they are the person who when something happened and you like the first one just say oh i never thought they was a great idea and i think this is really hard right because yeah things are going to go wrong but you as a team needs to be able to work together set and having this person oh i never thought it was a bread yeah it's not helpful and sometimes too disagree and commit yeah it oh my gosh yes disagree commit is so critical and i know it varies i know you and i work you know i'm in colorado now but i i was in the valley for like seven years and i know the culture there is different right and it's almost invited really disagreeing and commit i'm in steering committees now where there's philosophical banter and like no we shouldn't do it that way but by the end of that thirty minutes there was no loose sense right we have how are disagreements but we're committing to what's happening next we cannot leave those meetings with these questions floating around but i do understand like people who work in government or in other industries disagree disagreeing and commit might be like a bit of a different like topic but i think the spirit of it still makes a lot of sense right like but i think going back to your example of this person who after right everybody battled it out and they're like i never like this idea anyway i i think it's they should take a hard look at think there's always an opportunity to like intros inspect and analyze our behavior and like what are you trying to protect right it's very easy to come at the end and say i never thought that was a good idea then to be there in the moment speaking up and i think you know our thoughts and feelings influence our behaviors and actions and so if we work backwards from the action back to the thoughts and the feelings why did this person speak up at the end what thoughts and feelings where they trying to avoid embarrassment you know things like that i think this is where i think vulnerability comes in and i don't know we're gonna talk about like resources and advice but and maybe yeah let's get into that because i i feel like i have some thoughts there yeah and your brother really a good point that some english industries might see this in a different way as we know like tech has the sense of maybe influenced by a agile where we are like okay we are working something new was never done before we cannot predict the future so let base our planning in previous work so we as we learn we can achieve more but also bringing and says we are going to fail so let's fail fast so we can learn and improve as we go but other industries don't think this way and i think for for some folks in my be difficult to think about that i'm glad you brought that point so thank you for that and talking about a device what a device would you give for folks who are new to a company or a new in their role yeah so how do i put this like you never get to be new again right so to this role or to this company so you have to leverage the fact that you're new and set up time with your stakeholders and ask all the questions show like thoughtful of course right like i think one of my pet peeve is people who didn't do just like even the most minimal amount of research i like i think there's this balance that has to be struck between you know i'm not gonna bother anyone i'm just gonna go heads down and like read all the documentation and just learning it on my own versus showing up and having done none of your homework and asking these people basic question and i think people appreciate when if you're new you have some baseline understanding of how the organization is structured what problems it's facing what impact you think you can have in your role but then just like bombard them with the questions because i think what's gonna be tough right i think a struggle maybe this is just me you tell me if you've ever had to face this but one thing i struggle with sometimes is like taking up other people's time for something i need and this goes back to you right like taking up space asking for what we want when i joined when i got when i was part of this reorder i got a new manager and a new project on these things people people came up soon and they're like have you set up time with so so i'm like i i looked at their calendar full but was crazy i'm not gonna just gonna go learn this on my and they're like no no really you should just set up time like you're new i was like yeah you're right right why not this is the time so so there's that and just like be very upfront about what you don't know i think a lot of us we don't wanna we don't wanna appear like incompetent right most of us you know we're struggling with like impostor feelings we wanna put on this this like mask and feel like we belong to be here and we like know everything and we're here is like a formality but like no i mean don't be shy about admitting what you don't know like honestly i know we're a lot a lot of companies right now are in the midst of this like gen explosion google of course is part of that i'm working on a gen ai project my self when i joined this project people were throwing these terms around like that had no idea what they're were talking about i'm like eval and training and like model quality and all these things that i'm like what does this mean and thankfully by now i've developed this muscle to just like feel comfortable feeling stupid and i'm like i asked like the stupid question i was like what does this mean right and i think most of the time these folks have been so steep in this for so long they i don't understand that other people are new and might not understand it and it actually helps them reflect right and i think the last thing is just signal your openness to feedback and be willing to call out when things like you are new you have a fresh perspective on this team this organization and most folks have been just doing something so long they don't really question the effectiveness of it so if you're joining and you're like my onboarding process was a nightmare i don't know why you had me do this before that and like in time you should come back and say hey i just wanted to share with you like i'm so excited to be here but like this process to me seems a little broken i recommend like maybe we do this instead and i guarantee ninety nine percent of folks are just very happy with how things are and we sort of gloss over some imperfections that you can call out and you can have the impact right so but yeah and i think being open about your communication style and how you like to receive feedback people don't know you you're in you but if you come out in that first one zero one and interesting say i just wanna let you know i'm super open to feedback and i'm like really interested in growing in this and that and that whenever you feel like you have like some feedback to share everything just please share i'm open to like as a matter of fact in my email signature at work i have a link that goes to a form that says i would love your feedback and so everyone is invited to just click it and i just asked very simple questions like is there something that i can be doing better is there something that i'm doing that you appreciate that i should continue doing and that's it and i get that it notifies me and i try to follow up with them the sale hey i know you know maybe that presentation didn't go us smoothly because i maybe didn't prepare as well that's good feedback i'll take more time to prepare in the future and i'll reduce the worthiness of this update and this is how we grow right so that's that's it yeah that's not a great idea and thinking about resources which resource help you in your journey that you wanna share with us today yeah okay first and foremost get a coach get a mentor like honestly this is so important somebody who can be very objective with you and tell you what you need to and that way you wanna hear and i would prefer if you found those people within your organization but if you can't like there's a lot of external folks like my executive coach her name is hilary do and she's in new york maybe in like the show notes or something i can share a link she's been extremely helpful with helping me sort of discover boundaries and and all these other links and then in terms of books i really like dale carnegie how to win friends and influence people like it's something i try to reread like every two years so good and then john maxwell is twenty one irr reputable laws of leadership is really good i'm reread it right now i actually he does a great job of not only like sharing leadership concepts but also like tying it to to actual people who've done actual things so like mirror that law and it's great and not so much a movie but like a show that really stands out when it comes to managing up his like show chernobyl if you've ever i think it was on hbo and to me it's like the classic example of like people not being allowed to manage up or talk or speak up when things look off right and it can lead to like in this case a very catastrophic example but if we take this mental model and see how not speaking up has like consequences right it's a really good lesson to me in like how a top down leadership can fail and how like creating the space for people to manage up can like really up level an organization that's it yeah that was awesome thank you so much we are going to link to the description of this episode everything you mentioned i'm going to leave the last minutes for you to share anything else you wanna share and where people can find you yeah no thank you again for this and for inviting me i i really love helping others and like being available to to share my experience and knowledge so if folks wanna reach out to me and talk about managing up or if they're struggling with situation like my email address is nick n i see m i r a n d a at gmail dot com you can find me on linkedin under nick i'm not on social media most unfortunately but yeah if you wanna reach out to me an email and like we can connect on whatsapp after that that's fine like i'm pretty laid back and open so like don't feel afraid to email me whoever you are watching this or like or listening to this i will do my best to get back to you and i'm like let's talk so yeah i i really wanna thank you again for having me sorry it took so long it was a great having this conversation with you thank you so much that's it for today everyone thank you so much for your time will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast podcasts and the episodes please message us with any insight any feedback you might have and also guest suggestions messages us in your favor social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us and then review we will love that if we fifty writers us and then review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you like thank you

i started university i just turned fifteen in minnesota so i went up there for school to finish up my last two years of of high school and there was this program that just started i was part of the pilot for the program and because of my testing in scores they sent me to university minnesota all paid i was taking college classes i was on campus fifteen years old in this big big world but i didn't really understand and for me it was very interesting time because it was the first time that i really wasn't in the us side that even though i was there before i wasn't you know it was much younger but yeah i wasn't of minnesota campus studying and when the school full time working part time but for me my passion has always been into like tech computers welcome to latin latinos in power a podcast hosted by tires fan when it comes to sales beaches there's the good that is the not so good and there's the ones that haunt chew as you are trying to fall week to keep your peaches we your deals you need that wow factor the hubspot has a new resource that can three steps to a perfect beach is your go to guide for crafting a strategy with peach their words inside you will find guidance on making a compelling narrative tips for creating tension and a blueprint for highlighting your unique value proposition at everything you need to make a first impression your prospects can ignore plus is completely free take your pitch to the next level and start closing more deals today visit at hot dot com slash beach to download your free guide welcome to latin e power today we are talking with su su is an entrepreneur c holder of a global tech consultancy an mp tech evangelist with a background in it and a passion for venturing commuting and building and also as a podcast producer she drives innovation and leads strategic initiatives i'm so excited with this conversation welcome well hi nice to meet tim hi everyone i'm so excited at ing episode su will share more about the caribbean identity career evolution from it to entrepreneurship a difficult word like pronouncing it we were just talking about like how some words are difficult to pronounce entrepreneurship it's one example and also passion for data global travel influences and impactful moments from the analytics on fire broadcast this conversation is going to be amazing welcome nice thank you for having me and like i was telling you this is my first time doing a live interview so i'm excited as well as not a bit nervous of us but i'm here incredible incredible i love that and i can wait to see all the other the interviews you're doing and just very excited about that and i wanna ask you what does it mean to be a korean be a person to you for me it means a lot because my family is from trinidad and my mom well my dad is from trinidad out my mom is from rub but my dad is half chinese from trinidad so and i was born a virgin islands in saint boy so for me it's melting parts of cultures and diversity languages you name it and we grew up very heavy in both cultures you know and as i was as i'm as i'm getting older i'm understanding more and more how each one of those cultures have impacted me and it's interested to see as i develop more when i with my daughter how like things that i say and do i start to recognize like which culture is from you know because i'm older now and like with my mom and then you know let's speak my mom speaks dutch spanish pop in english so for me growing up there were certain words in english that i thought i didn't know until i got to the us like i'm speaking and i will speak in and out of those languages and i don't realized i got here like that's not an english word even though you're speak in english you're speaking all with different you know language but it's been a very interesting in of upbringing and i would not exchange it for the like i love being for caribbean and i love being caribbean and my passion is the caribbean so definitely excited about you know the caribbean and anything caribbean so that's incredible i love that that i and enjoying so wise to talk with the folks to creep and i see a lot of similarities latin america as well diversity it's one of them and also the different language and how else were you like growing up with speaking so many different language i think this is incredible it's it was crazy because my friends a lot of my friends are puerto rican so because of that like it's weird because almost like i don't know any one language fully you know i go in and i was speak some nice fun or i'll pick up your and hard spanish words in there i speak spanish and add happy words and then i was talking people that my spanish is horrible i do better at write in spanish or understanding versus speaking because of that so i'm always shy and speaking of spanish because i'm after like intentionally speak because i'm afraid i see something in pop because it's so close to spanish so it was a very interesting upbringing and then you have like my father and they only speak english but they speak it with a like a ton as well too so it's it's a very interesting in like just a whole concept of having so many different languages so that's beautiful that's beautiful and i love this full year i think sometimes wait it's hard right when when you're like oh i unlock fluent when why it didn't study like whatever but you are able to c communicate and that's the most important thing so i think for me i just like not fluent lint in spanish and know like think about that and if feel bad about that but at the same time when i travel i can't communicate i can order my food and i'm vegan so things are hard so be able to order your food your vegan food is just like a huge shipment and sometimes i keep reminding me myself for that was like no it's okay one day you'll be fluent maybe i should prioritize that i totally understand just because even like when i went to spain a few years back i had to like like company switch my mind into spanish because you know you're you're there and you're reading and stuff and i'm like i noticed word and i know what it means you know what i i forgot because i don't have as many friends are or i mean speak spanish anymore so i'm not remembering those simple words and i i must i told said the same thing i have to come back and have to get back into learn in conversational spanish and how to speak spanish so it's been interest in journey with that yeah that's incredible well actually i just saw a tiktok that this person was saying that you should wanna learn a new language fast you should memorize the most important two hundred words in this language because if you memorize those two hundred most important words you're going to be able to communicate aren't like communicate with someone like much easier because some sides we lack the vocabulary so i think this is something that i'm going to do like trying to find all these two hundred words in spanish and memorize and learn them yes i was actually a good idea about light but baby i i will do the same because my aunt and and this speaks spanish fluently i'm know some kinda dwindling and no wind so i'm i'm definitely gonna look into doing it because i like the travel so and i appreciate the languages because of my upbringing so incredible incredible and can you give us an overview of your life and your career and you wanna share with us so one a lot of people don't know about me i started university i just turned fifteen in minnesota so i went up there for school to finish up my last two years of of high school and there was this program that just started i was part of the pilot for the program and because of my testing scores they sent me to the university minnesota paid i was taking college classes i was on campus fifteen fifteen years old in this big big world that i didn't really understand and for me it was very interesting time because it was the first time that i really wasn't in the us side up even though i was there before i wasn't you know was much younger but yeah i wasn't university of minnesota campus studying with the school full time working part time but for me my passion has always been into like tech computers and it's interesting because my mom started that she brought home my dos ibm like computer when who were probably like ten years old eleven years old for her job and i quickly started to play with it and learn how to you know start it up and hooked it up and use a micro the word processor and it and that was where like she kinda like opened up my imagination to like what a computer was and how you use it and from there you know i've always been into tech always i'm like a geek you know i love anything that's tech and i originally went to school and studied information technology as well but as i got out i felt like i didn't wanna code i didn't wanna do programming in i felt like that was in my thing even though i learned how to do it early on and i got the opportunity to work with this company that they did ebay ads and a lot of marketing and stuff now i was hired as a assistant to the cto but when i got there i i was given a chance to like learn some their ebay tactics and stuff and that's kind of what jump started my career like even into like the marketing and stuff that i've i've i've started doing or i started doing back then and from there i moved doc atlanta and you know my sister and i have always kind of been very entrepreneurial like we had even in miami we had several businesses we did e commerce we're son in amazon we're also doing ebay up here where i would go to like companies on people's houses and sales stuff for them we had a website business you my sister is a a computer engineer so we would build a websites we had a company for a few years i used to be to program manager manager projects for that pro for that company and then we got up here and we started a blog it doesn't exist now but it was for software named celsius and we started a blog and that's kind of how we blossom some in to have an company we never had a website we never had you know a formal you know come meet us or you know officer or anything we started a blog and from that blog we got inquiries from disney from mc and that kinda started our career into like consultant and doing train on stuff on that one software and that's kind of how it all kind of began for you know i tell people i like up a blah i was like yeah we were shocked to you know we we were very shocked by how that kind of it just kind of like blossom and opener for me like i never studied like business or anything a lot of it i learned along the way to by reading you know books just studying myself and i at one point i i tried to do a mba but it was just too much for me to do that while i trying to run a company at the same time so i took what i got from it and i kinda just jumped into to to being an entrepreneur just by i would have a mistake because i think that's kind of you know your journey life here had where you're supposed to send up but it wasn't something that i had planned to do it all in my lifetime so amazing and first of all going to college at like fifty oh my call incredible how is this experience for you like i cannot even like imagine it was crazy because i was in a big city again i'm from a very small island you know accustomed a very small island things and it just kind of like this kind of was placed in that situation it forced me to up really quickly the thing is though you know i've always been a mature person because i am the oldest in my friend my mom as in terms of my sister so i always carried a lot of responsibility and i also grew up with my grandparents so i also just had this mature people are around me so when i went in if people would be like oh come unless gu and you know as a you know as a immigrant coming from a from another country to the us you come with a with to me with a different mindset like you come up here to get business done you know come up here to third party and be out because you can't feel and i go back home you know you can't tell your mom after she sacrificed and send you up here like well i i i flu out of school i was partying too much like i i couldn't do that so i was very focused i'm getting good grades i was working part time at for most of the time i all even full time but i i did it you i had a follow load of classes my first year you know i had a a three point o and everyone was like wow you did better know away affected you to do because again it was a pilot program and we were one of the few my aunt and i were one of the the the few people that they were like tracking during that time and we they had to send a like the pamphlet about it and our success and everything so and i wish back then i kept that stuff you know i i i guess i was too young to really understand the impact of that and i don't really talk about it much but yeah i was very interesting you know time for me being on the campus and and just learning a meet ten people and and and dealing with just being in college or university you know so incredible yeah you should talk about that more and it's very inspiring and i think a lot of folks who are listening to us are going to identify when you said that they which is like relates a lot to the immigrant life failing it's not an option lot our time is not like you can come back to your country or it can ask for your family for like helping it's just like not an option so it puts a lot of pressure for sure so it's very inspiring to see to hear your story that's incredible and i love that you also like experimenting with different things until you're guiding to like at the entrepreneurship part and i was wondering there's any tip inside you wanna share with someone who wants to become an entrepreneur under her and don't know how to start maybe there is struggling starting something new that anything you wanna share with them first of all i always tell given my daughter i always tell her one of the things that i i learned quickly is no matter what i'm doing always learn because everything that i did up until the point where we became you know we did this vlog even working for a ebay company i didn't understand how that would impact me later on in life and i'm a lifelong learner so i don't see an opportunity what are big or small as just or us no i i focus on it and and learn something from it you know what lesson am i getting from this because i realize that every experience in my life is what is what kind of prepared me for what i'm doing now i'm i'm blessed i feel very blessed of i've learned so much because like my mom was a a paralegal illegal so from her side i learned very young i used to help her type up a lot of her agreements and documents and stuff from there you know for our business when we started we literally was a two woman month crew and i learned very quickly how to read our agreements some of our agreements never went to a lawyer like i was able to read it understand send back and and you know give updates recommendation or edits and they would accept them and that's all because i learned that when i was ten eleven twelve years old but again back then i never knew how that experience would i can impact me later in life so everything that you learned learn i don't care if for small how big it is you know learn from your experiences right and and remember that you know it's not necessarily even if it's if it's a small thing just a the discipline you may not apply it now you may not be apply ten years from but somewhere along with the path in your life it's been as it's gonna be important to you instead in terms of starting up as an entrepreneur it's it's not gonna be an easy task right but to me it has been worth because you know you learn so much i think about having in your business is that you get to make mistakes right you're not working for someone where you get gonna make a mistake you get fired you're able to learn mistakes my thing is is learn fast learn quickly and then pivot right with with businesses like you can't let it just your making is no and if you feel like for instance you don't have a lot of time to do stuff you have to like prioritize yourself you know what's important versus what's a priority and know when to bring someone else on to help you because you don't wanna be training time for dollars mean and your time is worth a lot of money if you're doing small things in your business admin stuff that you could hire someone else to do do that because you're now trading your valuable time to do those tasks as someone else could be helping you with and you could be working on your business another thing i've learned is no difference between working in your business and on your business is very important because working in your business is like again those little tasks that you could be hiring someone else to do working on your business is how do i expand it how do i you know bring more products how do i think about a strategy for it that's working on your business so it's very important to understand that and when you are you have a small business or you're just starting not gonna start up you can and get quickly you know bob down into just working in the business because you have to wear many hats you have to get things done but you realize that you know if you don't grow a business and work on your strategy and and understand your market and your customers you'll never expand or grow your business so that's kind of you know my some of the things that i've learned along the way and are very important to me incredible i love that i love those insights that are still so so important and i love that you're passionate about data and business proper optimization i think this it's incredible hustle and flow shark is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the out of this nations for business professions the hustle and flow podcast with joel it's all about how to build a business so it keeps you the freedom predominant food for your life join joe as he discusses systems mindset tweaks reframe and strategy to and really anyone to enjoy the process of being a business and having fun this isn't for the looking to build a billion dollars business rather someone who is looking to build systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time listen to hustle and flow shot whenever you get your podcast and i wanted to ask you how do this elements to get to your work they're very important because you know when you're in a startup you have to have documentation you have to be able to do a lot with not a lot you know with the least so having having your business up optimize having your your processes documented document is what helps you to also bring someone else on that can help you and you can pivot quickly not only that documentation helps you to see where you can make changes where you can streamline and to me that's very important especially when you're in gonna startup right you have a few hands where you have to still get something done and then for us what was i think what what was mind blowing to me is that we were dealing with customers like shell fedex disney mc all these big customers service and we had to be a big consulting firm right because when you deal with these people they're a customer dealing with you know the e wise of the world you're a customer dealing with big big with big big companies like ibm mackenzie so when they come to you you have to put on that type of show type of face to them right they can't know that you're true or four people you know in the box so we we had to to learn to do that as well and unless because a lot of those people also became our mentors when we realized like how small we were helped us a lot get through been on a bigger contract so we were bidding on bigger contracts and able to win those contracts from the help of those people as well so i'm very appreciative of that but you know how the business processes being able to streamline is what helped us to have remote a remote business for a very long time we didn't have an office but we had five ten consultants globally right we had clients qatar qatar we had like three four consultants working for them but having those processes in places is what helped us to you know to to be able to execute on what we were do and help us to manage those consultants over there manage your client projects over there it's very very important and it does take time to build those things out but if you make the time while you're doing it it becomes easier you don't wanna have to go back after i try to think about every step of the way you want do that while you're building take a time and do it because it saves you a lot of time and energy you know in the long run especially when your business gets bigger and you have to bring people on to help incredible amazing and as someone who enjoys traveling globally especially in the caribbean yeah wanted to ask you how has exposure to different cultures in influence your approach to business and community computing i think that's like the the root of that comes by background so you know when i travel like i don't like i don't this like this pressure use word destroying but i don't say what i can't go here i can't go there i i love to just go places you understand sound like we my sister and i just love to say you know what we're just gonna go travel here my sister is even more of a child and i am but we've been literally across the globe because of our business right a lot of the countries we've been to have been plans have brought us out conferences have brought us out and i've been blessed to be able to do so much of my travel when i was younger having so far you know having just a diverse background i love to try new things i love to try new food you know i'm not shy about that i love to to learn you know new languages i love to be around different cultures it's just i guess because of my my background i've never like shi away from that at all and i i when i was younger you know i sell people like your words have power and you don't realize how important that is and i said that because i remember my sister i've been in miami and we saw a video with dani patrick in and i think it was monica driving this fast car she was she was doing a i think they'll do their shooting a her racing car for video and i told me my sister i say one day we're gonna drive that we're gonna go to monica account and we're gonna do that and we did it right we went our conference in france and we decided to go to monte carlo for the day and we ended up missing a train to go back so we had to end up getting a hotel in monaco we didn't exactly like we went down exact same road that she was on and i told i said do you remember being in my miami i mean and i was in was probably in my twenties like early twenties and i was saying one day we're gonna do that and here we are right now right so having you know saying things is very important and you know travel to me expands your ability to just look at things differently in life you know you instead of being judgmental you understand people are different we are all different you understand and when i meet people i don't look at them for their skin color like you know you can't do in the caribbean we are we don't have that in the caribbean at least from me growing i didn't have that like i have too many people in my different cultures in my family but i go to places and i don't i i i love to meet different people i love to learn from them i love to understand them better and it's never from me a color barrier yeah you understand like my background is way too diverse from that my grandmother my my father's style is is cr she's french and and africa my father's chinese and you know just so much suck mixed sense that my my mom's side you know they're dutch they're jewish you know and i can go on and on so i have a lot of friends that are diverse and travel helps me to to better just to to deal with them and understand their are different manner and everything so you know definitely if you can get out and travel like go and experience it it definitely opens your mind and helps you if you have a global business it helps you in your google business as well so it'll definitely definitely travel if you come incredible i love everything said i couldn't agree more i'm always sharing that with my friends how traveling kind of like i feel like it opens your mind so much because sometimes it's easy to get it stuck you know bubble right and then you see other the cultures all the language the way they do things and it's just like it's not about like what is right wrong whatever it's just like sometimes different and sometimes i feel like every time i travel i get something new that i can carry with me and i get inspired in so many many different ways and i feel point of folks listening to us and for you as well like being able to speak more than one language your case a lot more it's just incredible it's super handy like communicate so much easier and i feel like learning a different language it's just such a beautiful and nice way to get to know a lot more about the culture than traveling as well i feel like somewhat deeper so it's just very inspiring and also you'll also may sure about that how it also helps business it also helps you as like a professional and your worth studying and sometimes i feel perhaps with the immigrants to are listen to us we take it for granted we forget about those things right so because perhaps we just focus on the things we need to improve things that we are different or like whatever but we forget about like the things we already have and should use that we should don't mine no i agree and i think for me being so y'all own coming to the us i appreciate where i'm from even more you know we're we're home and we're in the beaches all the time and we eat certain foods something and it's like it's so normalize just because we're in it that when you come up here you've been up here for a long time you're like man you know like we had i grew i i feel like i got really rich like i had a beach life i go to the beach anytime i want now i have to plan a vacation to go to the beach right so we take those things to grind and i also tell people like appreciate those little things because those are the things moderate especially when you get it older and you think back on your childhood and stuff like all the things that you didn't understand they didn't value back then you start to really value it now i'm and i i certainly do yeah absolutely as you are talking i was thinking about the fruits and vegetables oh my god i miss pap papaya so yes banana that actually tastes good not really yes whatever they're taste a ones wow yeah yeah different kinds of banana and i was like wait oh my god i missed that so much true i definitely miss it yes yes that's so awesome and i wanted to ask you about the analytics on fire can we share more about the oh my gosh the podcast has been a journey for us you know we started a podcast actually this year is actually making ten years of analytics of fire yes and we're on our late season so we kinda started and stop it we stopped it for a while came back to it because you know life was a life and and business got busy but it has been a journey for us because it has literally opened us on the opportunities we talked to a global when were here traveling to different countries how live on fire we have people all over the world tim bucks to madagascar like you know you see those things and you think it's like it's just like a movies and no those things exist like we send people all over the world listening to our podcast and it just blows our mind because i you know i would never in a million years think wow these people are gonna tune in but they do you know they find they've they found us i you know we're very niche because we focus on analytics but we have met people from all walks of life listening to it because the leaders and the people that we interview again right they inspire people in different front ways even if they're not in intact you know we have people from different front background we have immigrants yep you know so they inspire people in different ways so i've been encouraging people like if you have a voice and you feel you often to share i'm not gonna i'm not saying that it's gonna be easy and it definitely there is a build and you know but go ahead for it like the podcast is definitely very inspiring and it even to me like i listen to the people that we interview and you know because i do a lot of the production i get to like slow down really listen and i take my time and just so interested how you know people's lives and the things that they go through what you know brings them such an important point in their life so the podcast has been very interesting for us it's also been lucrative a lot of our opportunities have came from the podcast my sister ken noted around the world because of that podcast we've had customer trainings because of that podcast we've we've done a lot because of the podcast so i'm definitely you know always excited about it and you know one of the unique things that were a podcast in the beginning a lot of people don't notice but we only had customers and clients on there right so a lot of the people that in the first few seasons they were clients so people that we worked with worked forward that we brought on to the podcast and over the years we've kinda diversified and brought on like influencers and stuff in the data space but then the beginning it was only our students and only you know our clients and if you go on you're listening to more of like our students and stuff you know our passion one of our passions have always been to trained people you know and get you know how help done with the careers and stuff and we mentioned mentor a lot of people on the side that we don't even like really speak but you listen to i'm talk about how the the trainings and stuff to have held their careers and that's inspire because they take the trainings and and what they've learned and used to be completely different with it that you don't even think about when you're creating this training or thinking about when you're creating this class and you're inspired by what they've done for themselves with it so you know it it is very focused on like tech on data but there's a lot of inspiring stories that come out of it that you know definitely helps influence me as well make me change the the way i think about things so i i definitely love the podcast and i definitely feel blessed to be able to be a part of it protocol we are going to link to the description of this episode the podcast so you all can listen as well i listen to some episodes and yeah that's incredible and i love the analytics topic in general i think patients such an important topic that i don't know sometimes people i don't know they don't think much or they it's like i skill that i don't know some people might think oh this is not for me but you know it's just such an important skills such an important thing everyone should dedicate time with and you're more comfortable with numbers like reporting yet like analyzing data you know i think it's i feel it's just such an important skill to have i think it helps in every aspect of your like because you know you think about it analyzing is thinking right thinking about things more deeply and thinking through things and nowadays almost every company every everything you do include some type of data whether do you know it whether you acknowledge it to you're aware of it or not so to me data is very important and it's another reason why for me i'm i'm very passionate about like getting children and stem early because of that because i feel that our children they're so smart and they i deal with data every single day they don't realize it but i think that data helps to expand their minds like it helps to put them in give them opportunity and that's one of the things that a passion about even for like the caribbean and car carrying that back to the caribbean and even latin america's have our children get into more stem get into more steam right getting them get their minds open from yale because you know again i'll say it like we come from people who work very very hard immigrants work hard right because we understand the value of opportunity so we i want to get them in early that they understand from young like you can do anything you put your mind to you understand me and i think for us you know being from you know smaller island countries or from the islands like that's that we need to push in our education getting children into to stand because it it even more out and back that is going to an impact that and i need to have an understanding of it yeah absolutely absolutely yet we need to push for education and i feel like this is like a beautiful way to help us to high paying jobs to be honest that sometimes a lot of soaps wanna make and be we don't have access to and it's not like we don't work hard it's just we don't have access to those high paying jobs right it's interesting because a few years ago i did a presentation so i told you i don't like to do i've never done any live interviews or any interviews but i'll present the children but i would do the presentation for them and there was a school jamaica that i presented to for this organization called caribbean girls hacked can they focus on you know latin american caribbean getting girls interested in stan and it's interesting because an caribbean is such a push to do computer science that they didn't know that careers and date existed understand like they didn't know you become a data analyst a data scientist and you don't have to do how many more years of computer science to do it or do all this smart but you just have to be able to understand data and be able to analyze it so for me evan that to them really taught to me because they were really surprised that you could do something else other than computer science and i say that for all the immigrants listen out there like computer science does not have to be your gu to learn more about data google has a lot of free classes there's so many free free information too has a lot of free information on there go and understand what you know data is and see if it's something that you you know you might be interested in because i did my my did my sister computer engineering and she was a data scientist and she got into data it hasn't looked back at being a computer engineer and she graduated because she felt data was a little bit more powerful for her she's enjoyed it you understand me so you know as immigrants in in the caribbean like if you talk about computers there's always about computer science no we can do something else other than computer science we can do data we can get into sense of this ai this robotics there's just so many other things that we can do like has none to do a computer science so think that's important to know why yes absolutely i wrote that and talking about resources which resource that help you in your journey and wanna share with us today oh my gosh it's so hard to like pinpoint for me because i love to read i'm always reading tech magazines blogs sort marketing data i'm i'm thinking of one and i i tried to think about it this before i came online because i was like when is like one you know one resource that i can say but it's so hard because i learned so much you you're from like youtube and stuff like i go and i search you know i'll trying to understand even when i was doing like marketing at first again i don't have a marketing and background so i had to learn to do marketing on my own learn to understand the metrics and kpis that i should be looking for and how to analyze them and what makes sense what doesn't it make sense i don't know if there's like one particular thing that i kinda like pinpoint because of of i've just read so much over the years is so much books and i i don't just read data books so just marketing books i love to read books i'm a love history you know i'm a history buffer as well too i i read i just read a lot because i love to learn things i love to teach myself new things so you know coming into being an entrepreneur i had to end up you a lot of books about entrepreneurship and how to you know to plan my day and i think you know one book that i will sit that did help me is like the four day workweek week like it helped me to just yeah so that's one point with pinpoint because it helped me to like better organize the way i do things and way i think about things and we planting things right because you know as entrepreneur you could never plan enough meaning there's always gonna be something happening that is going to throw off your plan your task list is always another priority or something that's important and you know would having multiple clients globally you know you have to set your mind up that you know i might have to get up a four o'clock in the morning for a call i might have to get up you know very very late to do with my team over in another especially if you have a deliverable so all things kinda help me be able to plan better and that book was very and helping me to understand just that you know organizing and tasks and stuff how to organize myself is it's very important you know running a company managing employees you know just dealing with all of that the aspects are running a business on a own you know but that book i i i'll can pinpoint in that book and said that that help me a lot that's been a very good book for me also it's a great reminder for me because i bought this book a time ago i didn't read it yet so i will prioritize that now and as you were talking i love that you lot to read and i get a lot of value from like reading as well and i feel it's just such a way to kind of like expedite your learning so fast and i have been thinking about that because that libraries in us are amazing so for folks are listening to us go to your library if you don't have a card yes get your card they also they have apps so you can have audiobooks books get ke physical books do that prioritize that because i think for me it took me a while to learn about that so us spending a lot of money buying books and you can that free at your library and they are awesome so do that yeah i agree no definitely i love i love to read i love to i know i do a lot of audible stuff because i need don't have a lot of time but i still like to listen to stuff i listened to a lot of podcasts to podcast podcasts has listened to podcast have helped me tremendously over the last two years as i got into them more i love listening to inspiring like when i you know when i met you i started listening to your you know your podcast podcasts and you know i was like wow like listen to you know people of our background and you know likewise doing things you know doing things that you necessarily hear about with and it's like wow like you know i'm i'm very proud to be from the caribbean very proud to have that background so listen to all the folks on your podcast like it's definitely something for for people who are immigrants to listen to because like you know again i'm coming from a small island and you know not even in my mind at that point and and it's not for the lack of imagination and a lack of you know being inspired just for the lack of exposure a lot of times for us it's just a lack of exposure we just need a little bit more exposure and you know people say social media is bad social media it has as good and it's bad anything with technology has as good and bad but one thing it has done for us i think as immigrants is open our minds so what is possible out there we were able to see what people are doing and what they're experiencing so definitely you know listen the podcast read books going youtube you can learn a lot you know incredible i love that i'm loving this conversation but we are getting to the end i wanna thank you so much for your time i love everything you said i can't wait to see you more podcast podcasts than like video podcasts so i'll be checking about and i wanna leave the last minutes for you to share anything you wanna share and also where people can find you i'm all over internet i'm linkedin i'm on on twitter i'm on facebook instagram like just do at su s o o t a n g y u k and you will find me you know in terms of like last words i i will say it's like only thing i had was a very my mom where my mom pushed me forward in life right and i know not all of us might have that but just know that as as folks were a lot stronger and we think we are you know not not until you get pushed the situation realize how strong you are but don't give up on yourself get up every day and push yourself forward because you know no one is gonna come wake you up from bed no one is gonna come and tell you to do it but you have to do it for yourself right i never stop learning don't everything that you know everything because you never know everything i learn things every single and i'm always amazed about the things that i learn keep your mind open you know to those things keep your mind open to other cultures other people you're right like you said there's no right to wrong there's just people different right we're all different but we also have a lot of parallel things that we don't know because we don't really you know we don't look at other of cultures like that but we do have a lot of parallels so definitely keep a open mind you know and and keep dreaming keep dreaming big don't ever put a cup on your dreams and you know that's where i'll end with that awesome thank you so much well thank you for having and i really appreciate it that's it for today everyone thank you so much for your time i will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast podcasts and their episodes please message us with any insight any feedback you might have and also guest suggestions messages in your favor social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us and then review we will love that if fits to writers us and then review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you life thank you

at the end of each year i grab a piece of paper i write down three goals two of them professional and one other them per i write them down i put them in and then envelope seal it up and then write you know for the future here the goals and so i i do celebrate you know christmas so in my christmas you decorations cut where i save all my christmas decorations and i put it up in my my attic i dropped deaf envelope welcome to latin and power a podcast posted by da fan more to dos last time in a if fit number of tools to keep track call three business has never fell harder but you don't need a miracle to hit your goals you just need hubspot because that all you want customer platform can make growing your business even easier imagine this high quality lids fast closing deals wildly happy customers and more benchmark ranking orders it's not a miracle it's hubspot visit hubspot dot com to get saturday today welcome to latin power today we are talking with sen alright asana is an accomplished global client experienced leader with expertise in cultivating high performing teams optimizing technology and driving progressive operation efficiencies this is a long time in the mma i'm so so excited to be talking with you welcome to the la power thank you so much s so first of all i wanna say you know thank you it's definitely been a a long time coming and i'm very excited to be here and and have you know this conversation with you about my experience and to all of you that speaks spanish ola in a podcast also i love this spanish part i always show us going it's kinda one day i will be i can teach you i yes yes about love that and in in this episode asana will share insights into her connection with central america a professional journey and the influence of her cultural background on her leadership style i'm very excited with this spark to especially we also discuss navigating show nuances within different teams and preparing for future trends in global operations and first being first what does it mean to be a latin latino for you sure thank you thank you so much for having me again so first for everyone my name is san juan currently right now my my professional role is i am a senior director frugal operations for a data technology company and my background is i am first generation central american from a salvador my parents both my parents were born in a salvador and just coincidentally i actually just visited it for the second time last week to a salvador which was really exciting what it means to me to be a so definitely for me it's a very strong connection to my culture it it really means like a deep connection to the shared ultra the hair like the heritage the language the customs and most importantly for me is the values so you know being from central america you know my parents when i was growing up there was a lot of of values you know in terms of work ethic religion also just greet values as a human being and how to show up so it definitely means a lot to eat being a athena that i can be able to incorporate that just in existence whether it's professional life or even you know on my personal life incredible i love no answer and i love how i always get to for answers and how they kinda like talk with each other and i love that and i remember when so fun fact we work together we work at the same company and i remember when i joined you're like so welcome me and i was just like so happy to get to know molecule and one of their things first things just sad to me i talked with my hands i like yes i'm gonna try now to talk with my hands they may slip here and there but yes definitely incredible and can you provide us a brief overview of your professional journey sure sure so you know very early on so my my dad actually came to the states at a very very like his teenager years and he was an entrepreneur so very quickly the sense of responsibility was embedded one of the values you know within myself and then also just across all family very early on you know even being a very young like child there was a lot of responsibility and i'm very thankful for that that my dad was able to instill that and that actually has transferred over to my professional career journey so very early on i didn't really quite know when i was in college at first i thought oh i wanna be colleges and they quickly because of my up upbringing me with my dad and my dad being an entrepreneur i quickly shifted to business so i ended up actually starting my career as a a leader within the actual insurance industry and i was very excited because within that insurance company and some of you may know twenty first century insurance they were acquired by aig i actually was one of the first key leaders to be able to introduce bilingual a teams customer support teams we were very focused you know with myself also being a key leader to set footprint in the latino market so starting in the assurance industry then i ended up pivoting to actual technology so i up transitioning as a leader as well rem operation teams i had a company called intuit which is a saas company definitely was always interested in the business aspect of it transitioned over to the payment space the fintech space and that's when i had the opportunity to be able to build teams from the ground technical teams operation teams and are also being able to introduce and share the perspective of the la ab del la which is very important to me and then i transitioned over to the data technology space for e commerce so definitely as you can see throughout my career even though it's been different industries a lot of similarities of my passion has always been building teams meeting people where they're at and taking them where they want to be amazing incredible i'm curious to to hear more how was your cross terms of like and also like i think it's clear how your cultural background your approach into leadership but i'm curious to to understand more how was your process i think it's just like you saw this gap where they didn't not offer customer support bilingual customer support so it's just like incredible but like how is your process and how does your course background it went to your leadership you feel that it was something that started like slowly or it was something that you're were like bore since they want i'm very curious about that i think this is something that are practically very very excited to learn more yes no absolutely so you know in full transparency right i typically in a leadership role our representation is typically between one percent to three percent i mean though those are just facts and as being a latin woman of color definitely you know it it wasn't easy and it wasn't easy in the sense that i had to continuously keep proving myself in the beginning right i was very fortunate though that i was surrounded with leaders that it didn't matter what my you know nationality was they actually saw the work ethic and my skill set and the capability in whether that i was able to bring you know to the business so where you know i quickly was able to which is very important for anyone that is listening building your board of directors you that that is like very critical so i definitely wanted to make sure that i established that very early on so i can have my advocates my supporters now i did encounter right there there was especially it you know back in you know two thousand two thousand and three there a lot of businesses didn't really fully understand the power the purchase power of the latino community and i was very fortunate because one of the other leaders in the insurance company that i was at was also a latin so if her and i ended a partnering on building you know proposals and business cases on why it was needed for us to set footprint in the latino community specifically for insurance and you know it was through building those board of directors having those advocates making sure that i was working very hard and then also partnering with some life that was like minded as myself and you know her and i worked on that initiative and and and truly it was really really successful for us i love that to do a your board of directors that that's incredible and it's interesting how like you when you give this overview the first thing that can comes to my mind it's like we are so much better now oh it is the same or time i just said one to three percent we have in terms of like fulton latin america representation which is very very very low but at the same time it's just it is good to put things into perspective to see how we got better as well and i think i was reflecting on that how for the first generation folks the experience now might be different right i see a lot of people being very proud and also like feeling very excited that they are able to speak to sometimes tree language which i think in the past it was was different eye interview like pablo and he he share was how like kids and his brother always spoke spanish and then they were like people like other kids were making fun of them and then they stopped picking spanish when they were kids and i think the experience now it's different it's a lot better so and it's also to put bing into perspective overall yeah you don't and to add to that i you i participate in a lot of panel discussions discussions and where a lot of us may be first generation second generation and everyone's journey is a little bit different i myself you know now that you're bringing that up you know actually when i was looking for a i i was still in high school and i was looking for a summer job outside of helping my dad in his shops and it was really interesting because when i was being interviewed the gentleman said to me wow i'm so surprised you speak you know english for well and at that time i really didn't understand what he meant but then it took me a bit and i and i thought to myself oh you know that that's where the stereotypes come i i i thought to myself well why wouldn't i speak english that was i was actually bored california so you know that they they are similar experiences you know that i have experience when it comes to you know folks that really truly understanding the you know the differences between being first generation second generation and just also making those like stereotypes where they think automatically you're a woman of color or if you know your first generation just as and based off of your appearance where sometimes they lean into thinking oh well you know maybe she wasn't born here in this in in the states so the the fortunate part is that i as i did have some of those experiences they weren't very few not not many i wanna say that you know working working hard showing my skill sets really outs shines you know some of those stereotypes types which is you know very fortunate and then also i'm just very vocal about who we are you know what our intentions are and then also just building awareness for folks that may not understand sometimes it's not intentional yeah yeah absolutely i love that content is profit is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the outer destination for business professionals discover the secrets and strategies on how your business can achieve the frictionless sale they talk about frameworks strategies tactics and bring special guests to bring you all the information you need in order to turn your content into profit i recommend checking an episode there's the one about three tips to beat creator burnout listen to contact profit whenever you get your podcast in i'll ask you what is your experience as latin serving the role of senior director of global operations yes yes so i'm very fortunate and i say i'm very fortunate because i have the opportunity to be a leader in the global operations space so what that means for me is i have an opportunity to interact with different cultures sip and backgrounds currently the world that i'm in and and the organization that that i'm in we are a global company so we have folks that are from india we have books that are from the philippines we have folks that are you know from the em amir reg region also from you know apa pack and for me being a it really has helped me in this in this role it often means from the being a senior leader you going back to the representation it also means me being that one percent representation which i take that as as you know just be very p because i have the ability to bring in different perspectives when i'm running you know teams and global teams especially i have that emotion intelligence to to understand diverse cultures different means because you know we're all human beings however are our brain our culture is what shapes says you know not only from a personal perspective but then also for you know profession when how you show up so i have the opportunity as a global leader to be able to share those different perspectives bridge some of those gaps you know for folks that maybe are not as exposed to different cultural backgrounds incredible and i'm curious you have been example or any specific keep for folks who are navigating all those cultural nuances and working with diapers diverse do you have any a device and inside or like any example you wanna share i do you know for any any leaders or leaders that are interested in setting footprint and international law countries is definitely do your research from a not only from a business perspective but then also from a culture perspective the the resources the workforce that that you're going to be you know bringing into your organization and and the reason that that is important is because different folks different cultures what motivates them may be different also different customs being mindful and respectful celebrating being open to celebrating different ethnicities different different cultural backgrounds is really really going to help you know in in the professional aspect because when folks you know that are the minority feel and know because it's not only unknown it's also feeling knowing that they are seeing that they're appreciated that they're valued and that they're included makes a huge difference in how they show up to work and how they contribute incredible yes absolutely absolutely and and a big component of being a people leader being manager is how you support the professional development of your kings and you wanna share like how is your approach which and how do you support that professional development yes absolutely so again i'm very fortunate i i'm i have a platform where i'm able to work with a lot of different leaders you know sometimes some leaders they may not understand the whole perspective of diversity and and the men and why it's so important now with my leaders specifically and routine members i make it a point i'm very vocal they they understand i share with my background who i am also i am at the chair person for a latin latino inclusion group i make sure that i communicate to them like the the work that i'm doing not only inside the actual organization that i'm working in right now but then we'll outside and me being able to openly have those discussions opens the the space for them to feel safe so they can share with me like what are their goals you know what do they wanna achieve and just constantly creating that safe space number one number two having regular check ins with them for example you know i i have a leader that was a little bit hesitant on joining an e g group and i walked him through the why and the value that he would bring and you know just sharing with them that it it's okay you know for us to be able to create that awareness finding that balance it's okay you could do your daytime job per s right but then you can also bring yourself and what matters to you into an organization so being able to speak about it creating the safe space doing the check ins is really really how i help you know bring that awareness and help them and when i say them you know i i have several leaders help them in their career their journey incredible i love that i feel that it's it's so important to have a leader where they are also thinking about your professional developments but understand that this is the best case an scenario it doesn't happen often and but at the same time i feel perhaps i can talk about my own culture brazil but i latin american in general we share some single wear sometimes we suffer a lot post syndrome we might be waiting or to get noted perhaps they wanna go for a promotion but they don't ask for you they don't talk about it and i like to bring this perspective to the podcast that's well where people true feeling power to ask this question or maybe like ask for feedback and see what are the gaps and what are the things they should be working on to think about the next level or i'm curious to to hear your thoughts about that as well absolutely so definitely you know very early on in my career right as being just you know a one percent to three percent you know representation where i experienced myself impostor syndrome and i you know i thought to myself wait a minute it's like why me i i don't know i you know that there's been a lot of research and in terms of either you know at certain genders right where you there's maybe a job posting and maybe someone only has like ninety percent of the skill sets and then somebody else maybe has like eighty percent of the skill set typically when you suffer from impostor syndrome you'll shy away that one apply when other genders specifically you know males they'll even though they may not have all the skill sets they will automatically just go for for the role so definitely you know the way that i overcame that is you just have to find like that real like confidence in yourself in your skill set in your ability in your accomplishments and one of the things that i think is very important is not comparing yourself to others because the moment that you start comparing to yourself to others you you may not be sitting yourself up for success because as i mentioned earlier on top of you know the call is everyone's background and journey is different now going back to the impostor syndrome you know one of my leaders actually was asked to speak on on a panel and she came to me and she said don't think there's really any value that i can bring and i set her oh you're doing the pan all we're gonna we're gonna be discussing this and and we're gonna talk about all the badly that you bring you know because sometimes and even you know at times myself when you're in it and you're just you know running the business coming up with a strategy and delivery you may not be able to really have that opportunity to you know go upward and then look inward to see the great accomplishments that you have made so or anyone that is suffering from impostor syndrome you know take a step back don't come look at the accomplishments and what you've done and don't compare yourself to other p other people everyone is unique everybody's background is different and the journey is different incredible yeah that's a great advice and i feel maybe i like to write i think careful knows that about me and i think like the writing exercise it's really powerful sometimes just like writing down your accomplishments all your achievements and i think it it helps a lot to like have like this huge paper of achievements and perhaps it's something that you can have it handy when you're like suffering from boss syndrome someone invited you to a pen or take this paper this google doc just like take a look so i think it's something that can help you with like boosting your confidence absolutely what you know something that i like to do and and i share this with with you know my leaders or folks that i'm mentoring is just create an electronic folder in any anytime that you have accomplished something if you have rolled out a program some kind of initiative automatically just drop it in that folder because and and and this is also important you know when you're trying to evaluate your performance or you're trying to do a self assessment it'll be very quick for you to just go to that bolder and then as you're looking backwards right in the year and you're seeing all the different accomplishments instead of like forgetting and trying to think on the spot like wow well what have i done that's a a very very good mechanism to track you know all your accomplishments and the work and it's a lot easier for you to be able to articulate it to to folks when the time comes you know or if you just want to reflect back and see also okay have i done this year what did i accomplish and then also as your working or goal standing for future which is it has been very critical you know point for me to ensure that i'm tracking everything so in that way i can see okay i i accomplish this do i wanna put in my road roadmap as you know i'm going forward yes i love this reflection part that's that's incredible really like creating perhaps creating a process and making this conscious effort to really think holistically about your professional journey where you are where you wanna being in like perhaps the gaps but also the things you excel i think this exercise is just so so powerful and i think it doesn't come natural for absolutely it's definitely something that i learned through through my career to be able to just archive all the accomplishments and you know also look at maybe they are certain initiatives programs that maybe didn't go well but you still wanna be able to track those and look at them to see what kind of done differently there is one thing that that has also helped with me that i do wanna share so every end of the year and this is more it's not for the digital folks i i i gave an example already on how we can you know archive of accomplishments and what we've done in a in a digital perspective but this is more a manual so at the end of each year i grab a piece of paper i write down three goals two of them professional and one of than per i write them down i put them in an then envelope seal it up and then write you know for the future year the goals and so i i do celebrate you know christmas so in my christmas you know decorations cut where i save all my christmas decorations and i put it up in my my attic i dropped that envelope and it's a practice and and and i do this also with my significant other so he and i do the same thing the next year when we're ready to take out those christmas decorations we take out the envelopes and then we see how did i do this full past year did i accomplish these three goals and if i didn't why didn't tie and it's okay because i you know i can very transparent say there's been some years where i'm like well didn't didn't complete this one okay well then is that one still important for me and if so then i put it back on and it does not come off until i have accomplished so for example when i was a lot younger you know one of my personal accomplishments was purchasing a home and every year i would write it in in you know in the piece of paper as what of my personal dropped it then the year k that i was actually able to accomplish that so that got you know cross out and then the following you know for the following year then i added an additional a different you know personal goal the reason that that works for me is because time has passed when i open that envelope i'm able it's that moment that i'm able to see and reflect okay did i accomplish didn't and i why didn't i do it and doesn't it need to continue to be a goal so maybe it's something also you know that folks can think about as you know if you don't wanna do it in a digital way it's also a very different tangible feeling when you're opening it's like opening a christmas present or a gift per s incredible i love that i love that i love digital stuff but i think like having some physical paper and the surprise element is just incredible i love that another thing that i wanted to ask you i'm very curious about this one and to hear your thoughts and what are the trends you forcing in shaping the future of global operations and how are you preparing for your team and for those changes sure sure so specific to the e commerce space you know consumers are their for personalization should really and we see it you know everywhere it it's not it's not only exclusive to like retailers and brands but even when you're calling an insurance company right they it it it's very important to have personalization people wanna feel like they know you they understand you so what this means is at least in the e commerce space is is that brands really really need to incorporate regional and non regional go to market strategies as a global company what are the things that that we are very mindful of and even as we continue to build and scale is ensuring that we hire multilingual people because there's different countries with different languages and folks wanna be able to speak to folks that speak the same language also you know we talked about culture in and customs and also you know different practices a lot of brands also you if you notice some of the commercials are really really tailoring it and targeting to specific you know demographics is specifically when it comes to to you know gender race and then also you know other other demographics so i think definitely it's preparing yourself to be able to set footprint you know a non regional and and we're global incredible i love i love one you said because he also relates to our audience folks from latin america and the caribbean because sometimes we might understand different cultures so i think this is always a plus and the ability to speak more than one language i love that you mentioned that and one thing that i also wanna share is that the fact that sometimes when you think about speaking more than one language you might we might think oh i need to be fluent in all of them for example i'm not fluent in spanish but since i moved to the west i remember i was working for this specific project where we had like everything in spanish in english i was able to review the spanish portion even though i'm not woman in spanish and i was just like it was very handy and i was able to actually help the team because we did have someone who could could actually understand what was written and i was like yes i never imagined that i could help even though all not fluent in spanish yeah no definitely there's a lot of similarities in portuguese and a spanish so definitely and you know the the the good thing is is that with a lot of ai right now being introduced it is gonna make it easier for a lot of companies you know to be able to set footprint in other you know either latin america central america outside of just north america amazing amazing okay we are getting to the last question i really love this question because i think kids just like incredible to receive tailored advice from folks who think like us look like us have like a similar butt background so i love that and when i asked you which resource helped you in your journey that you wanna share with us today yes so technically it's three so number one it was finding a mentor and not only one mentor because the beautiful thing about people is is that they can they can provide and offer like different perspectives but that that's the the beauty of having different backgrounds so definitely finding a mentor or two mentors i would strongly recommend a mentor within the organization that you're working in in a mentor outside and the and the reason i share this is because a mentor inside the organization that you're working and they get to see how you show up how you in how you interact so they're able to provide you with feedback guidance as of you know a person that is there with you someone that is outside of the organization is is someone that can provide you with a different perspective in terms of your career and your journey so that's number one find the internal and external mentors number two what i shared with you earlier on today is creating that board of directors you know within the organization that you're in is really really critical because different people different perspectives they can share with you and guide you giving feedback you know maybe something that you don't have visibility to and then number three is trying to join an e g group you know whether your company organization offers it if not there's so many of them you know out outside of you know any company for example i'm a member of pt and as i mentioned i'm the chair for the latino inclusion group that is outside of the current middle know organization that i working but it also gives you the opportunity to network meet different people also collaborate you know with people that are that have that same mission and that same journey that you're on so definitely i wanna say like those three things you know mentor internal external your board of directors and jam and e amazing i love that wanna thank you for your time that was incredible as always i love talking with you so i wanna leave the last minutes for you to share anything you wanna share also where people keep find you sure so first you know thank you that you except for having me really enjoy the conversation thank you for for giving me the opportunity to share my my background my journey and where people could find me on linkedin yes mon roy i am there yeah and i am really really really looking forward to seeing what other guests do you have also fa on your podcast and just wanna say thank you to everyone amazing thank you that's it for today everyone thank you so much for your time i will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast podcasts and the episodes please message us with any insight any feedback you might have and also guest suggestions messages us in your favorite social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us in a review we will love that for fits writers us in a review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you like thank you

i got better at asking questions and felt allowed to practice my curiosity and big question for me was why is it that my parents and a lot of latinos in the community work full hard a struggle to achieve economic stability or upward mobility recently i because i had to look into recently i learned that the latin community do we struggle with economic inequality and lack of representation of careers that are in demand on average latin americans in the us make about seventy three cents to every dollar that a white non hispanic makes in that number goes even lower for women i hope that's not your case but it's about fifty two cents to every dollar now we could try to go into higher earning jobs that pay more money like in the tech field but i saw this pew research study in twenty twenty two that found that span workers make up about seventeen percent of the labor force but we make up about only eight percent of stem rolls jobs that are out there welcome to latin latinos in power a podcast hosted by da fan growing your business is hard you got your email marketing system your payment software in your crm your content tools your email tools your tools story to your tools is cables and tiring just to say that wouldn't be nice if there was a single platform to handle all your tough word of growing business hubspot is that customer platform for marketing sales servers and most importantly growth now marketers can generate better leans with more personalized campaigns and improved workforce sales can build better relationships and close more deals with prevent pipeline management and service team can scale everything they do with tools like hubspot ai chatbot bot and knowledge base stop spending more time managing tools they're connecting with prospects and customers hubspot customer platform is a smoother more effective way to grow plus it is all powered by ai to answer couple questions brainstorm and write content for reports and handle all the ti stuff so your team members can have more time to be more you know human suddenly work feels like no work at all that's the power of hubspot visit hot dot com to learn more welcome to latin power today we are talking with wall fill is the leader in digital media products and operations with extensive program management experience she excels in driving product strategy by setting priorities and guiding products through the a cycle with a focus on has customer experience and engagement thank you t super happy and honored to be here i always listen to your pocket and i read your newsletter which is amazing so thank you oh thank you so much yeah it's being incredible to be talking with you you are a great helper for this podcast for folks who doesn't know she made me a lot of like guess that we have and i have in my so it's being incredible collaborating with you and your help and in this episode we will cover key milestones in while lisa's career and how technical documentation has shaped her journey we explore her experience crafting a course and delve into the significance of mentorship in her career as well as how she balances professional responsibilities with her commitment to and community involvement first means first what does it mean to be a latin tina for you big question thank you well i'm a first generation resilient american i grew up in a household check the cold brazilian family with sunday foundational high schools watching love i love roberto carlos so that that's typical but something unique about my family was that i grew up in a church community in miami florida and we had spanish language services and cog from all over latin america and caribbean so oh by the way my parents my siblings and and we were all fluent in spanish english and portuguese sort a tri ling family because of that so i've always felt connected to the latin community from being steep in all these different cultures but seen myself as a latin that identity became much stronger when i actually moved to new york city after college romania so for the first time ever in new york i had the experience of feeling other and being a token that token latin athena and the workforce which was great but instead of hiding my multi multicultural background i just owned it i i make it a point to contribute to the greater brazilian and let communities and i see that as a as a string i love that that's incredible i love your family already and i love that you were able to speak tree language that's that's amazing that's a amazing love that thank you it's their their characters my family incredible and what tribes you personally and professionally out i had this experience i remember when i was at miami dade community college as a young teenager i went to a counselor to ask about how can i transfer to an ivy league university so you go to community college you get your aa your first sixty credit and then you transfer to get your undergraduate degree she quickly glanced and my thin transcript and she looked at me and said you would never be accepted by those schools don't even tried to apply and i i kinda of believed her i had no idea at that time what i brought to the table but i brought a lot to the table i had a radio show when i was a teenager i learned how to manage the sound board and the mix visual podcast worth thing i was the editor of my college paper i volunteered in my community saying inquire tutor immigrant kids all of this before the age of eighteen and i just didn't know how to tell that story but i didn't manage to transfer to a good school into the university of in miami gold the you i mean cher gu though through that career i got better at asking questions and felt allowed to practice my curiosity and big question for me was why is it that my parents and a lot of latinos in the community work full hard but struggle to achieve economic stability or upward mobility recently i because i had to look into this recently i learned that the latin community we do struggle we struggle with economic inequality and lack of representation of careers that are in demand on average latin americans in the us make about seventy three cents to every dollar that a white non hispanic makes in that number goes and lower for women i hope that's not your case but it's about fifty two cents to every dollar now we could try to go into higher earning jobs that pay more money like in the tech field but i saw this pew research study in twenty twenty two that found that hispanic workers make up about seventeen percent of the labor force but we make up about only eight percent of stem rolls jobs that are out there so i have always been curious about tech and eventually i'd made my transition into this career into this field but it took reporting on people in the field to see that possibility for me and what drives me now is i refuse to let personal or systemic ops will stop me from learning and growing from pursuing my dreams i try to help other young women overcome those obstacles too and and help them tell their story about that and i like that to touch a very important point and i think there is a misconception especially in this country i feel that people usually when they think about hard work they think about like the person be able to succeed and success but not necessarily not necessarily right and as you said like if you don't have access to high pay jobs if you continue like working and working and working you're not going to get the same success as someone would have access to high paying jobs who have so this is a really important point and especially thinking about they go home of this and the book that i'm talking like when we think about the numbers and access of like folks from latin america and the caribbean to tech it's just so so so low i don't know if we have dated numbers but last time i saw it was less than three percent latin america folks who are able to getting into tech i have a that this number is lower due to all layoffs and everything that is happening with tech so it's very very sad and when we think about leadership positions i believe this number is not even one we're sand right i i think this is something that we sleep yeah it's just oh my god not at all that's turn in and it and access to the resources not just to the high the higher salaries but the skills that are in demand so that we can negotiate salaries and at and ask for more money you yeah absolutely and another topic that i wanted to talk with you i'm very interested to hear your thoughts maybe as a introvert and as a person who really like to write things down i wanted to ask you could you share with us how technical documentation has influenced your learning and professional journey partake completing your role at aws docs yep well technical writers do tend to be introverted as francois well clearly i work on the aws team that produces technical documentation for two hundred plus services across of aws and this information is available online or free actually on our website aws docs and it's produced by hundreds of technical writers that are amazing people that i work with we also have decision guides for if more business making decisions that are out there trying to find the right solutions for challenge or use case we have a getting started resource center code examples library which developers really get into and so many more resources but it wasn't until i joined a aws and on this team that i really got to see how much love and effort technical effort writing effort and growth into what our technical writers put into giving customers accurate useful authoritative information so now prior to that have documentation affected me personally when i was studying journalism at the university of miami who of my favorite professors that's something that has stayed with me forever our web development professor he's brazilian by the way he said that the most valuable thing he could teach us was how to learn and started getting into finding documentation like this is how you learn things this is how you search for it then our media law professor said most of you in this classroom will find yourselves and jobs that don't currently exist in that blew my mind so while working as a journalist i was always trying to learn new technology getting my hands in there reading documentation watching videos trying out code and it gave me some cool opportunities to implement and develop some crm content management tools some sms tools some fun insights micro sites that i got to build but i didn't really see myself as a tech person until the media industry laid me off and i know a lot of people are going through that right now so i feel for you and i had to ask myself what else stop you excited and that's when the light bulb went off i wanted to help build the technology that powers content creation publishing distribution help communication collaboration but even with all this information my fingertips to learn what i wanted to learn i still felt that i had two gaps in my skills and knowledge the first one was making business savvy strategic decisions about what technology you're going to use in why and the second one was well how do you i execute that strategy so i went back to schools i graduated from columbia university with an executive masters in technology management and i got certified in project management with the pm pm so soon after that i started working at amazon but yeah the documentation kind of followed me through that journey from beginning to end that's also i quite often reflect combat about like the things we truly loved a dwayne and also all those people in our lives that like inspire help us and not so much i think there is always like a balance of the the the ones who will like support and they want the doctors and like i think i feel like the secret is like what you do with this information even though sometimes they are not as great and at my current company we use a lot of like sports terms which is like i don't follow any sports i understood that it's very interesting especially because the former coo was like a former rugby player no man they get inspired a lot by a rugby team called all blacks and they have like a a term that they they say go for the gap and i think this is like a beautiful translation of like your career as well and a lot of things we do with in life although sometimes something happens that is not that great but then you have this idea of like combining some thoughts and some tears and then you go for the gap and it's just like amazing i i think i didn't have language to translate that and i feel that i did there's a lot in my career and it's just like i love to to ping about bad and if you're very inspired to hear for you as well lincoln draw inspiration from different disciplines that rugby also inspired some of the concepts in scrum methodology so yeah or when i'm feeling un motivated or a little down i i i think of the foot bowl the soccer analogy my mom always uses it she's portuguese nancy or bar started because these people last you year you gotta keep things moving forward don't look back but that that's my bulb i she used the play which involves well i understand being around people that use sports analog yeah yeah and i love that especially because it's someplace so new to me i still like the following new sports and that i really like those analog and this mindset and i think it's very inspiring and for the podcast i interview some like former cl and it just like so so inspiring especially to see like how the skills you develop can be translated to corporate as well and it's just like incredible i love them although i just don't fully it's it's okay just ask when you don't know yeah it like not watching any game but it's okay true flies and work is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the outer destination for business professionals giant husband and wife as they dispel myths in part wisdom and answer all your questions about finding keeping and motivating great people i realized the episode about five tips for a happy workplace from five workplace experts i love those things are really like this episodes i recommend you taking me a look listen to truth lies and work whenever you get your podcast and i wanted to ask you about your experience creating a course and can you tell me more like about your process and like the key takeaways that you learned and like the connections you made how how is this process for you oh i loved it so for those of you listening available now on audacity it's an tech platform is my digital project management nano degree actually trademarked that term nano degree and it's basically a two courses in a final project all that digital projects in so building that nano degree was was really amazing i i worked with a curriculum designer so someone with an education background a program manager video producer graphic designer researchers working with the researchers we identified our target audience and kinda narrowed down what were the most in demand skills and careers the demographics and sort of realize that i with my experience and the course material i could focus on people on the digital marketing digital media software development spaces so that's kind of who i'm i'm mostly talking to throughout the course i c design the curriculum created the course content recorded videos selected assistance to help me grade and of course i marketed the programs a little above the home go to market journey right there and definitely a big takeaway from building the digital project management course destiny was that the value of project management as a vehicle for execution in any industry i've used it in every field that i've worked in and we've even used the principles of project management to execute the that nano degree in a timely manner so i firmly believe that digital project management is a great entry way for people looking to transition into a technical field because not only can you use that skill set to negotiate like we were talking earlier for a better salary that you can use project management to enhance your knowledge of any field so for example project managers have or subject matter experts on a on a particular project by the end of that project when you complete it you now know more about that technology than you ever did before so it's a a good learning mechanism from as well incredible i i love that and something that i usually tell to people is that i feel like there is a component of project management in every role like basically everything you do sometimes you plenty a trip with friends and family you need to organize like book a hotel and just coordinate the time me and and it's just like there's was like always project management aspect in everything you do and i know that for some people it might come more niche leave then the other is but i think you just saw an important is skill that everyone should develop so we are going to link to the description of this episode your course i'm very excited about this thank you appreciate that i i i really believe it's going to help some people out there so incredible and i wanted to talk with you about mentorship i know this is an important aspect for you and for your career and how have mentors played a role guide your path and how do approach mentorship yourself yeah so in my life i just thinking back i don't i didn't know many people let along women with career and instead there were even some members in my community kind of conservative community who believed in traditional gender roles and in my opinion the consequence of of some of that sometime it's not enough investment in educating girls in quote unquote boy majors though for example my friend's brother took a part a computer and everyone would say he would become an engineer and he was you know really into that and and into sci f shows and things like that i kinda was too i messed him my dad's computer and the engineering board at the radio but no one ever said to me that i could be a computer scientist but there were up in months in my church community who played a pivotal role and they weren't formal mentors but they showed me what mentoring could look like one mom she told me when i was about fifteen years old that my writing was on college level and that's when i enrolled at a community college and through this program that helped cover tuition costs and my best friend's mom tutor me in masse so that i could pass the college entered sixteen and it still wasn't for her i i don't know how much our or no right now so these monks put me on the right path but i could have used some role models to further explore what i was capable of i want to say hey you could be a computer scientist so crowley i am a vice chair on a board of a wonderful non nonprofit called pineapple women it was founded a few years ago by colleague of mine and chavez she's columbia a public school teacher and we offer let age ages fourteen to twenty four professional development and mentorship big reason why it's important to reach these ami of ours at that age ages because we wanna equip them with understanding and ability to our articulate the skills that they have and its value in the market we do that because we're working on their self confidence so they can advocate for themselves tell their story or pursue their dreams so if there's anyone out there listening you would like to support pineapple women visit our website pineapple women dot com but mentorship helped me to be able to build myself confidence to understand what what kind of value what do i bring to the table in the workforce and i am just passing that on to whatever students i work with incredible well i love your journey and i love how when you bring the as that mentorship can come in many many different places and i feel like now we talk a lot about mental mentorship and perhaps people will think about like oh it's someone that i work for someone that works in a company that way that i wanna work can we need to blend this coffee and like more like formal but you can get a mentor like anywhere in like a lot of different spaces and doesn't need to be this formal way that you imagine like messaging someone on linkedin thing and then scheduling a coffee you know it can be like in a lot of different places a lot of different setups so i love that who mentioned that i think it's really important thing to keep in mind thank you i it's so true but it does take being connected to through your community being connected to people and not being afraid to say hey look at this paper i wrote or i'm thinking about going to this college what do you think and then as i mentioned before sometimes people will tell you don't do it that's a bad idea duncan can say or you can do you can't make it so it it also takes a little bit of resilience on people's end but the people who love us and support us they helped fuel that resilience yeah absolutely how to balance your professional has possibilities with your commitment to mentorship and community involvement yeah that's so that's a good question because you've recognize recognized accurately it it it can be tricky sometimes but my community work it feeds my professional development and vice versa when i applied to be a mentor at the intrepid museum i did that for a couple years the program director and her interview asks why are you applying i was so honest i said i have a selfish reason and that made her laugh because i was being brutally honest and i said i wanted to practice leadership and i believe that leading a group of students and a stem project would be a good way of pac to seen that of building my career so if i learned something new i pass it off to our students when i learned something from those community experiences i apply at work like how to collaborate with diverse people and have empathy and and teenage girls to really teach you to have empathy so of course mentoring and volunteering does require some sacrifice and excellent time management so there are some things that i learned to do like del tasks very important having clear goals than deadlines time box y your work out and currently they been loving using these ai tools like chat gp and grammar to help me produce materials and communicate dearly put things together for me a much faster rate so that i can do my pineapple women work my work of you know few hours of the weekend and don't have to sacrifice too much time for it yeah that's incredible yeah that's an incredible reminder to use all those tools in our favor so they could help us and i love when you said that all those community involvement help you your your professional development that's also that's incredible and i love to expand on that because it might be something bad for other the folks it might not come naturally and of course when you have all those commitments and it's just like incredible you're helping people you're making a difference but it's also at the sacrifice your of your free time and like a lot of older other banks but it's also interesting this angle where you're also developing heels that sometimes at work you might not be able to do it or at work i feel that sometimes there's like a lot more pressure right because you wanna make something work and is there like checking on you and when you're like doing something on the side you you kinda like can experiment a little bit more at least this is the way i feel so i would love to get more into this aspect with you yeah mentoring at working in in official programs inside you know our org pineapple up a women or the intrepid museum was a wonderful resource some other nonprofit that are i volunteered at eight there is room to experiment and it's actually part of the mentorship it is good for the younger people to see you you'll say i wanna learn this thing i don't know what it is or how to do it let's learn it together let's figure it out and then see my process about how do i do that i'm gonna show them so i'll give you an example i was learning i had been doing a lot of data analytics with web traffic one job of mine and i i wanted to learn a little bit more about how to how to analyze that the metrics will understand what it means so i did a presentation to the students the this group of students that i was working with they were high school in new york city girls and they have so many challenging questions about wait a minute it you can get that kind of information on people asking questions about privacy and security of things that i had to implement in my work and like compliance the gdpr and then a few years later girls were already graduating high school i was no longer with that particular group i someplace sales but one of these girls that watched their presentation messaged me on linkedin dennis said i got into i think it was brown university and i decided that i'm going to study data science because of your presentation so like it helped me refine skills a bit at work but it also resulted in this a amazing career for a bright young woman who i think is is going to be a leader for us in the future so that's the best win win situation should be in my opinion and when you like as we are talking in the beginning like having access to tech and those like higher paying job it's just like a game changer not for the individual for like families in communities so i love love love love love the story it's it's it makes the again like it it's selfish it makes me feel good but hopefully it's it a win win situation for for the student student duchess meet it is it is and which sauce helped you with your journey that you wanna share with us today well i'm gonna read you today get into document deletion so even if you're not a computer scientist or an engineer but you wanna learn and an ai out tool or a software there is almost always official documentation by the company or the people who produce that thing so go and get into that first because it's almost always free an empowering story that i've read this amazing book by doctor rana a liu she's an ai scientist founder of a diva she wrote a book called girl decode and i'm gonna read you the full title as is long so it's girl coded a scientists west to reclaim our humanity a break emotional intelligence to technology so what i lot about reading this book is that she she does have a religious upbringing which there were some aspects of that that i kinda of related to she had been the war she had his marital issues so many things that i think most girls would be inspired by hearing how is it that doctor k columbia was able to overcome that so and all while building an amazing ai company called that diva so i love that book recommend it i also always try to encourage people to get with community to learn with other women through one l one mentoring or attending conferences like tech up for women and for those times that that i didn't have money to go i would volunteer tier at the conferences to be able to get in for free and connecting with affinity groups so i connect with with brazilian and women inside of amazon all outside a project management club women in product in events and and it's it's i guess a modern way in making new friends and then finally i would be really able to breathe by anyone who got to this point in the podcast they listened to the whole thing so if you were read that person dm me on linkedin i gotta know who you are follow me follow pineapple women on linkedin amazing i love this conversation knife information a lot of very very important things i'm very happy about it and wanna leave the last minutes for you to share anything else wanna share with us and again we are going to link to the description of the episode like all everything mentioning including your linkedin yeah definitely i i'll you wanna mention that talking about the hurdles and the obstacles when i first speak to students about it i i was a little nervous to to do that especially mentioning my conservative religious background i don't want anyone to be offended because it was just my experience it's not everyone's experience but i learned to be confident in telling that story over time because it does know favors to other people of any age to sugar coat things we have to talk about some of the challenges and struggles that we go through and then how is it what did you do to overcome those struggles so people can see that oh that that's what you did i have that capacity i have that capability i can do that too so if money is the issue i i overcame that with with higher education if confidence is the issue i overcame that if you know whatever it is it there's so many aspects in our story that we may not realize will it be relatable to students so it's a matter of getting it out there telling you know telling people what you went through and let them tell you whether or not they relate and you'll be surprised you the students are not shy to come up to you and and say something or or ask a question about wait how did you do that so that's what i'd i encourage everyone to to try it out don't be shy even even you introverts also thank you thank you thanks that's it for day everyone thank you so much for your time i will love to hear your thoughts about the podcast podcasts and the episodes please message us with any insight any feedback you might have and also guest suggestions messages in your favorite social media platform we are in all social platforms and if you wanna write us in a review we will love that for fifty writers in a review on apple podcasts audible amazon or any other streaming that you like thank you