Episode 53
Follow The Host
Rewind: A Global C-Suite Consulting Mindset
Ever wished you could harness the power of imperfect action to skyrocket your entrepreneurial journey? Get ready to be enlightened as we engage with Angel Ribo, a globe-trotting citizen devoted to helping disadvantaged children in Latin America become entrepreneurs. Angel brings a refreshing perspective on the changing corporate values, emphasizing that a fulfilling job no longer solely revolves around a hefty salary and compensation package.
Journey with us as we traverse Angel's life, from his roots in Catalonia, Spain to his current abode in Texas, with a significant chapter in Latin America. Let's listen to the amusing trials he faced in satisfying his snack cravings in different corners of the world. Find out how Angel transitioned from a tech career to working with CEOs worldwide and how he uses his experiences to emphasize the vital role of education, relationship building, and resilience in the face of rejection.
In the final phase of our conversation, we shift our focus to Wisdom for Kids, a non-profit making waves by empowering children in impoverished communities through entrepreneurship. Here's your chance to join us as we delve into the challenges of creating value and establishing a direct sales channel in these communities. Discover the transformative power of meditation in the lives of these children and get a sneak peek into the energetic workshops that are changing their lives one day at a time. Tune in, and let's uncover how Angel's work is making a world of difference, one child at a time.
Topics of Discussion
Angel’s Resources
About The Show
Thoughts of a Random (Citizen Remote Podcast) is a podcast oriented around open ideas, entrepreneurship, travel, investing, politics, philosophy, and an odd take on history. Together with Toarc United & Citizen Remote we talk with thought leaders from all around the world to stir the innovative mind. This podcast specifically talks about the importance of having an international perspective, the ins and outs of the business world, the entrepreneurial life, the digital nomad life, investing and ways to enjoy life in the new age.
Businesses worldwide have very quickly oriented themselves around freelancing, digital nomads, remote workers, and diluting borders. If you'd like to find out how you can benefit on an individual or entrepreneurial level from that change, this podcast is for you & Citizen Remote can help.
If you’re a startup, needing to find useful tools, wanting to build custom software or generally struggling with the next steps you should be taking to optimize your companies bottom line Toarc United can help.
Like the show?? Please leave a Review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Apple Reviews
Episode 53
Follow The Host
Rewind: A Global C-Suite Consulting Mindset
Ever wished you could harness the power of imperfect action to skyrocket your entrepreneurial journey? Get ready to be enlightened as we engage with Angel Ribo, a globe-trotting citizen devoted to helping disadvantaged children in Latin America become entrepreneurs. Angel brings a refreshing perspective on the changing corporate values, emphasizing that a fulfilling job no longer solely revolves around a hefty salary and compensation package.
Journey with us as we traverse Angel's life, from his roots in Catalonia, Spain to his current abode in Texas, with a significant chapter in Latin America. Let's listen to the amusing trials he faced in satisfying his snack cravings in different corners of the world. Find out how Angel transitioned from a tech career to working with CEOs worldwide and how he uses his experiences to emphasize the vital role of education, relationship building, and resilience in the face of rejection.
In the final phase of our conversation, we shift our focus to Wisdom for Kids, a non-profit making waves by empowering children in impoverished communities through entrepreneurship. Here's your chance to join us as we delve into the challenges of creating value and establishing a direct sales channel in these communities. Discover the transformative power of meditation in the lives of these children and get a sneak peek into the energetic workshops that are changing their lives one day at a time. Tune in, and let's uncover how Angel's work is making a world of difference, one child at a time.
Topics of Discussion
Angel’s Resources
About The Show
Thoughts of a Random (Citizen Remote Podcast) is a podcast oriented around open ideas, entrepreneurship, travel, investing, politics, philosophy, and an odd take on history. Together with Toarc United & Citizen Remote we talk with thought leaders from all around the world to stir the innovative mind. This podcast specifically talks about the importance of having an international perspective, the ins and outs of the business world, the entrepreneurial life, the digital nomad life, investing and ways to enjoy life in the new age.
Businesses worldwide have very quickly oriented themselves around freelancing, digital nomads, remote workers, and diluting borders. If you'd like to find out how you can benefit on an individual or entrepreneurial level from that change, this podcast is for you & Citizen Remote can help.
If you’re a startup, needing to find useful tools, wanting to build custom software or generally struggling with the next steps you should be taking to optimize your companies bottom line Toarc United can help.
Like the show?? Please leave a Review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Apple Reviews
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Thoughts of a Random Citizen. This is actually an episode that you might have already heard before if you've been a listener from the start. This is because we are currently in the process of repurposing all of our old podcast episodes and cleaning up the entire feed. These changes will allow listeners to enjoy the best episodes and highlight the most insightful content. Now, if you're newer to this podcast and wondering where to find, or why you can't find, Season 1 and 2, don't worry. They'll eventually be available on our website, torquianadacom. We do some fun, tear-I-say, innovative things with them, but stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:In the meantime, we plan to release rewines every other week to repurpose older podcast episodes. This will simply just allow listeners to revisit classic content from insightful and featured guests and enjoy it in a new light at a different time in their life, to hopefully provide a new perspective. But at the end of the day, it's our intention to bring the best possible content to you. So enjoy this repurposed rewind, but at the end of the day, sticks and stones people break your bones. The word shouldn't really hurt you.
Speaker 2:I'm the kind of person who really likes to get to the bottom of things, and I don't let my own belief system get in the way of fact, it's one of the most important financial centers in the world by the terms of freedom of speech, expression and civil liberties. It's a dictatorship.
Speaker 1:Hello all and welcome to another episode of Thoughts for Random Citizen. Today, I am joined by Angel Ribbo, a true global citizen who has worked with a variety of different businesses in many countries. However, he's recently shifted his efforts to aid underprivileged kids in Latin America become entrepreneurs utilizing their own resources with his foundation Wisdom for Kids. Angel has an amazing mindset and is very entertaining in this episode. His emphasis on long-term growth and helping develop communities for the future is inspiring, especially regarding his expertise of the global business environment. My favorite part of this discussion probably comes at the end so I hope you stick around for that and we discuss how and why kids are better at meditating than you and by you I mean anyone most likely listening to this who is not a kid, me included. Anyways, it's a really good episode and enjoy.
Speaker 1:Alright, I'm speaking with Angel Ribbo today. A huge thank you and welcome to the podcast, angel. We have, among many things, empowered over 1500 CEOs in 33 different countries while speaking five different languages, so if you know this podcast at all, you fit in pretty perfectly with what I'm trying to do and communicate. All in all, amazing accomplishments. I know you've moved from corporate life and we'll discuss that thoroughly, but before that, one of the things that you've said recently is CEOs need to be conscious now more than ever. What were you implying when you said this?
Speaker 2:Yes because, there's a lot of. First of all, thank you very much for having me here. It's a pleasure to be with you. It's a pleasure to be with your audience. Thank you everybody who's listening to us today.
Speaker 2:So I believe that this is being a change and I don't know. Probably you are aware there's a big what happens in the online world, as you know, for many years. It eventually becomes a hashtag. So I'm going to tell you about the hashtag that is, right now, in a very high trend pitch, let's say, at least in the US, and the hashtag is great resignation, Great resignation. So right now in the US, there's a lot of people and I'm sure that's happening in the world as well in the dark world as well, there's a large amount of people from the corporate world that are living in corporate America. So that's why this hashtag is so much trending.
Speaker 2:Why I'm saying this is because I have realized that in my conversations with C-level executives and CEOs starting in 2020, where all these worldwide chaos has started, I immediately realized that everybody obviously had to stay at home and had to work from home and work remotely, et cetera, and they started to actually value much more things that they have taken from granted. Everybody needed it. They wanted to make a living, they had to go to the office and they had to spend long hours, and maybe people like me, for instance, we will be traveling four weeks a month and we will be staying at those hotels and taking so many flights to so many countries, blah, blah, blah. So what I figured, what I found out excuse me was that after what started to happen in 2020, the executives started to become more conscious about what their values and principles are, and that's why I believe strongly that, in the future, the leaders of the main corporations in the world and the leaders in the business world are going to be conscious and conscious, meaning that they're going to be really leading their teams in a completely different way and they're going to put these values and principles of dealing with these people and taking really care of their teams much more than before.
Speaker 2:I totally. That's why I said if you have a great resignation, it's because people are valuing other things, not only a good salary and a good compensation package. They value other things. They value their families, they value their friends, they value being there for them, they value, maybe improving their house. They value working on a hobby. They value, working on something else, maybe working on their passion, something that they didn't have the value. So that's why I said what I said and thank you for bringing it up here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So, referring again to you working with so many businesses and CEOs in such a vast array and distance across the world, can you describe some of the things that many startup entrepreneurs or veteran entrepreneurs should focus on that you found success with implementing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think that the most important thing. I just it's funny how I just hang up. Before speaking with you today, I spoke with a fund manager, funb fund manager and the president of an incubator accelerator.
Speaker 2:Both ladies and we were talking exactly about very similar things, right? So what makes entrepreneurs successful? What's that piece of advice that you could give them, given your experience, angel? And it's funny because these two ladies I was talking to they were in Africa. So I am a member here in Texas, in Dallas, of the African Chamber of Commerce, the African Chamber of Commerce, and I have to tell you that the secrets, you know, the secret for success or of success for an entrepreneur, really do not change from continent to continent, from culture to culture. It's really and that's my favorite statement, I know we say the same thing the main reason why businesses maybe they never ramp up is because they don't take imperfect action immediately.
Speaker 2:They don't take imperfect action immediately and, as you said in the beginning, I've worked internationally in so many countries with so many companies and so many CEOs. I see that all the time, all the time, all the time is that the first thing that you should do and that's obviously maybe five cents of advice is that I always advise every single entrepreneur or startup CEO to make sure that they talk to their prospective clientele before they even have a product or a service before they even have it, just to make sure that they know that what the market is going to say. There's many, many years ago in the northeast of the US, where the top business schools, ip schools, business schools in the world are right, and they came up with a term called lean startup, lean startup, and they started to talk about this concept of, before anything else, make sure that you start talking to your potential future clientele, future customers, and you tell them hey, I would like to do this, I would like to do this business, I would like to sell those products and services. Would you buy them from me? And the reality is that Q the reality is that nobody does it, only a handful of people do it. And hey, we can be here for 30 minutes talking about this concept and people are still not going to do it. Why? Because they feel fearful. Right, they feel fearful. You're sitting in Spain, they sit in Texas. You happen to know Texas, I happen to know where you are in Spain.
Speaker 2:And if I wanted to start selling a particular product to you, let's say maybe. Let's say the restaurants in Spain were open at this point in time, freely, which is not the case, but let's say that that's the case, right? So the first thing I would do is I would go restaurant by restaurant, or maybe even to, maybe to hotels, to offer them catering services, whatever that product was that they wanted to send to them. I would start talking with them and I would say, hey, now, with this chaos that's happening in the world, how would you find my products or my services, my catering services, or my food products or beverage products more valuable than before? What should those products and services be different in order for me to serve you? Now? That makes sense, right? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Makes sense, but the reality people don't do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:People don't do it.
Speaker 1:They make their product and then try to pick up the slack afterward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Take your car, take your bicycle Right. I mean, in Texas we don't have many bikes, but we love driving as you know, and big trucks, as you know too.
Speaker 2:That's what I was going to say Take, exactly Take your truck and make it a goal Before starting my company. The next week, I'm going to have five conversations every day with a specific you know that are members of my target audience and I'm going to ask them what do they believe, what do they think about my future product or service? It's so simple, it's so simple, you know it's so simple. That's why I say that the world is owned by the brave. Okay, the world is owned by the brave, the ones that really take in perfect action now, which is my favorite sentence, right, taking perfect action now. Do it now.
Speaker 1:It's so simple, excellent advice. One of the things I did notice you said is that entrepreneurship does carry over across borders, and then I was actually going to ask this question later, but I'm just going to ask it now because of that. Another quote I found that you said is, whether you're in business or philanthropy, learning about and understanding the community you want to serve is absolutely essential. There's no one-size-fits-all solution. Can you elaborate or kind of explain the scenario in which this has happened in your life before?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly. So I am a great example, right? So I was born in a probably lower class family in Spain, in the northeast of Spain, a region called Catalonia, and I was very shy, I believe it, or not, extremely shy. I was the kind of boy that when I would go with my mom and dad somewhere, I would be sitting on that chair and I wouldn't move from that chair until we left the place. You know what I mean. I was the kind of guy and I was born in the 60s, so that means that there was a dictatorship in Spain at that time right.
Speaker 2:And then I learned I was really, you know, lucky that the school where I was studying they would offer French, which wasn't heard of at that time. So I learned French and then my mother, my mom and dad, signed me up for an external school to learn English again, lucky again. So at the end of high school I was able to speak fluently English and French, and I had already spent the summer in the UK and I had already, you know, spent three weeks traveling in France, you know, because we organized a field trip to France, so I was in charge of organizing it. So this is just, I'm just trying to picture where I was born and what I was doing, right. So right now I live in Texas. The society is completely different, the values are completely different and before coming to Texas, I've lived in Texas for 11 years.
Speaker 2:I was living in Latin America and again, economically, socially, economically, demographically, everything is totally different. Every single time, in all those different environments that just mentioned, I have had to help companies grow their businesses. So every single time, although you think no, no, no, no, no, everybody needs the same thing and everybody you know uses this product the same way. Not a chance, hugh, not a chance. Even the same product, the same service can be useful in one territory, in one geography, for a specific target audience, or can be totally useless.
Speaker 2:That's why you always have to ask the questions, that's why you always have to do your homework, and that's. And you always have to adapt to the local people. And I always say it's the same thing with a nonprofit or with a for-profit organization, because the only difference is that with a nonprofit and as you know, you know, I am the president and co-founder of a nonprofit in Latin America you know we still have to know who the kids are, because what we do is we help the privileged kids in Latin America become entrepreneurs using the local resources. So before we go to a specific community, we first connect with the community leaders so that we really understand how this community is being run, what are the important values, you know, what's the economy based on that community, and then we eventually offer our services, which obviously for free which is helping those kids in that community to become entrepreneurs using those local resources.
Speaker 2:You see, using their local resources. That's the most important thing that makes us different at Wisdom for Kids Foundation using their local resources. It's very important. So, regardless of the profit factor of an organization, there's always something which is you have to really talk to the people locally to know how to work with them, how to sell to them or how to partner up with them to develop that particular organization.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're going to dive into what you do for your nonprofit in a moment. One of the things that I thought was funny, though, when you're saying that is just on some of my very early travels I noticed that scenario planes itself out and meaning selling to the specific demographic in which you're in, when I couldn't even find like a bag of chips, like my favorite bag of chips, doritos or whatever. I couldn't even find the flavors in the new places that I'd go, whether it be Bali or now here in Spain, and I was like where are my chips at? And it's because those chips, although extremely popular back home, don't even sell over here. So you know, it just really illustrates your point that global businesses sell to local communities because they are aware that just because a flavor is really popular in the US doesn't mean it'll even sell one bag in the UK or Australia or Indonesia or, you know, latin Europe.
Speaker 1:Just a funny example I thought I'd mention there. But really quick to ask why Texas? Because now I know you're based in Texas and you've been all around the world. Can you elaborate on why Texas?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so before living in Texas, I was living in Mexico and you know, the worldwide vice president for sales of that organization that was working with came to Mexico in one of his trips and he said, hey, we would love to be able to offer you better opportunities, but you have to move to the US. As a European, you now live in Europe and you have very close people to you which are European. Right, going to the US for a European it's not always like a good fit, necessarily right, for many reasons. And again, you know, I am a citizen of the world, so you know I consider myself a global citizen. So I was living in Mexico and they told me, hey, we would like to bring you and your family to the US if you were open to offer you better opportunities. And I said, okay, so what can I go? And the company had literally I don't know, 30 different or maybe more offices in the US and they told me you can choose whatever you want to go. You really can choose whatever you want to go. Okay.
Speaker 2:And then at that time, you know, I had, and I have today, three kids, and for me the school district was really important. We had, we had had a lot of challenges in Mexico with the schools and with the school system. We had gone both to private schools and to. We had taken our kids to private schools and to public schools and we had had lots of challenges. So I said I really want to make like a school district a priority wherever we go. And obviously, interestingly or coincidentally enough, one of the one of the people that I had been working extensively since I was in Mexico with that corporation, that she was a subcontractor, and she told me hey, why don't you go to this specific place in Texas it's north of Dallas because my sister lives there and her husband is part of the leadership team of the school district. Nice, yeah, exactly. So one of my scouting trips I came to Texas and I came to Dallas and I met with this couple, wonderful couple, my friend's sister and her husband. And you know I was totally sold, totally sold into the school district and I was 100% sure that that was going to help us a lot. It was going to help the education for my kids.
Speaker 2:My mom is a teacher. I have two or three. One of my sisters is a teacher, I have two, I think two or three nieces who are teachers as well. So you know I've lived in the education let's say surrounded by educators for my entire life and I really value the education. So actually, I will live in a suburb north of Dallas. It's called Plano. Plano and it's one of the top five school districts in Texas. Very wealthy area, very nice international community with literally students from all over the world, families from all over the world, and Texas is attracting more and more talent from all over the country. As you know, there's a lot of people from the northeast and from California fleeing those places and coming to Texas, as you know here. So this community is only getting better and better, and better and better, and I love this cosmopolitan atmosphere that is being created. I really like it. So that's why we ended up in Texas.
Speaker 1:Very nice stuff. Yeah, being from Kansas City, you guys aren't too far away, so I kind of like the culture down there too. So that's great stuff. I did want to kind of highlight your early career in tech. Can you elaborate for all of us how you went from that early career in tech, maybe a bit about what you did, but then how that transitioned into working with CEOs around the world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Well, number one. I chose to go and have or take a master's degree in computer engineering because I love computers. When I was in high school, I love computers. Actually, it was even earlier, it was in middle school. But guess what? Just picture this.
Speaker 2:It was my second semester, a computer engineering degree in Spain. It was 10 semesters. I was on my second semester and I said I hate computers. Yeah, I hate computers. I can't stand this anymore. I just can't. Why do I have to study calculus and numerical analysis and algebra and all those things? The only thing I want to do is I want to be able to help people using technology and make a difference in their lives and in their businesses. That's what I would like to do. But anyway, I thought I asked me how I eventually got the degree. I guess that there was a lot of effort and help from a lot of many different people. Obviously I had to give some sort of return of investment to my mom and dad that had paid so much for me.
Speaker 2:Then I was in the 90s. I was working because I didn't like computers at all. So my first jobs in Spain were not computer related at all, nothing related to computers. But in the 90s I said, well, I'm working for this very nice audiovisual company in Barcelona and the outskirts of Barcelona I was living in the outskirts of Barcelona as well. I speak French, I speak English, I would like to have an international experience. And there was this you know, there's a very famous newspaper in Madrid called El País and there was this announcement, this advert, you know, about a position classified at an inside sales position in London. And I applied to the job and they flew me from Barcelona to Madrid for the interview and I got the job.
Speaker 2:So in only two months I was already in London, in the UK, working for my first ever multinational, multi-billion dollar, you know, software company headquarters in the UK American company, but headquarters and my first role was to be an inside sales guy. So that means you know for the people that maybe don't know what an inside sales guy is, it's a telemarketer, upgraded in the name, right. So it means that they would be on the phone all the time, eight hours a day, on the phone, making phone calls, trying to basically prospect, find leads, find potential clients for my company in that specific territory. I started calling to Spain in Spanish, but then I suddenly was calling, you know, to Germany in English and it was calling to the Northern countries in English that's a true story, right, and to Portugal in my four Portuguese.
Speaker 2:So I got used to rejection. I got used to rejection. I got used like I was an inside sales guy. I could have business conversations because I had a degree in business administration, but so, and I was able to have very basic conversations about how technology would impact businesses and I realized that it was good in developing and creating and creating and developing relationships with the people at the other side of the line of the phone line and I started to create, you know, to generate a lot of leads for my sales field force. Okay, and that's how I became so used to you know rejection yeah.
Speaker 2:That then, for me, calling a CEO and go over, you know, go or pass through the bottlenecks, you know, the gatekeepers I became so natural and comfortable that that was definitely the origin and the reason why I would eventually become so familiar and so comfortable doing that that I developed a way to systematically reach out to CEOs, have conversations with them and show them how, with the technologies they were selling, I could improve their lives and their businesses.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, amazing, and, as I understand it, what kind of bridged the gap for you and your corporate life to what you do now in your nonprofit, which we're just moments away from talking about is you had a spiritual experience that led you to leave corporate America. Can you elaborate on what this experience was for us?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes. So obviously I was already living in the US.
Speaker 1:You were or you weren't.
Speaker 2:I was already living in the US.
Speaker 2:But I was still going to Latin America. So while I was working in Latin in corporate America so I left corporate America in 2016, I, all the time, was traveling to Latin America, so I always had some kind of role that involved Latin America. Okay, so when I moved here, I was always going back to Latin America at some point during a month or during a quarter, right? So when you work for a multinational company and you work and you are actually living in a third world country or region like Latin America, you are a very privileged person. You are able to rent cars, you are able to go to nice hotels, you're able to have nice meals with your CEO clients, you really live like in that 1% of life, right? 1%? Maybe the 0.01% even. You know what I mean. So every time I was going to see a customer, let's say I will go, maybe to the headquarters in a city, but if I went to see and that happened very often if I was going to see their manufacturing plants, very often those manufacturing plants were in the outskirts of the cities or in even rural areas. When I was going to those areas to see the manufacturing plants, all the time, every time, there were always kids around those plants that they were there just waiting to see if someone could give them some money or some food. Literally, that means that for so many years, I was going to Latin America and I was not only making a lot of money for the companies I was working with, but also I was seeing a lot of poverty. What were those kids asking? Hey, señor, señor, right, so, sir, sir, would you buy some gums for me? Would you allow me to keep your car safe while you are inside the plant doing whatever you're going to do? Can we wash your car while you are inside? All these kinds of things. So I was the super privileged, but at the same time, I was seeing all those kids living in poverty every single day, every single day. So the contrast is crazy. That gap is really difficult to break.
Speaker 2:So it was the last day of I think it was March in 2015,. And it was in Mexico City. It was Saturday morning and I had lost my flight to. I lost my flight back to Dallas from Mexico City. So I had to say I had to say okay. So you know, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right, and I remember I was so tired, like so tired I was just waking up in the morning the flight I had lost. I had missed the flight, excuse me, on Friday. I was waking up on Saturday morning and I was so remorseful because, again, I was late to home. I was late to be with my kids and my wife, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And I remember, as soon as I woke up and I went to the shower and I, you know, turned on the water immediately. As the water started to fall, something happened inside of me. It's like a lot of many different images like flashing literally in my mind. I got into the bathtub yeah, that's a true story. I got into the bathtub and that increased and I started crying like a baby, and don't ask me why.
Speaker 2:I had no reason to cry, but seeing all those flashes of images of all these poor kids I had seen for so many years while I was in Latin America, and I was literally under the shower, I don't know for how many minutes, for a long time, crying like a baby, like on my knees, crying and crying and crying for no reason, just having those flashes, all of everything I had done in Latin America for so many years, you know, eventually I calmed down a little bit, but all those flashes where I was trying to make like okay, so what does that mean? Why am I crying for no reason? You know why this strong Catalan man you know, is crying for no reason. Having these flashes, I never had that. I mean, I remember the hotel, I remember the floor, I remember that bathroom as it was today, thank you, I tell you.
Speaker 2:And then I started to like put all the pieces of the puzzle together and I said, okay, I think I'm very well prepared, very well prepared in my experience. My experience shows me that I am really, really in a very good position to help. Using my influence and my experience with all those C-level executives and CEOs in Latin America, I think I am able to understand what's going on with these kids that live in poverty. I think that I might be able to help them. And I remembered all that day. I had two or three meetings that day with friends because I told them hey, I lost my flight, would you like to meet for coffee or whatever? And I was so sensitive that I would start crying with anybody that would talk to me that day.
Speaker 2:Again, I cannot give you any other explanation and I was telling them. This just happened to me, I think, and I think I have to do something about it. So obviously I was thinking and thinking and thinking. Eventually, in the evening, I flew that Saturday back to Dallas and when I got to Dallas I was in the plane and I was thinking this is what I'm gonna do. I think that we have to create some sort of foundation. I have to be able to systematically help kids in need with all my influence, with all my knowledge, with all my experience with entrepreneurs, with CEOs, and I have to bridge that gap between the super influential people in Latin America and the ones that don't have anything.
Speaker 2:And I reach out to a friend of mine, my friend. His name is Salvador savior. It will be the translation in English Salvador. He lives in Mexico. He's a friend of mine, also a business partner, still today, and he still remembered that he was in bed when I called him, because it was very late at night when I got to Dallas. And he remembers it. He remembers it and he remembers that when you called me, you were just like, it seems like you were. I don't know. You know the Twilight Zone? Do you remember that series, the TV series. Yeah, do-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro, do-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro, do-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro. He told me are you okay, angel? Are you okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm okay. I would like to know this. Would you like to help me? And he said yes, and then so that was the beginning, and then we involved someone else. But that is spiritual experience. Actually, I have a video I can share with you and with the audience, if you want to Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I call it the epiphany video and actually I explained just exactly what happened that night, that day. Excuse me, Excellent.
Speaker 1:yeah, we'll post that in the show notes, along with some other things that we'll post here later for you in your content information. So that obviously launched in 2017. And it focuses again what you are harping on is using their own resources, and that's something that obviously you know, knowing how kind of the world operates and going to all these places. A lot of the times, people go in and teach people how to be entrepreneurs, you know, while plugging into another system, but you focus on their own resources. Can you elaborate on that for everyone and kind of the difficulties?
Speaker 2:We tend to think I mean, you know, you live in a first world country, I live in a first world country. We tend to think that the rest of the world is the same. The rest of the world is the same and it's not no not even kind of.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. If we really want to make a group of kids successful with entrepreneurial activities and ideas and concepts, you know, we necessarily have to take into consideration what they have around them, otherwise we will fail miserably. Let me give you an example. You would think anybody in Latin America has a cell phone. So any kid has a parent or a relative or a guardian that has a cell phone. Not true? Not true. In Latin America alone, there are 81, 81 million kids that live in poverty, that live in poverty. So unless we systematically help them figure out what local resources to use, unless we do that systematically, we will never be able to help them really get out of where they are today. So we said you know, obviously, if they don't have internet, how are they going to launch their business? So there's a lot of things that can be done and that's the thing.
Speaker 2:When you go to those communities, then you realize how value can be generated. So there's communities. For instance, we go to suburban communities, we go to rural communities, we go to indigenous communities. Every community has a different thing. They have different infrastructures, different demographics, social structures and levels. They have different ways or different yeah, different kinds of jobs that they have to sustain the communities. There's communities that have you know, have the strong presence of a large, maybe a large plant, a large company, and then they all, most of them, live out of that plant, the manufacturing plant or whatever that is. When you are able to understand how these dynamics work in a particular community, then you are able to think how to create value.
Speaker 2:For instance, let me just give you a few examples there's an indigenous community that we have been right and you would say well, they're the poorest. Absolutely 95% of people living in indigenous communities in Latin America live in poverty, 95%. And you would say, does nothing come with that? Why would you even bother the angels to go there? Well, because, guess what, when you go there, you realize that there's value, there's things that the kids can't do, because those communities, for instance, and that particular community I have in my mind right now, they have lots. I mean, you are on a particular road, a small road, and the locals started telling you hey, that tree is a mango tree, that tree is a cinnamon tree, that tree is a peppercorn tree, that tree is you name it, you name it. So you realize that the problem is not the local resources, that they lack of resources. The problem is that they don't know how to make those resources valuable for the people that need them. Right Going back to the beginning of our conversation here, how can we find our customers?
Speaker 2:How can we take those mangos and sell those mangos to our customers? And obviously it's an indigenous community, so most of the mangos, unfortunately, they fall off the trees and nobody eats them. But what if they did something? What if they? Maybe we taught them to preserve them in a particular way or to dry them out in a particular way, blah, blah, blah. You see, we tend to think and to have these ideas that where there's poverty, there's poverty. There's nothing to copy that. Not at all. And the more we go to that particular community, the more we uncover more potential resources of value for other communities. Maybe they can.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember one time we went to another indigenous community and suddenly, you know one of the mums of the kids that we were helping the first session, the first time ever, she came and said, hey, this is what my kid did at home and he showed us a few bracelets, beautiful bracelets, and you know, and there's a lot of people in the first, in first world countries that will love to have those bracelets and just to, just to help those communities, right, and, as you know, if we could avoid some intermediaries.
Speaker 2:Intermediaries are good. I'm not saying they're bad, because obviously they make, they help us close those gaps that you were talking about, right. But what if we could do some sort of direct communication, to build a communication as a channel, right, as a sales channel, directly from that community and take those bracelets directly to a place where they're being sold, and they're being sold to the right audience at the right pricing, immediately, you have created a business, you have created a prosperous business and you're supporting a community and the people that are buying those really perceive the value of those communities. And there's more. And you know, with everything that's happening in the world, with all the chaos that started in 2020, I tell you that people are becoming more conscious of what they have and what they don't have?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so are you finding? I know you said that you have a lot of contacts and people in Latin America. Where are you finding the help from? Is it Latin American entrepreneurs, governmental programs, people in the US Like where are you seeing the best way to expand forward with your program?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. That's a great question. It's basically it's really personal connections of the three co-founders that we find. You know, we find people that really want to contribute to our mission.
Speaker 2:As you can imagine, there was a few years ago there was a lot of controversy in the nonprofit organizations world here in the US about what they do with the money. Right, but that's why we are very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very strict about the information that we share of everything that we do with the kids, because we know that there's a lot of bad things being done in the world with kids. So since the very beginning, we have created this super strong, solid, you know shield that protects our kids but at the same time, that we help them become entrepreneurs using the local resources. So we have created this trust around us that makes the donors, you know, to trust in what we do. So we basically we found our activities through donations, we launch campaigns and through people that know us and they know that what we do is genuine, trustworthy and there's nothing there's no, you know hidden plans behind them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, I know as well. You primarily use a lot of volunteers. Do you see this as a viable long-term strategy or kind of how do you plan, or are you getting those volunteers to you know help on a grander scale?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's obviously a great question. That was a question that we asked ourselves since the very beginning. The issue that we have found in the last couple of years is obviously that we cannot go to those communities because they are in lockdown or because they are super protected from the exterior world, and that's the main issue we are finding right. So, and again, as I said before, many places that we go there's no internet, there's no cell coverage, you know, and we want to go to those communities because they have 95% of the people in those communities they are living in poverty. So we really want to make a difference in those communities as a priority for our organization, right for the wisdom, for kids. So we are still trying to figure out how to take technology to those places.
Speaker 2:Finding volunteers is not difficult. The difficulty is how do we keep on running all of our programs knowing that technology is not present? So typically we would go, our volunteers would keep on having this relationship with their kids and mentoring them and coaching them and, you know, go to government you know instances in order to create the companies, blah, blah, blah, you name it. All those things that need to be done before creating your own business, right, or while you create your own business, when there's a lot of restrictions and even our volunteers cannot get to the kids, how do you do it? That's the main issue.
Speaker 2:So we are really obviously, I mean I'm knocking on wood here. Obviously, we are expecting that eventually, all these areas will open up and we will be able to go back to those communities and resume all the activities that we were doing, because unfortunately, it's affected us a lot and, as you know, I mean I was just talking to someone in the indigenous community today, earlier today, and she was telling me, I mean, the only thing that we can do now is to protest against the authority so that they open our schools back. There's still places in the world here right now that the kids have not been in a classroom set up since March 2020.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh man. I mean, I have friends in Indonesia who've been struggling. I was just talking to a gentleman a few weeks ago, who's on the podcast as well, who has not charity orphanage in Africa same problems. And while we deal with mental issues from lockdowns although you and Texas haven't had too much and I've been pretty lucky myself these people are struggling with just basic food and necessities Beyond that not to drag that in a conversation which is obviously an important conversation that should probably be had One of the things that I know you do with your foundation is you help the kids, you teach them and help them practice meditation. Why the focus on meditation?
Speaker 2:Thank you, yes, because we, you know. Let me ask you I mean, the same way I told you that they have several teachers in my family. Do we think that as humanity? Do we think it's just a question to the audience? Okay To your audience. You don't have to answer the question, okay, so?
Speaker 1:I might, I might, I'll see yeah yeah, exactly you might.
Speaker 2:Do we think that as a society, as a human kind, as humanity, do we think that we're doing a good job? Do we? If we look at the level of technology we are adopting, on the level of health that the countries have, you know the level of, you know wealth and how the wealth is being shared among different. You know continents and citizens in different countries. Are we doing a good job from one to 10? How would you respond?
Speaker 2:I would say I would say I really want to answer right there, Okay so I would say a five right, because in Europe, a five is that you know you just passed. In the US, a five is that you failed miserably. Okay, so I'm going to leave it at the five. And that's why, when we were, when we were elaborating, when we were conceptualizing our webinars for the kids in Latin America, we thought we cannot do the same thing. We cannot do the same thing and we, literally we analyze what to do.
Speaker 2:I spoke to you about the second co-founder, the third co-founder. He was a professor at the university when we started with them for kids. He had two PhD students, two PhD students developing our workshops and the main idea was you guys are going to do the most innovative program that you've ever thought about. You can put anything you want in that program, but it has to really be the catalyst, it has to be like the trigger of that person that's going to be in that workshop and it will change his or her mind forever. Under those you know assumptions.
Speaker 2:You know these people started to think about this workshop, what we call it, let's say, the starting workshop. It's a two hour workshop and they started to develop or to think of strategies that would basically bring the kids to a level of energy in which everything that we would share with them would resonate and they would give it. That was the goal. Okay, after the workshop was developed, obviously we proved tested right. We went to communities and we tested it with different group ages and with different kids, and then we realized how powerful it was.
Speaker 1:So if you ever join us.
Speaker 2:Hugh, and I would love you to do it. Oh, absolutely, I'm sure that you would love to do it. Oh yeah, absolutely so. We start the workshop dancing, dancing and jumping up and down, and whoever is the instructor of that workshop, I love to do it myself. Obviously, when I go I have one of those wireless speakers at the maximum volume so that all the kids start jumping up and down with me or with the rest of the volunteers down there.
Speaker 2:So that's the beginning, so just picture this we go to a community, nobody knows us. We go into a specific room, right, and those kids don't know us, and suddenly they see a crazy guy. A crazy guy speaking in the same language with a different accent. As you know, what's in American Spanish is different from Spain Spanish, right, and I start jumping. Let's say it's me right. Let's start jumping up and down. What do you think the kids do?
Speaker 1:I'm assuming, I would assume that they start jumping with you. Oh, absolutely, I don't have to give them instructions.
Speaker 2:I don't have to give them any instruction. They start jumping up and down, because that's the essence of the human being. The kids are not gonna ask you for permission to jump up and down, you know they're just kids, yeah. Exactly so. That's the beginning. So the first five minutes of that workshop we already got them. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we dance, we exercise with them, we sing, we sing with them, we play games, we interact with them, we do lots of things. They draw stuff, they do lots of many different things. So we said okay, so we exchange this knowledge and we tell them, you know what becoming an entrepreneur means and everything. But we also ask them what would they like to be when they grow up and why. We have all those conversations. But we always throw throughout those two hours.
Speaker 2:We are at that very high level of energy. So you know, they never get bored and they're super excited and they say, wow, this is fun. So we said okay, so what else can we put into this cake? So that's gonna make a big difference. So we said okay, so we're gonna be building a meditation for 20 minutes inside those two hours 20 minutes and that meditation is gonna be a guided meditation using needle-ingristic programming, you know, designed affirmations. So it's a 20 minute. It's a 20 minute guided meditation with very powerful affirmations and very powerful music which, you know, make all those things that we have been teaching them for a couple of hours really resonate with them and get into the subconscious. That's what we do.
Speaker 1:Do you find that the kids grasp that concept pretty easily? I mean, cause I know they say that kids have that connection a bit better than adults Totally. So it is that kind of-.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, absolutely the first time that we were going to ask the kids to meditate, we said, well, we don't know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1:We're just gonna do it right, yeah.
Speaker 2:The kids, so that you and the audience knows the kids are natural at meditating. They're natural, they go to whatever you know. You know when sometimes you try to meditate, you're already screwed up, right, because you're an adult and right, and it's been your parents, your friends, your church, with all the respect, schools, you name it, right. There's so many layers of limiting beliefs that Hugh has today and Angel has today, right, so we have so many. These kids have not had these many layers yet. So when you ask them to reconnect with themselves, you don't even have to tell them what does reconnecting mean? They already know. We just give them very precise like you know. Like, put your hands on top of your legs, make sure nothing is bothering you, you know, sit straight, that's it, nothing else. And then we start with this. We have, by the way, we really handpicked the music. It's a very powerful music as well, very spiritual music. And then it's this music and these very powerful affirmations that whoever is the leader in that session is saying aloud, right, is speaking aloud, and that's so powerful and so magic when we finish. I mean the kids would. It's 20 minutes, but all the kids would stay in the meditation If our meditation was 30 minutes or 45 minutes. They don't want to stop, they stay in that place.
Speaker 2:We have to tell them open your eyes, abracus, ochris, right? We have to tell them open your eyes. And then we ask them how was it, what did you see? And then the most extraordinary experiences start to be explained and they tell you okay, I saw that relative that night. I saw I was traveling in a space, I was, you know so.
Speaker 2:And our affirmations are like I am infinitely powerful, I can be whoever I want in my life. You know, I have all these wealth, I live in abundance, blah, blah, blah, but that's all. That was only the way for them to reconnect to who they really are. So that's why, if we started in all the schools in the world meditating 20 minutes a day, oh my God, would that make a big, massive change. And you know, we really have to pay for so many counselors throughout our lives and psychologists, and well, we, you know, and again, you know, it is what it is. But we, we always had this sense that we have to do things differently if we want a different children in a different world in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more, I mean, and it's one of those things that forces you to just sit with yourself and contemplate yourself and thank for yourself. So really, I just love when I saw that I had to ask you that Thank you.
Speaker 1:And then to answer your question really quickly, that you let off with that Today. I am an avid investor and I'm very involved in all of that. Today I just saw that Microsoft made an acquisition of Activision, I believe, of $69 billion. So you know, if they, you know, spent $69 billion somewhere to give Wi-Fi to Latin America, that's one way to allocate money, but you know, that's why we're out of five, not a 10. So, but, angel Min, I've had an amazing conversation. I know you're a busy guy, so I do want to wrap up with two questions really quickly. One if you could narrow throughout your entire life, narrow your entire life experiences and give one piece of advice from it, what would it be?
Speaker 2:Take more risks. Take more risks. Yes, absolutely, totally. That that would be the advice I would give to my younger, younger self if I could take more risks okay be open to take more risks excellent.
Speaker 1:And then, lastly, where can people find you, especially if they're interested in donating wisdom to kids. Any of that, where, thank you, find you?
Speaker 2:yeah, this is where I'm very active online. You will see me in all the social media platforms you can think of, including tiktok. Don't expect dancers, though, but you will see. You will see some of my content on tiktok as well, so you can reach me on my email. It's very easy. It's angelangel at angelrebocom. Rebo is my last name R I B S E B? O. So, again, if you send me an email, angel at angelrebocom, it's the easiest way to reach out to me, and I can, you know, I can show you, you know, or I can. We can talk, we can whatever, whatever you want to know, I can point you in the right direction, both for my business and for wisdom for kids foundation and obviously thank you very much for having me today oh, absolutely, I'm really hoping I had.
Speaker 1:You know, we only got through like half of my questions. A lot of them were about spanish, so maybe someday we'll get you back on here.
Speaker 2:But excellent stuff and thank you so much man absolutely thank you, and thank you everybody who was listening to us today.
Speaker 1:Cheers, cheers and that wraps up another episode. If you guys like the show, spotify actually recently released a rating system. If you want to take one second and click five stars or whatever you prefer, it would be greatly appreciated. And same goes for apple podcasts. Although their reviews take longer than one second, it definitely helps the show a lot. Otherwise, if you do like the show, share it with a friend, maybe just one episode or the entire show. Either way, we're okay with it.
Speaker 1:Speaking of the show, of course I'll have experts on and all thoroughly research before each episode. But it's your life when you make decisions. That's your choice and meaning. This is an advice seek professional help for anything and everything, apparently nowadays, but definitely don't rely on this show or blame it. I love disclaimers. Anyways, I hope you guys tune in next week and until then, enjoy your life. And that wraps up another episode of thoughts of a random citizen. Thank you everyone so much for tuning back in. For those who are new listeners, welcome and I appreciate you joining. I hope you enjoyed the podcast and our guests today.
Speaker 1:If you are new and you're doing anything remote, be sure to check out Citizen Remote. It is fantastic. If you're already traveling the world, it's a great app to join a very quickly growing community. It's a great tool for those who are just about to begin traveling and figuring out how to navigate that, especially if you work remotely. It's a fantastic platform and we continue to build more and more tools for you guys, weekend and week out. Otherwise, if you're an entrepreneur and you're looking for tools or assistance with the next steps of you know what you need to do with your startup, or if you're looking for software development network connections, reach out to us at torque united.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, if you're just tuning in for the conversations, thank you. That's why I love doing what I'm doing. Keep tuning in and actually keep a lookout for the not-for-profit that we're about to open up. You know its main focus is going to be on international collaboration and helping build a borderless world, because it's something that I'm very passionate about. That's why I'm not only doing torque united but citizen remote as well. Really exciting stuff on that horizon. Please keep up to date with all of that stuff the not-for-profit and entrepreneurial side of things at torque united. But again, if you're traveling the world, check out Citizen Remote. If you're wanting to travel the world, if you're a remote worker, check out Citizen Remote. Check out the app we've built for you guys. Check out the platform we've built. It's only growing every single week, so hopefully you guys will take part in that with us. Otherwise I will speak with everyone in a fortnight. Until then, cheers.