Latest / Crafted Connections / EP 45: Iteration and the Art of Building Connection with Félix Medina

Transcript

EP 45: Iteration and the Art of Building Connection with Félix Medina · Crafted Connections

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, welcome to Crafted Connections.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Kayla Calhoun, and this is a podcast all about storytelling and building genuine community.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Here we'll dive into the art of storytelling, unpack strategies for making meaningful connections, and hear from incredible humans who are using their story to create impact.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's craft some connections.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome back to Crafted Connections.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Caitlin Calhoun and I'm always grateful that you're here.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Super, super excited about today's episode.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: My buddy Felix Medina is on the podcast today.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: We go way back.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: We go way back.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: We have seen a lot together.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost like 10 years now that I've known this wonderful human.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: He has just such an interesting story.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: He grew up in a border town, and I even got the chance to travel with him there back in late 2018.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: He talks a lot about how that experience growing up with not just like a bilingual experience, but a bicultural experience in a border town kind of influenced what he loved, what he was interested in, what curiosities he was able to chase.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, we dig into like both of our experiences as entrepreneurs, especially his and his new endeavor is super, super cool.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just so grateful that I finally got him on the mic.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: He is just charismatic as can be.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And like anyone who knows him knows they're lucky.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I think what I really love about our conversation is it gives a lot of behind the scenes and like how he works.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: He's very publicly shares a lot on his LinkedIn and all of his social media accounts.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's very much an open book.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: You get a coffee with him, but I just really loved the way that our conversation went to the point where, you know, I put my little spiel about doing story strategy sessions with me somewhere in every episode.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was listening and like, you know, because we've known each other so long, we were feeding off each other in the whole conversation, and I didn't know where to put my little commercial.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it's honestly more towards the end.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, at some point I got to cut it off and include it in there so that so that I can connect with my people and do my thing, right?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: But ultimately, that just means our conversation was strong and he's just a cool dude.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: A few things that stood out to me in his episode were the concept of entrepreneurship as both a creative and spiritual journey.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: This is like really inspiring my own approach to the year.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking, and I never like hold a word of the year for an entire year, but as the year starts, I'm thinking about the word iterative or iteration.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Iterative, that's the one that I want to stick with as me approaching the year.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he speaks about that quite a bit in the way that he's talking about building relationships and how you communicate with people.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, sometimes it's gonna be clunky.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know it's gonna be clunky until you try something and you're like, okay, I learned, moving forward.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so we discussed the idea of every opportunity to meet with someone is an opportunity to create an experience.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: And ideally, they're doing that back for you.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Meeting someone, connecting with someone, you walk away with maybe learning something.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Every connection is an experience.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, is that not like the bottom underlying situation of this podcast?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Creating experiences with other people, connecting with other people.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: I just love how he went into that.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks for letting me talk so long because you want to hear Felix.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: So let's get into it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Treasure of a human.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: As always, thanks for being here.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we need to talk about you.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: We need to talk about you.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: Talk about me.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Felix, thank you for the time and and the energy that you've already put forth for this podcast.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: I know it's, I just I'm this is gonna be a hit.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna blow up.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: People are gonna be like, it people are just they're gonna be so pumped.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: So can you do me a favor?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And for anybody who doesn't know you, but probably everybody knows you already, because you are you are a networking fool, and I mean that in the in the most jovial sense.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: You're charismatic as hell.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: The people they love you out there, but not everybody knows you yet, and that's what we're here to work on.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, can you tell the people who don't know you a little bit about yourself, and and then we'll dig into just all the interesting stories you have?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: My name is Felix Medina.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_04: For those who don't speak Spanish, you can say Felix.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_04: That's part of my pitch when I introduce myself.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_04: So Felix or Felix.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_04: And I was born raised in a border, uh Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm saying hi to all my folks from the border.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_04: That is a Mexican city that borders with El Paso, Texas.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_04: And I came 20 years ago to Indy and never left.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: 20.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: 20 years now.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_04: So to be fair and exact, because I love nerding out like that, this spring will be 19 years.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_04: This coming spring.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_04: So I I can't believe that that's the amount of time that actually went went through and passed by.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, yeah, I come from a family of three siblings.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_04: Parents are still alive, everybody's in Mexico.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up in an environment that was very much innocent and pure.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_04: My parents were very loving and charismatic individuals, both of them.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, right now they're starting their 80s and they're very healthy.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_04: So I grew up really.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_04: I tell people, I grew up with gypsies.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_04: My parents are like I consider them modern gypsies.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_04: For them, it was very important education in all all sorts of ways: music, film, um, science, uh, you you name it, and for them it was important for me to have a perspective of the world because they invested so much in my education, and I think that's where the journey really begins.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_04: I remember this one school that I loved.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_04: This school was a full immersion Canadian school.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_04: So my parents were uh my parents, my teachers, I guess parents at the school, uh my teachers were Canadians who didn't speak Spanish.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_04: So every time I stepped into the classroom for me, it was like being in Canada.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: But was that in in being in Canada, eh?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: But that was in in Juarez?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_04: That was in a city called Torreon, because before I I arrived to Juarez, I arrived to Juarez when I was nine years old.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: So that's why I say I was born raised in there because that's where I spent most of my life.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_04: And um, yeah, that was in a in a city called Torreon, and the school shout out to the school in Torreon called Colegio Inglés.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_04: So it's like saying the the British college or whatever.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: British college, the Canadian of Torreyon.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Very good, very good.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, wonderful.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: So so you really like that experience, you know, and that that brings you to how's your upbringing influenced who you are today and and what you're passionate about?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_04: Well, uh it's a great question because that is the fundamental structure, that is the core engine of who I am when my parents decided to let's keep feeding what this kid likes, and this kid absolutely adored international stuff, adored foreign languages.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_04: This kid was obsessed with meeting with people that didn't speak his language, that didn't see things eye to eye.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_04: So for me, that was just such a delightful experience.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_04: It was an adventure, and the teachers were always giving feedback to my parents.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_04: I remember Mr.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_04: Darren Luke.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I still remember his full name.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and um, I remember I remember him meeting with my parents saying, Felix absolutely adores English, and he loves talking in English all the time.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_04: We can't even stop him, and and he just keeps talking, and and he he's gonna be alright.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: He's gonna be okay.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_04: He's gonna be alright, and I was like, Hell yeah, I'm gonna be alright, you know.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_04: And my parents were just like nodding.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_04: But um, yeah, I think that was the the stepping stone into this gateway, really, that started when I was a kid, and I think my parents not only compassionate and gypsies, they're very intelligent because they saw, okay, this kid likes this, and we're gonna allow him to go ham.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_04: So all hands on deck, yeah.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like watering the plants that are growing that are just really thriving and and what you really, really love.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then so then from there, how did you end up coming to the States from from that experience?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_04: So because I so from Torreon, I moved Torreon is more in in within Mexico, not a border city.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_04: And from there I moved to Juarez uh when I was about nine years old.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_04: And really, Juarez was the perfect spot for me when I was a kid because Juarez it was not what Juarez is known for right now.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't a dangerous place necessarily.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up in middle class, so I grew up uh, as you know, because you've been in the house where where I grew up, you'll remember it was a very safe neighborhood.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_04: So I really grew up nurturing my childhood.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: So it was kind of like I was able to fully enjoy a healthy neighborhood, really when I was a kid.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_04: I remember playing soccer until three in the morning, which is probably something you won't be able to do right now in Juarez.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I remember even camping in the like in our park, even though it was private.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you know what I'm talking about.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_04: But more than that, Caitlin, I think that what Juarez provided me was exactly what physically you would imagine.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_04: Juarez is a border town.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: So what does that mean?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_04: It means a constant friction in an entire, completely different world.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_04: Mexico and US are, yes, are in some ways opposites, but in some other ways they're intertwined to the core.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_04: These are countries that share a significant history and a future.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_04: See what I'm you see what I'm talking about?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: So for me, it was also delightful to be in that in that type of exposure.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_04: Because just to give you an idea, from some of the houses where I used to live, I could see the physical city of El Paso, Texas.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_04: That's how close it is.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_04: Kind of like twin cities, St.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_04: Paul and Minneapolis, sort of speak.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_04: So it was quite fascinating to grow up in that environment because I was able to go in and out of both cities.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: I was able to cross with my international border crosser.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_04: It's an identification, sort of like a passport that allows you to jump in and between cities internationally.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_04: So I grew up doing that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up doing almost uh going almost daily to El Paso.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: So I I was able to practice English to see the US culture, to see Spanglish, which is a mix of you know both cultures, to hear it, to feel it.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_04: So I grew up very much bilingually, but more importantly, biculturally.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah, your question, how did I end up here?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, but so yeah, so we'll be right back.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, sorry, I like talking a lot, so I can drift away sometimes and and stay like uh that fed right into it, I think.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think that fed right into like that experience.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: If you had, you know, grown up near, near or in Mexico City, completely different, right?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: So much further away.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Completely so that you wouldn't have had that experience of like practicing English, falling more and more in love with the combination of the two and just like the the dichotomy.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just so cool to like for us to be friends, you know, for a little shy of a decade at this point, and like to time and time again revisit your childhood story and hear how it it was always there.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like the just the love for people everywhere has always been there.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: But then that brings us, like you said, not just bilingual but bicultural.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Then what you know, how did you end up?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: What what brought you to?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Indiana is nowhere near El Paso.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: So let's go.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_04: I love Indiana, by the way.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_04: Chout out to all my peeps from Indy.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so that's a really good segue to to the next part of the story, which is physically, I fell in love with a woman from Indiana.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, I was I was young, I was in college, I did my college in the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juarez, which translates to University of Ciudad Juarez.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_04: And I met this student in an exchange program, and she is from Martinsville, Indiana, which is a rural town in Indiana, and she was studying at the Paul University, which is located in Greencastle, Indiana.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_04: So I met her there studying in the same university as I was, and obviously my characteristics as a young man were so drawn to international people that obviously I was gonna fail for a for a foreign woman.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_04: So that was just kind of meant to be, uh kind of godly, right?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_04: And um, yeah, I met her in college, this redhead, blue eyes, freckles uh woman, and of course, if obviously people can't can only hear me, they don't see me.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a brown guy with a very thick black mustache.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_04: So um, so that was meant to be.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_04: It was a cultural shock that it was just meant meant to be like that.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_04: So we started dating in college.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_04: She had a one year of uh studies in my university.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_04: We became friends first, then we started dating, and then she went back to Indiana for one more year of studies.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_04: And when she finished, I still had another year of college.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_04: So she came back to to work in the border, and and kudos to her in that sense that she lived in Juarez, not in El Paso.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_04: So I remember a lot of people kind of saying, like, you live here?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_04: Kind of like that's courageous, you know.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_04: You're a white lady, a redhead, and you know, you live in Juarez, and but she spoke perfect Spanish, which she still does, you know, and that's very impressive to see somebody dominating a second language, yeah.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so yeah, that's how I ended up in India.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: Look in the mirror, by the way, dominating a second language.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_04: I just so that's how I ended up here.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_04: So we got married in um 2007, and I migrated to Indiana.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, things didn't work out, I'm not married with her anymore, but I ended up deciding to stay here in the indie area because I have a daughter that is almost 16.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: Obviously, this daughter I had with her, and um I decided I'm gonna make a life out of this immigration out of this decision I took in my young years.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna make a life out of it.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_04: So that's how my journey in Indianapolis uh begins.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I know while I know that like, you know, you had that bicultural experience growing up, there's still something that's so shocking and it takes a lot culturally to what what does it look like to build a whole life and community in an area nowhere near you grew up, in a different country than when you where you grew up.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: What is that what is that experience like?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and can you share more about that?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: It's almost like a relationship with a significant other.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_04: You have the honeymoon face, which at the beginning is quite lovely, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: At the beginning is it's all good because you're fully invested and you're so excited and you're enamored, I can tell you.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_04: Completely.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: So you're under under the influence, right?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_04: So when when I came here, I would say that happened to me.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_04: I would say that first year to two years, I almost felt like I was on vacation.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm coming from a place where everybody's brown now, everybody's white, everybody speaks Spanish, now everybody speaks English.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: Juarez, for those who don't know, it's basically in a desert.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_04: So from going from no trees to the forest of Indiana, it's quite a shock as well.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and the humidity as well, I imagine.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_04: Humidity, we have negative humidity in that in the desert, which here uh it's obviously the opposite, isn't positives, and there's so many things like that.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_04: The four seasons that doesn't exist in Juarez.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_04: So your body is going through a transition that is not only language, not only culture, it's weather, it's how your body feels physically without weather.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_04: There is a shock that eventually kind of like hurts you for real.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_04: After that honeymoon phase, one to two years, then I would say you start getting into the face of like the opposite.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I don't like it.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: I actually I tried about three times to go back to the Juarez El Paso area to relocate there, and for some reason or the other, it never happened until I had Vedia, which is my daughter.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_04: Then I when she was born, I finally took the decision to okay, I'm gonna make Indianapolis my my home base.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me about the experience of being a father.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it's quite unique.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_04: I may risk sounding very cliche, but I think that I would put it as the top two or three things that I would say they're the most important for me in my human journey.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think being a parent is for everybody.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_04: I think it just happens to those who need that experience.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_04: And I think I was such a gypsy, as I said, such a liberal, hippie kind of guy that having my daughter grounded me.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_04: I needed that sort of slap, to be honest with you.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I just I don't think I comprehended slap until after I said yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Slap on the face.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she's like, hey, I'm here.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: You better watch out.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: She's also, I mean, like, she's, you know, like you were you were explaining, like her powerhouse of a mother.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: She's also a powerhouse.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, to it's been an honor to like meet her around age six and to see her turn into this, like just this woman that is just like, and she was, she was, she was there already, you know, but like, but to like to be like her body finally matches her personality is very, very cool.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, shout out to to Vedia.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_04: In some ways, I feel she's more mature than I am.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I like to tease her.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_04: I say, You're already ahead of me, you're already a better human being, you know.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I tell her that maybe not enough, but I I do that sometimes.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sometimes.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: I love, I love, uh, like and but witnessing that, I just can only imagine, right?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because I just again, like, I'm just I'm always in awe of her.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: I just I think, and then for you to experience that and to be such a transformational experience is my goodness, my goodness.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_04: Me too.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a fan.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_04: She has a very bright future, and I learn a lot from her in our conversations.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_04: Now it's a little more enjoyable because obviously she's not a toddler, so she's uh you know, almost 16.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_04: So our conversations can be a little more um they have more substance now.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, yeah, and um and it's good to be part of that journey and to see life through someone so young and kind of new to this world.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_04: That's the part that I that I like a lot, is like growing older again without being in that body, you know what I mean?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's it's cool.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_04: Like the other day she asked me, do you used to daydream a lot when you were younger?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_04: And I thought that was such a pure innocent question, and I liked it because I was like, damn, I forgot I freaking did that.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: I used to do that every day, and I told her, like, oh yeah, I would create I told her that I was like, oh yeah, I would create stories and I would make films in my head because I was so creative and all these things, and it was kind of cool to answer the question to be honest with you.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_04: It was it was fun, it was like, oh, I'm I'm Felix 15 years old again.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_04: Let's go, you know what I mean?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh daydream is the best.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_04: I know.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: I had an operations manager that she was just so wonderful in the way that she like was always kind of reading what was going on.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: And we were driving to a shoot one time, and I was just like, like just looking off, you know, and she's like, What are you doing?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like basically, just like just always curious, right?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Oh, I guess I just kind of daydream when I drive.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then, like, so every time we would drive from them up, she's like, What are you daydreaming about?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like and like, and it's just like always those chickens are so sweet, right?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And the people around you that love you, that like want to see you experience joy and creativity and and all that is just really freaking cool.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then to have, yeah, oh, I love that.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: Did you daydream?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: But you still, I feel like you still probably daydream.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know you've been like really in the thick of like of growing something and creating something.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that that makes it a little bit harder because like, you know, you are like, you have to daydream to like to innovate and like grow, but but there's also a level of sometimes you just need to like keep the course and keep the keep the truck moving as well.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, let's dig into that more.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how are you, how are you feeling in your own creative practices?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I love how you, you know, you see your your work as your art as well.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of tell me a little bit more about that pursuit.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you are a serial entrepreneur, it's always usually touching like the linguistic spaces.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about some of some of your like journey there.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, more than entrepreneur, I'm a wild crazy man.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_04: And nobody that knows me well fucking knows that.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_04: That like this guy is fucking crazy, and I take that as a compliment.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, as I said, I'm always young at heart.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_04: So does what does that mean?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_04: It really translates to I'm always creating shit.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_04: And um, and that has always been part of who I am because of that.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_04: I guess that's the perfect mix for an entrepreneur creating, right?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I again it's one of those things as being a father.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_04: I would also say that it is also not for everybody being a sister, and that's and that's okay.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_04: It depends on your personality and what you want to accomplish.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_04: Like, what do you bring to the world?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think it's for every everyone.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_04: And I like to inject that uh sort of uh creativity, that that sort of like young soul, that freshness into my business because my business, this is how I see it.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_04: I see myself as a samurai.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_04: I love Japanese movies, by the way.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: So I see myself as a samurai, and I say, Okay, what's my code of ethics?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_04: You know, how does being a samurai look like for me?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I have a few codes that I follow, right?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_04: And you can only be a samurai also so far.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_04: Some of these rules may fall behind with time and with maturity.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_04: You would you will change if you look at yourself profoundly and do self-reflection, the things that you tend to think this is this this is this is it, it will change because you change.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_04: So that's how I see kind of like my day-to-day grind.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_04: I see it as like uh my samurai adventure, right?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_04: It's like how do I perfect my art?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: How do I perfect the art of others?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_04: How do I influence that?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_04: What purpose do I have besides making money?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_04: Because I love making money, and that's one of the most important things for me.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_04: However, that is not the only thing, right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_04: I would I would put that as part of my my code, right?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_04: When I wake up, it's like, okay, I need to make money because that is needed, and that is an energy that I want to pursue.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_04: However, there are other things that I can do in that journey, and uh they are important as well.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many directions I want to go here.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_04: First, yeah, yeah, go for it.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: I want to back up into the comment you said where being an entrepreneur is not for everybody.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: What that makes me think of is the opposite sentiment too, and it's working full-time jobs are not for everybody.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because I actually this is I want to know because I think more this question is coming from a selfish place.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: I find that I cannot help but be an entrepreneur.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: And what like so I guess there I don't know if there's even a question in here, but like, what do you do when like when you're looking at it and the new idea, you know, or maybe maybe you're not having any new ideas, or maybe you're just you maybe you're in the slog.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like what how how have you moved through those things instead of you know being like, oh, well, maybe I should follow what everyone else is doing, right?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: Or this question's everywhere, Felix.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: My apologies.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: But do you but you know what I'm saying?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like in the um because I think you and I over the years have both had discussions about, okay, and I'm just gonna look for a full-time job.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like I'm just we're just gonna like, we're just gonna find something to support ourselves, right?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: But then it's like you try, but it's just it doesn't click, it's not right.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you need to just like put stop with that and just focus on what you're doing in front of you in your own creative pursuit.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: So can you talk to me and the people about that?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I think I attract a lot of folks that are either solopreneurs or small, like they run small teams, because I'm I'm that person too, right?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so what would you say from your own experience when like as a serial entrepreneur, businesses that you know if you've sold, that haven't worked out, business partnerships that maybe have been great, haven't been so great, when when things are or aren't going well, what keeps you like, what gets you back to the track, right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that is a long way to get to the like what what gets you clicked back in?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's the question.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's the question.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and that is what I would consider the gold, which is the failure, and that is something that I don't think we talk about that much.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I need us to talk about it, yeah.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: The failure, and we live in a society, Caitlin, that we don't reward that.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_04: We tend to think that failure is wrong, we tend to think that mistakes are bad, and and we almost slap people on the hand when when there is something like that, right?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_04: So I before I continue on that journey, I like what you said about I can't think about not being an entrepreneur.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's I think that's what makes an entrepreneur is that it doesn't matter what you do, you always fall back to uh your own journey and carving your own destiny, really.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_04: Because I I had a translation company in like 2012, about 2012, 2013, a little a little after, more like 2014, 2015, and that was a failure for me in the sense that it didn't work out.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_04: I was not able to continue with that.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_04: But what happened is I tried full-time jobs for another 10 years after that failure, and then I went back to it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that if you know, you know kind of deal.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you can feel it, you can feel it in your heart.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_04: Now, we are also raised in a society here in the states that rewards you for a couple of things a stability, security, and comfort.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_04: So when you have a full-time job, you you think about those three things really.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_04: You have a stability, security, and comfort.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_04: And it's hard to give that up.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, huh?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: But then I would say, you know, being almost a little over nine years, almost 10 years into working for myself, like the freedom of that oh hell yeah.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know what I'm saying?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's like it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: So stability, security, wonderful.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: I would argue, being, you know, nine years in here, that it is a false sense of security, stability, because at any point somebody can be like, nah, you don't work here anymore.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: Bye.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's rough, right?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that security, stability exists that you feel, and then, but then there's the freedom.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And again, not for everybody.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: And there's ways to build freedom or stability on either in either situation.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if you like, I'm I'm trying to get myself set up next year where it's like, okay, I have large projects all the time, right?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's great.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: That keeps the cash flow moving.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: But if I could have just more recurring, that would like that would feel really good, right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: So like we don't have those months where like hashtag nothing comes in versus like, you know, and then the next month like lots comes in.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, and so, but that so that's creating stability in in a a space of freedom.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then also people can build up their businesses to the point where then they like they feel like they're in a gilded cage.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like you gotta build it for yourself, but there's different ways to do it, and like what feels good to you, and it goes back to what you said.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's like entrepreneurship is not for everyone, having a full-time job is not for everyone.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: And what you just gotta do, like as a you, as a you individual human, figure out what is best for you.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I love it, and I love it.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that was my little soapbox, and now we're going back to your life and all the things.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's uh it's a tricky one, right?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_04: But I I love comics, and there is a part in Spider-Man's uh story that the uncle says with great power comes great responsibility, and back to your point of freedom is I fucking love freedom, to be honest with you.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_04: And I know it's gonna sound clichy, but that's one of the reasons why I love this country so much, is that uh usually, for the most part, we empower people who pursue that.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_04: It's like fucking rock and roll, you do your thing.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_04: So back to the point is uh freedom comes with responsibility.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_04: And what's responsibility?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_04: I go back to the metaphor of the samurai.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_04: I have all this fucking time, I can do whatever the hell I want, right?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_04: I want to snap my my fingers, I can do whatever I want, and that is that is a challenge because again, it's not for everybody, right?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you need to be very strategic with your time, you need to be very well prepared with every day, you need to balance your day, right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_04: With your when you are an entrepreneur and you know this, is you are doing admin, you are doing sales, you are creating, you are project manager, you are accounting, you fuck is so much to joggle that if you're not well well organized and if you're not making the best out of the day with your freedom, then you are setting yourself up for uh for failure.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_04: That's really it.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, it's so real.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: That was and that was something so much we love it.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: So much fun.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, do it, it's great.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I um I that was the thing when I first had um my first full-time employee, like she was always reflecting to me.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, Oh my gosh, you have to think about so many things.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: And like at this point, I had been seven years on my own, right?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, oh my god, I do have to think about so many things, but you didn't know it.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then it's like when you when you first take it on, you're like, I can do this, sure, you know?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: And and so it's like it's you don't know what you don't know, but then once you don't know what you don't know, you start learning all the things, it's step by step.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's just so great.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's so great.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but guess what happens?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_04: What I love these things, what what happens like a TV commercial?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_04: But guess what happens?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's like Dora the Explorer, she's like, What's under the bridge?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, tell me, Felix.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_04: But when we are obsessed with what we do, and I include myself in that, you hit almost a spiritual thing, it's a spiritual journey back to the metaphor of the samurai.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_04: Then you become relentless with what you're doing, and in that journey, all of the shit that we were talking about about you need to do this, you need to do that every day, you need to be with it, doesn't matter because what you're doing is so awesome, and you feel so accomplished, and you're really activating that force of nature that lives within you, and that's where that's where the flow for me, that's where the flow is.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_04: If I can't stop thinking about my business, which it can also be a problem, then I'm on some sort of a right path here, and that's what happens to me.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_04: I can be talking with Chat GPT about ideas at 10 p.m.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_04: and at 6 a.m.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_04: at 3 a.m.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_04: at 12 p.m.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't matter because I am so relentless and obsessed with what I do.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it that is a special kind of experience.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_04: It is, it is it is at a spiritual level because you're connected with your own soul purpose.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_04: You understand what I'm saying?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: My from my own experience, I would and like it just it's almost hard to say this because some of the lows can be low, but I would I would take those lows along with these, like you're right, like they're there, it's weird how it it can be very because you can prepare all you want for certain business things, right?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're on the wrong track and it's not going that you gotta like tune in to like, okay, what's like my heart and my gut saying about this?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because you can you can put it, you can try in business in your mind, but that's not that's not gonna get what really hits that obsession, that passion like you're talking about.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you you are wonderful about just existing in a like heart, mind, body, soul kind of way.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: So can you speak to to that and and what how you live your life, kind of making sure that all parts of you are are included?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, I always tell people that uh is we're in and it's uh it may sound a little too hippie or or frou-fru, but we live always in interdimensions, right?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_04: We're here, we're physical, but there's so many other things happening at the same time.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_04: And by that I mean this is science.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_04: Quantum physics tells us that everything is being affected by energy, really.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_04: So it goes back to the molecules and the cells.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_04: So if it if everything is energy, then what you're watching on Netflix is energy that you're putting inside.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um, what kind of music uh are you listening to?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_04: Because that is energy that you're putting within your own body.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_04: Do you have a faith?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_04: Do you don't practice any faith?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_04: Uh that is energy, like there are all these things that are affecting you every single day that are that are energy, right?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_04: A lot of one of my mentors told me, Well, I was very young, and I used to be like, Well, fuck money, I don't need money, and and I'm gonna live my life, and da da da.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_04: And he used to tell me, Well, that's the energy right there.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, if you're talking like that about money, then money is not gonna get close to you because you're talking shit about it.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_04: So that is really something that rules my life constantly.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_04: Is what energy am I bringing in into my body, my mind, my soul, and what energy I'm putting out?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_04: What am I pouring on others, right?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_04: When I'm talking, what kind of words I'm saying?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_04: Am I helping somebody or am I on the way of somebody?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_04: So I always I always like to when I go on my sales meetings, which I do almost every day, I always tell them, so it doesn't really matter if we end up selling something to each other.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_04: What matters is that you you really take something uh out of this.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_04: It could be I can help you with somebody else selling whatever you want, or it could be that I add something to your life.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_04: While I'm doing my sales meeting, quote unquote, you're having an experience with me.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_04: You're sitting down and we're both present.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I want.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_04: I want us to be present.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's very different than a sales meeting or something that is just well, I'm reaching out because I, you know, I'm gonna sell you something.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, no, I want you to have an experience.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_04: I'm bringing my story.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_04: There are a lot of people that as soon as they see it, they want to go straight to business.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, I always like to take a few minutes to know you.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_04: Like, who are you?
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_04: What do you like to do?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_04: Where were you born and raised?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, just things like that.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_04: There, at least give me 10 minutes of that because um we all have stories, and it's just fascinating how all the stories intertwine, really.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_04: We're more than seven billion people.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_04: That's so fucking dope, you know.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_04: I always think about that as like seven billion people, seven billion stories, and they all intertwine.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_04: That's fucking mind-blowing.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: And each one of us has an infinite number of stories within us, too.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like, you know, you've got your seven, eight billion humans, and then we all have these stories, and we have interactions with each other.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I do, I truly believe that we all can connect through something.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like we've all got a story that can connect us.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think like the more we search for those connections, the more like I just think things get better for everybody, right?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think that's the the best it it can be.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: And because I, you know, in some of my days where I've tried to do, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna focus on sales, you know.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: We like I'll get you try and get into it too.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, it's just it's all off, right?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: Versus like being like, but you know, the like the actual connection, the actual connection to be like, okay, maybe we only have like 30 minutes or an hour together.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how can we connect and see if we can help each other?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: If not, then it was just a lovely 30 minutes to an hour where we like got to know another human, right?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we connected over something, and maybe we gave like a cooking tip, or like, you know, it's like whatever, you know, or or gave someone a laugh that day, right?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and then from there, like a good laugh.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: A good laugh.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: That'll take that'll give you years on your life, just a little giggle, you know.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and I don't know, and I think you've done that for a while though, right?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because you it's about the eye contact and the human time in the first place, anyways.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_04: Which by the way, laughing is a great icebreaker.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, right.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I can tell so many stories about that that I've been I I've been in situations where I made somebody laugh and that completely changed the destiny that I was supposed to experience, right?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_04: Before we move forward with that conversation, I wanted to tell you that the fascinating thing about intertwining the stories and that 7 billion plus people that live in the world is that Caitlin, we are all human.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_04: We all have mothers and fathers, we all have blood running through our veins.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_04: So you can be born and raised in downtown El Cairo in Egypt, and you have a mom and a dad, you have siblings, you you you feel you're an emotional being, and there I am in Juarez feeling very similarly, and there is somebody else in Indiana feeling similarly.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_04: So, so these emotions make us very human, and we all have pretty much the same relationships, right?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_04: Mom, dad, siblings, we get married, etc.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_04: etc.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_04: So these are all things that we all go through every single day, regardless where you live, what kind of environment, weather, job, language, culture, whatever.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we are all humans, you know.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_04: And I think I think that's a topic of conversation that we don't talk enough.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_04: We're so brainwashed with are you Republican, are you Democrat?
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_04: Are you an immigrant?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_04: Are you not an immigrant?
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_04: Are you white?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_04: Are you black?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_04: Are you brown?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_04: Are you short?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_04: Are you tall?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_04: And it's like, well, where is the conversation about being human?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_04: We tend to forget that.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_04: And I love that this is not for us to go that way, but if we go, that's fine.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_04: I love that that's the component that AI has brought to me.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_04: AI has empowered me because AI is, hey, I'm really good at the technical shit.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_04: Whatever you tell me in a matter of technicality, formality, you know, system, software, whatever, I got you, bro.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_04: That's what AI is doing.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um they're perfecting the system that humans created, and and then our humanity is what makes us so unique, and that's kind of like where I am sailing.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sailing towards that island within my own businesses.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna utilize AI, but I also will be empowering my humanity with my services.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_04: Just boom, shakalaka, drop the mic.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, he's done.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's over.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean that's done.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's over.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's where I'm at too.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: With I mean, there's a lot of layers, right?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: But when it comes down to my own personal execution, I'm like, I'm me, I'm my flavor.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: And if you like this flavor, we're gonna utilize tools to be efficient as as fuck, because we drop F-bombs here too, sometimes, you know.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like we're going to, we're gonna make it efficient, we're gonna make it wonderful.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: We're also going to enhance your flavor, you know?
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like we're gonna share your flavor with the world.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's so hard because people are so afraid of their flavor being rejected.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it's so important to like just be you.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I like this is so this goes to, you know, and you've said a few times that, but I'm saying something cliche myself.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you be you.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like it, it's just so important.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: It is so important, and I just love it.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_04: You hit it, you hit the nail right on the head.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: Hey y'all, you know I love telling stories, gathering stories, and finding a way.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: To help people connect their story with the people that will get it.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what my story strategy sessions are all about.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: So over at Calhoun Creative Consulting, my strategic storytelling firm, we do one-on-one and or facilitated workshops in relation to really honing in the strategy around your story.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bit of messaging meets content creation, meets storytelling.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then how do we put that out in the world?
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: How do we show up regularly?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: There's a bit of mindset work around it, right?
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: To actually tell your story, whether you're launching something new or trying to rework your brand or just feeling a little foggy on how to communicate with your people, this is how to get clear.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: We'll dig into things like your narrative, how to uncover what matters most, maybe map out a few content pillars while we're at it.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: You'll also get a recording of our session so you can revisit the conversation anytime you like.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: Let's shape a story that actually feels like you.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: So book yours today.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: There is a link in the show notes.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: And hey, while you're at it, use the code podcast, all caps, P-O-D-C-A-S-T for 25% off your session.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: I would be honored to spend time with you and suss out your story.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: Let's dive back into the episode, shall we?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_04: One of the things I was thinking about, I was like, we're gonna have this beautiful conversation, uh, Caitlin and I, and I want to make sure that this is something that we put in the ether, right?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_04: For everybody to hear is that really business, what you do every day, it boils down to to you, what work internally are you doing?
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_04: And a lot of people don't talk about it about that enough.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you are bringing your uh self-work, your introspection into anywhere you are.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_04: I had a gentleman uh last week that approached me and said, just because of how I saw you doing your cells in in this room, like you prospecting this fucking room.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_04: I and I never thought about this.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_04: He said, I would be interested in you teaching me how to do cells like that.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, What?
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, and and this guy was fixated with the way that my body language was, the way I was talking to people, addressing people, because he shared with me.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_04: He said, I'm I'm pretty curious about all these things, and and these are things, Caitlin, that I didn't learn from a book or the internet.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_04: These are things that came to mind because of my introspection, right?
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_04: About myself out, right?
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_04: Kind of like, so what what am I doing with my hands and putting in my face?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and and and I'm am I allowing people to talk?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_04: Am I talking over them?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I am I taking into consideration their own likes and their passions, or is it only about me?
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I think these are all things that go a thousand miles per hour in your head.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_04: And that's why back to the metaphor of the samurai.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_04: Do you have time to sit down, meditate, and think about these fucking things that make you better?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_04: Because we need to.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_04: That's how you end up building a podcast like you.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, right.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I'm yeah, because I thought about this podcast for years, right?
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: Years, years, years.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: And just until one day, again, I was like, you know, on a nature walk, and it was like, now's the time.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you you have these ideas, they're gifts, you know, that come to you, these ideas, and you're like, cool, we're gonna do that, we're gonna do that.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, what's the timing?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: And like the universe will tell you when it's time.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like they'll let you know.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, just write it down, don't forget it.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: And if if it's meant to be it all, it'll all just click together just perfectly.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because I knew, you know, you were definitely like on my list as soon as I started the podcast.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, when it's time, you'll hit up Felix.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a good thing.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: So then to go back to what you were saying, right?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: The it's not just meditating and sitting in, okay, what do I need to do to make sure I'm just really connecting with people?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: What do I do with my hands?
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: What am I doing with my voice?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: What am I doing with my body language?
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: What am I saying?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: Am I giving them space to talk?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: Am I listening?
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: All that it's not just like meditating on that.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually practicing it too, right?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually going into the rooms.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that's part of that's also a spiritual practice of like, of because you're gonna have like, you might meditate on it for a long time and be like, cool, I want to start implementing this.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then you implement it and it's chunky and it's awkward, and like, and then you're like, cool, we'll we'll try again.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: And again, to go back to like the beauty of seven billion plus humans on the world is like you got a lot of people you can practice on, and especially you like being so great about like at least having some conversational phrases wherever you go, whatever language you're gonna be experiencing when you travel and this, that, and the other.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: And and I love that.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: But but yeah, so to kind of wrap up the thought here, the samurai practice of like you're like, I'm meditating and I'm working on this, and I'm also like implementing it.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna fuck up, but I'm gonna keep on chipping, I'm gonna keep on trying, and I'm gonna get better and better to the point where someone now approaches me and is like, oh, I love how you do that.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, cool, it took a lot of work.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's work, yeah, shall we?
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think losing the fear really is where it's had, is that you will fuck up, you will have mistakes, and somebody's gonna call you out, but that's the way you grow, and that's the way you perfect your art.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_04: And to really leave that behind and sort of like brainwash yourself, it has really good results because then you're fully doing what you want to do, and you're fully feeling yourself without that awkwardness, like you said.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh which don't get me wrong, there will be moments where you will have this awkward moment.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_04: Still, life is not perfect, you're not perfect, it doesn't matter how fucking hard you work with in your own self.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_04: I still have every week very uncomfortable situations where the person is taking it one way or the other or whatever, and then you that's why you practice and you're strategic about it.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_04: Is that okay?
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_04: So when that happens, what if somebody's taking my words as uh whatever it is, then you know you can also step back a little bit, right?
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_04: And to not turn it so much about what am I feeling and this is wrong or whatever, to more like okay, well, maybe it's not about me.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe this sales meeting is about something else, maybe it's about me learning something instead of teaching.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, there are all these things that you should be able to see in that present moment and and to be to be aware of it.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_04: Because obviously, not all meetings and not all sales meetings specifically are gonna be working out in your favor, really.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_04: Some of these, some of these meetings are experiences for you to learn something else, you know.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe that guy or that lady is a jackass, and you're gonna learn something from that too.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: No, I a few experiences come to mind when you uh when you talk about that, and not necessarily, you know, calling anyone out as a jackass, but just in particular, like you want to call them jackass, yeah.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just more just like not, you know, I'm just thinking about a few times where I'm like, you know, the meeting was air quotes going south, you know, and and that's all relative, right?
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because I did end up taking away lessons, right?
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: If it was going a direction that I didn't expect, and I'm like, okay, in that moment, like the one particular time, the experience of the self-awareness was magic because it's like, okay, this is we're not landing this deal.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's nothing's happening here.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: So let's let's use this as an investigative opportunity.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I started asking questions I never would ask.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: Things like, why are we having another meeting then?
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like if this isn't going forward, you know, like what why did you want to reach out to us?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, why did why are we having this third meeting?
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_02: If this number doesn't work and you know, these deliverables don't work, why are why are we doing this again?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was, but it was cool to like just take it as like an opportunity for some curiosity.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: When in the past, I think I would have been like, oh my gosh, if you were to ask that you could yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like it's like, no, no, no.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, like, like, um, just like just shut up and take it, you know.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like, no, like what if we just like have a conversation?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this doesn't seem to be a mutual decision here.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: So let's create some investigation and take some data points away from it, right?
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_04: Curiosity.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_04: That's a good one.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_04: I think out of curiosity you'll find a lot of really cool shit, to be honest with you, when you start becoming curious.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's where it's like Steve Jobs used to say, right?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_04: Like, stay hungry.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_04: Like, that is something that I want to tattoo in my soul.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, I want to fucking stay hungry.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_04: I don't want ever to say this service or this thing I'm doing, it's perfected to its most pure form and I'm good.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_04: Like I made it.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_04: I never, Caitlin, never want to say I made it because that would look so different for me every single week.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_04: And even in my business, I I see or hear of opportunities that I was like, I never thought about that.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_04: That could work too.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_04: And it's fascinating to see that, and that's out of curiosity, really.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_04: Nowadays, with the technology we have and the opportunities that the softwares and hardwares are are really providing us, like fucking blow this shit up.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_04: That's how I feel every day.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_04: Blow this popsicle stand, you know.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_04: I really don't have time for for low energy, just like uh I'm bored, all these like phrases that you hear sometimes, and it's like, oh hell no, I'm pumped every single day.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_04: And then there's some days that maybe I am not, and that's okay too.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_04: That's part of the journey of being pumped most of the days, you know.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think, and I think that ties nicely back to what you were speaking of with the kind of you're pursuing it like it's a samurai code for yourself.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you hinted at or spoke to that that code does need to change and shift over time, right?
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like here's my rules, my four rules I live by, and I'm gonna do that for the next the rest of my days, so you know, the next few decades, many, many decades for feelings in the future.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um along those lines, it's like that that curiosity, that staying hungry, that knowing that things change and shift.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like, can you talk to the entrepreneurs out there about what change looks like and and how how did you get to this point, right?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because like it is so cool as your friend to see like things clicking, you know?
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I know behind the scenes, like that doesn't mean there's a shit that you're handling, you know, growth is also like a pain place too.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um I don't want to be like that on show, you know, you're gonna be able to do it.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: I know what would you say to entrepreneurs as it comes to like change and experimentation and playing and like basically I I see you like experiencing what you've always been dreaming of, and also that has its own like nervous system shakeup that's like whew, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_02: Speak to all those things.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_04: You you said the the phrase nervous system is something that I feel it helps me in my relationship with my girlfriend.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_04: We talk about it almost every day, and that makes us feel good.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_04: The other day she said, Oh my god, we're getting so tired of this term.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, Yeah, I know, but it's working, it helps us figure it out.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I can answer your question with my own personal journey.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_04: As I said, uh 10 years ago, I built my own translation company, and it was a translation company before AI, right?
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_04: So translations were still mostly made by a human utilizing a specific software, and um something that I guess clicked within myself is that I started asking myself, okay, so this didn't work.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, all right, and now in 2025, what can I do that that will become helpful for me?
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I started thinking, okay, well, AI is doing most of the translation now.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_04: We don't really have a need for specific translations or unless they're very complex, and and I still get requests for translations, and we would use AI, and then it will be reviewed by a human because that's part of my of my new business, and and I I'll get there when I get there.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_04: And um, so I started thinking, okay, so where was I?
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_04: Where was uh the market at, and then where am I now?
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_04: And what is the market looking like now?
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_04: So I want to say that uh listening and observing is one of the most vital, or I would say they are some of the most vital components for an entrepreneur, right?
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_04: Is you need to observe and listen to your market.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_04: So, what are you doing in that category or in that industry that sets you apart?
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_04: How are you implementing the new technology to serve your clients?
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_04: And and I compare now my business to my translation business, and you'll see that what you're talking about, that growth and that adaptation, that that change.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_04: Because right now I have El Capitan Digital Marketing, right?
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_04: And Capitan Digital Marketing is about conveying a message, is about communicating with Latinos.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_04: So my my slogan, my motto is we unlock the Latino market, is you have a product or a service, and we will make sure Latinos know about it, right?
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_04: That's super easy.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_04: It's like that that's it.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_04: And uh how well translations are part of it, but I learned that that is not all that is needed, right?
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_04: So translations are now one out of the seven pillars that are building my Latino growth engine, which that's the name of my main my main product, really, as a as an entrepreneur, is the Latino growth engine.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_04: And the Latino growth engine has seven pillars, and that that experience or that experiment with a translation company that became now one pillar.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_04: So now it's one seventh of what I can offer clients, and it used to be a hundred percent, so that's crazy, right?
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_04: But is that again self-reflection and observing where the industry is and where the market is?
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_04: And I did that, I said, so what are truly my clients looking for?
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_04: They're not really trying to translate, it's 2025.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_04: They want to understand Latinos, they want to know what are Latinos buying, what are Latinos liking, uh, what kind of food that they eat when they're not eating Latin food, wherever they're coming from, what kind of language they want to be talked to.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_04: I'll share with you and your audience a little secret sauce about Latinos in the US.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_04: So a few really cool numbers when it comes to data is we have approximately 69 million Latinos in the US living here.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_04: And from those 69 million, you have about 60-ish percent of them that don't like talking in English or in Spanish.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_04: They like Spanglish, and Spanglish is a combination of both.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_04: That's the secret sauce for the majority of Latinos in the US, and I will include myself in that population.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_04: So Spanglish is something that your first generation kids will love using, say my daughter Veria, right?
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_04: Her father is Mexican, her mom is from the US.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_04: She knows the Spanish pretty good, but she will always prefer English because English is her first language, even though mom and dad talk heavily every single day in Spanish.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_04: But Veria will like utilizing Spanish for something funny.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_04: Veria would like utilizing Spanish for very specific terminology that is it hits home, it hits the heart, family-related issues, emotional things, but you will always go back to English.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_04: So you use you observe a very um successful campaign in, I don't know, like say McDonald's.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_04: They do a really good job at uh marketing when it comes to commercials on YouTube and TV, whatever.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_04: They play this idea very well.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_04: They know how to talk to the heart, not only using Spanglish, but also Spanglish as like emotionally as well.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_04: They understand both worlds, so that's kind of the secret sauce for for uh El Capitan de Giro Marketing is that it's no longer anymore about translations, it's understanding people where they are in a cultural way, in an emotionally, emotionally way, and to where are they and who are they, right?
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_04: In Indianapolis, you have a very high population of Venezuelans, and they're most of them in Fishers, and most people don't know that fishers, fishers and Nobblesville.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_04: And the other day I go to Nobblesville for I went to Tractor Supply for something, and there were about three or four uh street vendors, kind of like um uh food trucks outside of the tractor supply, and I see all these brown people like me, and I start looking at the food, like the menus and the names of the restaurant.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, I don't know shit about this, where these guys are from, and I started looking and paying attention, they speak to me in Spanish, and I'm like, that's not an accent that I recognize, and then I realized everybody here is Venezuelan, for example.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_04: So when I'm pitching the idea of like, hey, you want to sell to Latinos in Indianapolis, then that becomes a superpower.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_04: It's like I know that Noble's Bill and Fishers are highly populated by Venezuelans.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_04: These are things that we don't even think about in a daily basis, right?
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_04: It goes down to the details like that, and I think that's what we do very well, you know, in El Capitan Digital Marketing.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_04: We do that very well.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_04: We do heavy research, we can bring heavy data and uh understand people very well, not only from the data perspective and numbers that we can bring from from you know, AI or whatever, but we also emotionally understand that very well.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_04: How people feel about specific services or products.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's where really our magic is as a company, it's that understandment of the other human being.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_04: Again, back to the human component, right?
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I also I mean, it then goes back to you as the founder and your own experiences of like immersing and trying to make your way in a whole different culture and and experience.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, so to you know, your emotions that you experience, you you talked about this, like it, you know, it's like a relationship.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_02: You have the honeymoon phase, you you have the like I hate you phase, you have the okay, we're committed to this phase, you know, and and I see like that, those are a lot of emotions.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: Your own story involved emotion, and that I love that you are infusing that so deeply in the work that you're doing now.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's art, like you said, like it in life is art, and and so art needs that emotion.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's really cool, Felix.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_04: That's really cool.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_04: I I'm gonna do business with you because of how you make me feel, not because if it makes sense.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_04: There I'm painting with a white brush here.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_04: There are some people that will stop and be like, Well, it doesn't make sense, and the numbers are right and whatever.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_04: But most people will do business with you because of how you make them feel, and that's it.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_04: We're humans, our emotions go first before we even think about it, right?
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_04: When you talk about the nervous system, somebody said something and you immediately go like you know, kind of like, what the hell is that?
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_04: And then you start feeling all like it's because the emotion hit first, then you rationalize it.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_04: So, how do you make others feel?
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_04: That is a key component to whatever business you wanna do or services you want to sell or whatever, right?
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_04: You know, back to what I was telling you about.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_04: You're sitting down with me on the table, even if even if it's a sales call, you're gonna have an experience.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you know, if I'm interviewing you for a podcast, what an experience.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_04: And the beauty is that I'm ex I'm I'm expecting an experience as well.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_04: Because again, it's not only about me, right?
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I feel like that's a really good point with with our relationship, you and I, Caitlin, is like we create the experience for each other, it's a two-way highway, right?
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_04: So that's that's the beauty of relationships, put it put it in in in that way.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's uh it's quite profound.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_04: I feel that most success in businesses are not coming from the technical or the whatever part of the brain, it's coming from that self-reflection and from that uh intentionality of who you are as a person, I feel.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_04: Because there's a lot of people I I've known a lot of people that are great salesmen or very successful business owners, but if they don't have that, I don't know how to call it, right?
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_04: That that juice, then they can only go so far because they're not creating an experience, they're just making money, right?
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm sorry for like all the insurance people out there, but that's a great example, right?
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_04: It's like selling insurance, it's like, well, I mean, if you're technical about it, yeah, everybody needs insurance, and if you're good at sales, you know, you're you're gonna kill it, you're gonna sell insurance, cool.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_04: But that would be a really good challenge, right?
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_04: For any sales, uh for any insurance uh reps out there, is like, how do you make that not about insurance?
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_04: How do you make that about the experience, right?
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's kind of like my take on business.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's I think it's excellent.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's excellent.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for sharing.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh goodness.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, okay.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now, where can people connect with you if they're interested in following you or or they want to hear more about your new endeavor or your endeavor?
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_04: Sure, sure.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_04: It's very easy.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_04: Uh we have a beautiful website.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_04: I like to think it's beautiful, and it's uh the website is lcapdm.com.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_04: That is E as an elephant, l as in Lyme, C as in cat, A as an apple, P as in Peter.com.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_04: So lcap.com.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_04: And they can uh reach out via our contact us form that we have at the bottom of the of the landing page.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you one for being my friend.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I it's a flippin' a flippin' dream.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that the fact that we've been friends for so long is even dreamier.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and I'm really appreciative of your time today and excited to share like this portion of your story with the people, and then we'll just, you know, there's more.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you and I could just go, go, go, go, go.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm so I'm so grateful for your time today.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_04: I I love that you invited me.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_04: I'm very grateful.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_04: And um, yeah, keep doing what you're doing.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_04: This is amazing.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_02: Doing our best, doing our best.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_02: Crafted Connections is lovingly produced by Calhoun Creative Consulting, a strategic storytelling firm dedicated to helping people and brands tell their stories in a way that resonates.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_02: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and connect with us on Instagram at Crafted Connections Bot.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_02: Keep creating, keep connecting, until we meet again.