No Filter in Paradise
Two friends, one's straight one's Gay, with different backgrounds, interest, upbringing & outlook in life come together to have a Fun & honest conversation and discuss their opinions on different topics... with no filter.
No Filter in Paradise
How ATIA supports local businesses and fosters growth with Herrick Henriquez | 185
The episode delves into the intersection of networking, entrepreneurship, and the power of personal stories. We explore the complexities of building connections while navigating the world of business in Aruba and beyond.
• The importance of networking as a fundamental tool for entrepreneurs
• Personal anecdotes from Herrick's pasts, including DJing and early business ventures
• How ATIA supports local businesses and fosters growth
• The essence of personal evolution and adapting to change
• Funny debates on existential questions, such as the existence of aliens and the shape of the Earth
• Insights into the struggles and successes of managing a business environment
• Personal growth stories, including transformations fueled by significant life experiences
• Calls for action encouraging listeners to engage with their business networks
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Networking is definitely something that any entrepreneur needs to invest their time in Do you? Think aliens exist.
Speaker 3:No, I do think they do exist, you think so 100%. We can't be the only living being.
Speaker 1:I do agree with that. The news even talks about it. I do agree. Come on, be for real. Do you think the earth is flat or round?
Speaker 3:I think it's both Six years old headache. Give me the lifespan. What was he doing? Where did he go to school? What was his afternoon like after school?
Speaker 2:It's funny that you take six years old because that was a turning point in my life.
Speaker 3:You see, I always have the right ages, always yeah but, damn, y'all had like a whole 20 something minutes talking about Atia.
Speaker 1:Damn yeah, cool, cool Sorry.
Speaker 2:Take over 460 members. Shit. I used to be a hip-hop DJ. I was known like Big Revo Wait what? Yeah, I didn't even know you were a DJ when I came to Aruba. The whole funny story about Hero is Hero was.
Speaker 3:Hey yo what's up.
Speaker 1:How are you Come and stay, guys, welcome back to the ABC Island's favorite podcast, no Filter in Paradise. Hey yo, what's up? La como estas? Guys, welcome back to the ABC Island's favorite podcast, no Filter in Paradise, a show about anything and everything between two friends. One is straight and the other super duper, black and gay baby. Take taco con queso.
Speaker 3:Ew, happy taco Tuesday. Is it Tuesday, it's Monday.
Speaker 1:So wait the whole day? You thought it was Tuesday. I don't know why?
Speaker 3:hey shark, you have a chip on your nail, though I know I saw it. It's so fucked up, I'm so mad um, guys, I'm gonna leave it for curacao it's okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're gonna fix it before curacao I have to the curacao nails oh yes, it's fucking up the road maybe you should do it like a blue blue.
Speaker 3:No, I want a yellow pop because my costume is like orange and yellow and all this good stuff.
Speaker 1:I know you have to go redo it. Then At least one finger, or I'll just file it, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Anyways, let's go.
Speaker 1:I don't think I want anything else. Alright, guys, as you can see, it's like an OG setup. We see this set and maybe, when we're back us next week, we start curacao season. You guys been asking, you guys been asking, so we deliver. All right, so curacao season is starting next week as a very short 30-minute episode, with me and shark, followed by either the director of the cdb or uh, oh my god Pastor Graham.
Speaker 3:I had to think like I was like what?
Speaker 1:yeah, because, we wanted his his episode to come out in the same week or the week after his movie walkie talkie, so he told me it should be out February 7th they already promoted it.
Speaker 3:I saw they have a promotion.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's legit now February 7th, good so.
Speaker 2:February or March, march 7th, oh my god, what's wrong with us today?
Speaker 1:Us, you thought it was Fucking Tuesday, oh yeah. Anyways, guys, let's do a guest Out of the show, a hand-in-court With a A fan in the filter, see yes.
Speaker 2:Of course, of course.
Speaker 3:A fan of local talent In general, I feel like Also I will give him that.
Speaker 1:He calls us out Like he sees. He watches some episodes and calls us out on some bullshit. Hey, is that true? What's going on? Sounds like him, yeah. Or if we have certain guests, he's always like hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2:Manson, his name is the.
Speaker 1:Haddock on the episode today. Haddock welcome.
Speaker 2:What's up Samu? What's up Shark?
Speaker 1:Hey, hey, you good, Are we doing English, or what do you?
Speaker 2:prefer.
Speaker 1:Our Whatever you guys want Whatever will get you more views, oh fuck, that's it. You can do it in Spanish and it will still get views. No, I don't know that's facts.
Speaker 2:That's facts, mi español es muy mal. De nos también, de nos también For sure, we almost did a Dutch episode.
Speaker 1:That would have been fun, why not?
Speaker 2:Don't I need.
Speaker 1:What do you call it Bar? But it's easy because I got it. Well, it got into a simon bazaar and we were gonna do an episode with him, but it was a little the people among us we need. Like let's not push it. So the next time we go to curacao because he said like we gotta do it in dutch.
Speaker 2:I'm like fuck yeah, be like, be like me being man, just have your phone I don't know how long that conversation is gonna be either the shortest or a lot of work in editing.
Speaker 1:Like you have to chop all the parts off as we're translating my problem no, well, really quick, like what's your occupation?
Speaker 3:tell the world this is the perfect segue for the curacao season originally yes okay, this is our first curacao episode.
Speaker 2:Right now, I'm the director of the Aruba trade and industry association. It's our first Curso episode, isn't it? Well, Jarek and Rikis, right now I'm the director of the Aruba Trade and Industry Association.
Speaker 2:Known as Known as ATIA In the town known as ATIA. We're a membership organization. We have companies represent companies. In an easier way to explain, we're a syndicateicate, but for a company. So you don't represent employees, you represent employers. So that's basically what I do. Next to that, atia is a. I know Samuel is going to ask what we do, but Atia I know, atia, I just don't know, what exactly do you do?
Speaker 2:I think you know more the social aspects of Atia, but Atia actually we're celebrating our 80th anniversary this year. It's the oldest business organization on the island. Membership business, membership organization. I have to say like that, otherwise somebody else will get mad.
Speaker 3:Someone specific.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to plug it, but Atia is the oldest membership organization on the island, started in 1945. Oh wow, right after World War II. Yeah, exactly, that's a random fact. And what we do, our main job, is advocating for you have to change stuff in the markets, to advocate for more modern laws. You try to make a better economy for Aruba. That's the main thing that we advocate for. Next to that, we also do a lot of um different types of events. You know we try to bring a balance in business and and networking. So that's kind of what we do.
Speaker 2:We're known for, in the past, the women in leadership conference that that atia did. For a couple of years, um atia was a trendsetter in in breaking the glass ceiling, as they call it at the time. And then a couple of years, um atia was a trendsetter in in breaking the glass ceiling, as they call it at the time. And then a couple of years ago, they decided, our board decided, you know, we want to do something different. The glass ceiling has has been broken. Uh, people now have to step through the glass ceiling. Um, we we say so. That's how, for example, the leader conferencea conference was born. That was more inclusive for everybody, and Lidera, just like Women in Leadership, was a lot about self-empowerment and those kind of things that we all needed after the pandemic. We all wanted to grow a little bit, so those were perfect times to organize events like that. Next to that, we do networking events. We have a building that we rent out. That's how we make our money um part of our building where it's um the credits.
Speaker 1:The credits does their courses.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, so credit is also one of our members. Um, they use our building. We had a complete revamp of the building two years ago.
Speaker 1:Appreciate, appreciate it Very nice, very very modern. There's free coffee If you're doing the class.
Speaker 2:It's not free, but they paid for your coffee. Somebody's paying for your coffee as a person who's going there. Yeah, for you.
Speaker 3:If I press something and there's no money to put in, it's free.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's in the course that I paid for.
Speaker 2:Like hey, that car, no, no, no, it isn't exactly like I didn't put any money, it's for free.
Speaker 1:yeah, no you paid it before you even started this damn we used to have.
Speaker 2:We used to have a coffee machine that you put in the guilders, but, um, again, with the revamp, we we decided to go more kind of like the hotels do hotels, you just pay per person and you get as much coffee as you want, so so it was not free, for it was not for them.
Speaker 1:it was free for you. Yes, thank you for that?
Speaker 2:No, but they're one of our members also and they invest a lot in the entrepreneurs on the island. It's important we have to keep growing the economy and you have to keep investing in the younger entrepreneurs, just like you two guys.
Speaker 1:Both of you guys are entrepreneurs, not members yet, but we'll get there and we'll get there. Okay, keep in mind, we're also young, like the young entrepreneur. You guys are entrepreneurs, but also young, yeah, very young. You're not young just entrepreneurs?
Speaker 2:no so that, that that was something, that that when I started at atia, the, the, the board wanted some more change. You know Atia, the, the reputation was that you're an older organization. That's when I came in. What got me there was change. I love change. I love managing change. I love being at the forefront of change.
Speaker 1:So you said change.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry it was like what made? What were you doing before that like made you change.
Speaker 1:You want to do this for when I was before I, I know, I know I know you for a long time. Okay, it's like, let's be honest, we used to party a lot, of course I still do I know, I know I know I don't want to say that part once a week.
Speaker 3:Once a week I mean he used to party, a lot to party.
Speaker 1:I mean, no, we'll party, but like I mean, he used to party a lot harder than he did today. So like what for you? Because you made a, a big, big and we've talked about this in the past yeah, like such a party guy, very social, always going out, and you made a whole freaking change in your life. You know, going, going to better friends, like was that not the same person? Like what for you was that pivotal change with metacoin? Was that, was that director, the atia, and they were like do this part was that?
Speaker 2:the. The main change was when I became a dad, that's the main change. Main change when I became a dad. Um, I tell everybody that my life, my life, is really based on my nicknames. I used to have a lot of nicknames, different nicknames. Yeah, most Most people know me on this island as Hero. Before that, some people know me as Big Revo. You would like that that's a reversed Oreo. If you know what an Oreo is, A reversed Oreo Big.
Speaker 1:Revo yeah.
Speaker 2:Does he know what an Oreo is?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I know what like the cookie, yeah, yeah do we do I?
Speaker 3:do I explain it or do I do you go ahead? I don't know if it's taboo if I can explain it.
Speaker 2:No, go ahead yeah so, uh, oreo is a black guy that's white from the inside, and then I'm reversed oreo. So I used to be a hip-hop dj. I was known like big wait what yeah?
Speaker 1:no, I didn't even know you were a dj. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay news to me Back in my ATL Atlanta days when I used to live there.
Speaker 3:Per yeah, I've done a lot man.
Speaker 1:No, but I didn't know you lived in Atlanta. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's news to me. My bachelor's I did outside of Atlanta, athens, georgia, university of Georgia. Okay, I did a double. So I kind of reinvented myself a lot of times. When I was in Curacao, my parents, my dad, was a businessman there and I was always the son of, you know, the son of Junior, and when I went to the States I became my own person.
Speaker 2:So, that's when the change. When I started liking change, I could be me, you know. So that's where Big Revo was born. When I came to Aruba, the whole funny story about Hero is Hero was. We started organizing events here, herrick and Ruthland Fleming Hero. Yeah, yeah yeah, and the name stuck with me because I used to be fat. I was just chubby. I used to be big, and so it was funny to call a big guy Hero, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, hero, you think it's hard, say I call a big guy here, right, yeah, here you think it's hard?
Speaker 2:somebody's a big fluffy guy like steel, you know, yeah, so big fluffy guy, um, so here here, who stuck for a while, and then when, when, um, I did my operation, my gastric bypass in 2007, when I lost all the weight, I became here.
Speaker 1:So you're still keeping the name, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, just smaller and then afterwards, um, at on my 40th I I decided that's when I started working also on myself and my growth. Actually, on my 41st birthday I changed it just to my name, like my handle had a car ricas. Yeah, I mean that's when I started working at ati, etc. So my big change was when my son was born and then when I did skydiving for the first time, that's, that was when I opened my eyes. I was very risk averse, um. I was an auditor, I worked for the central bank, um, so always risk averse guy. And that's when I said, that's when I realized you can take calculated risks and still be safe.
Speaker 1:So skydiving was a calculated risk how exactly did you look at that? Like the parachute looks good, all right, hey, no, but trust me, you're going I think there's more car accidents than skydiving.
Speaker 2:I skydive twice, so it's great experience I I thought it was I got it as a gift. I actually gave my ex it as a gift and then she gave it to me as a gift okay and that's I. I went with the padrino of my son. We we both jumped and you know it was. It was a great experience, definitely, just the feeling um, you can't describe it.
Speaker 1:You can't. You have to like. I did it twice. You just anybody watching.
Speaker 2:If you ever think about skydiving, just go do it it, do it the, the rush when you're free falling, but then the, the alivio and that sheet that, that parachute opens that you're like okay, now I'm almost safe, Cause I'm almost on the ground.
Speaker 2:It's still something I have, but that's when I started taking calculated risk. And then, um 2020, actually, when COVID hit, uh, that was a year. That was the most growth for me. So a lot because the central bank was busy, busy, busy for the the first couple of months and then afterwards, when we're working from home. You had time to do your own thing, and that's when I started reading a lot of books, listening to podcasts, and that got me into a whole different mindset group of friends and mindset where we talked about books.
Speaker 2:I never read a book in my life. What was the first book you read? The first first book I read was H3. It's Hungry Humble, it's Hustle, hungry Humble.
Speaker 1:I've never heard of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually, I borrowed the book from Queenie.
Speaker 1:I still have it, by the way.
Speaker 2:Queenie, I have to give it back to you Motherfucker, I think she wouldn't mind if you borrow it to me first.
Speaker 3:I'll give it to Queenie.
Speaker 2:But then the funny thing is, when I read that book I did it as a challenge, because I said I want to read a book a week and I read that book in a day.
Speaker 1:I read it in a day. It I can't even get past 10 pages without falling asleep. No, but I did it. I have a hard time. Well, you know what the thing is. I also have to. I also read on my bed. I'm like yeah, yeah, no, no, you can't do that you have to get up.
Speaker 2:You have to like be in it. You know I read that and then I read atomic habits and that one is I read um the 5 am club and I still 5 am club. Yeah, it's very good book I think you recommend it. Yeah, that about that it it, it gives you a routine and that's when. That's when you you work on, like your physical health, your spirituality I mean some journaling stuff like that. Um, I still don't journal, but what I did.
Speaker 2:What I did was I read. So I literally woke up 5 am in the morning, um, took my pre-workout, read and then go, go, go to the gym. But yeah, you speed read. So in my first year, iout read and then go to the gym Pre-workout, but, yeah, you speed read. So in my first year I think I read like 60 something books. I had a goal one book a week and I did more. I think I finished in nine months the 50 books.
Speaker 2:Afterwards I think I stopped at 100. I need to pick it back up, but I did like 100 books in the two years. And then that's when I started going to atia and you know, you know what the good thing about books was, is that? But I started realizing also, is that a lot of the life experience I had, um, all the different things I did, people were writing, writing about it. So it validates. You know you have a better story if I tell you about haddock does this, but if I, if I, if shark has a book written, but shark wrote about that, he did that yeah it valid kind of validates it's the experience, right.
Speaker 2:So, uh, that opened, opened my eyes up with a lot of things, and every time I was a different, a different type of segment of books I started reading. So I started reading business books and then I didn't do a lot of personal development spirituality. I tried. I know Jason from BodyZone tries to get me in there and I read a couple of them.
Speaker 2:I read like the power of now. I believe in that stuff. I believe that you have to live in the now. You learn from the past to to you know. Live in the now but not look only to the future.
Speaker 2:A lot of people forget to do that. We forget to do that. We forget to live now. We always live for the future and think about the past too much. So you know that that was the growth part of of my phase. And then, yeah, during covet I decided I saw the the atia um, the atia solicitatsi come out for.
Speaker 2:Which position for the director position. Okay, um, I was. I was late when I applied, um, and, and because I was on vacation, I had a vacation and when I came back, I think that was a Friday On the Monday I applied and then I got an interview and I guess the rest is history that I'm there now Learning experience Like what you just asked. You didn't know. I didn't know either. All I know is I saw the ex-director of ATIA at all these leadership events and that's what you know. I like that's what I wanted.
Speaker 1:That was the position you want to be in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those were the rooms I wanted to be in, you know, and and the board wanted a fresh face, a fresh look. You know I'm more and more outspoken. The old ATIA was very written.
Speaker 1:I think the first journalist that did an interview with me, um, at the time was from from amigo, and he said, yeah, atia was always the deft, like very written follow the rules, don't bounce to the left, don't just stay straight.
Speaker 2:You know, after two years, uh, I started liking speaking more this. I didn't want to write as much, so I started doing a lot more interviews, that kind of stuff and and it impacted more. Uh, you saw that the membership grew. The members were happy, they like, they like the balance. What you hear is the members, they like the balance, they want the advocacy, but they like the balance of the, the networking part also, of course so you ever want to ask or um.
Speaker 1:I'll just let y'all finish this first because I want, I want to just dive into, like as in what exactly is atya then? What exactly does Atya do? What exactly like? How do you become a member? What's the benefit of being a?
Speaker 2:member, so he wasn't listening right. What do you mean? You just explained it. No, no, no, we'll go in. No, no, no. I want to go more detail.
Speaker 1:As in like what do you do? What do you become a member? I don't think you can explain that part, okay, okay, that's number one. Number two if you're a benefit, there are some public. You go, you get network events. Okay, that's very fucking broad, like what, exactly? What kind of network events Does it get you in different doors? Do you get data? So, do you get data from somewhere?
Speaker 2:We don't get data because the AHATA business model is a little bit different than ours. To become a member, you have to be a registered company at Kavika. That's basically the main requirement you need to be a registered company and then the membership process is very easy. It's on our website. You fill out a form, you send us your Kavika eutraxel. I normally do the screening of who the person is, I go to look at the companies and then I recommend to the board.
Speaker 2:You know I I request approval from the board this person joined yeah, stating you know, this is the company, this is the person you know, do a little bit, so you can get rejected you can yes what are some like what's the thing, what is something you look at like reject this company, like I don't think we, we have rejected any company yet.
Speaker 2:Um, since I'm here, uh, the the main thing is you have to have the coffee car right, so you have to be in good standing. That's what. That's what we always ask. Uh, you do some, it's the same. The type of people that join the organization they, they want, they want to be part of it. Uh, the main thing, they the type of people that join the organization, they want to be part of it. The main thing a lot of people get out.
Speaker 2:I think what we see now is different types of companies and size of companies want different things. Entrepreneurs want a lot of time networking. They want to be in the room with, let's say, the director of a SATAR, the director of a WEP, elmar, big consultants. They want to be in the room with these people because you have a product to sell and and you, you want a foot in the door, so this helps.
Speaker 2:Um, next to that, the main thing still is advocacy. So the main thing is we have some very antiquated laws on this island. Uh, and that's what that's what we try to. You know, bring, uh, you know, awareness about a big thing that we did a couple of years ago was about the beta way and and so the value add attacks um and the bbo. So those are things you're talking about right now. Where we're, the main thing we're advocating for is an easier and more agile process for, let's say, the labor situation ongoing on the island. Every sector sector is hurting or looking for people, so you try to bring solutions that are practical, that can be implemented quick. So we do short-term solutions. You try to do short-term solutions working with other organizations. So you mentioned AHATA. We work with AHATA a lot. We sit with CUA a lot also, even though, like we're all-.
Speaker 1:Oh, that sounds Comerciante Unido, it's France right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even though you're like competition and friends, we do see that working together, you can get further ahead. There are things that we can say we agree to disagree. There are times that we don't do everything together and then you take different angles. So that's what you do, is you bring awareness to companies? Also, what we share a lot with our members are, for example, all the meetings that we go to. We share that data, but we don't have real data because we don't ask for that kind of stuff, that kind of data, from our members. Uh, so you are a private company, um, the. The other one, the ahata, is a different model, but I think you should ask these about that.
Speaker 2:No, but, you do the same kind of work. It's all about trying to make a better economy for the business owners which then also you should trickle down to the employees right, that's the main thing and the people of the fucking pueblo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, creating awareness also about that. Everybody has to work together to make an economy run, even with the government. It's not, the government does something or says something and it makes business run. Things that we've said in the past is you know, business will keep running even if there's no government. True, that's fact. They, they. They might not like you saying that, but that's true.
Speaker 1:Business will keep running if government falls. Business keeps going down.
Speaker 3:So I mean clearly everything just shows right now like we're still waiting, yeah, but um, correct me if I'm wrong. So at the um, atia helps out with, establishes, established businesses already, like your business is already established and all this good stuff is there. Or will there be like in the future, like an atia junior, that probably focuses on like smaller businesses in the sense of they aren't there yet, but in order to get them there, that you have eventually more business when the if these smaller businesses branch out and become bigger businesses.
Speaker 2:We we had two years ago, two or three years ago now, we had an initiative called startup week where we, because of this same question, we had different people come in and give talks to entrepreneurs. So the first day we had a notary and Economist Azaka. The second day we had tax lawyers or tax fiscalisten. The third day we had who do we have the third day? The third day we had somebody else. The fourth day we had marketing and branding. So so you went from from. We had some people for budgeting accountants come in nice um.
Speaker 2:The fourth day we had branding and the fifth day we had actually digital payments. This was three years ago, before digital payments was very was even spoken about yeah um. So we had yeah digital payments.
Speaker 2:We had digital payments and automation um for that. So literally the goal was that you could come there, get connection, get connection with a notary, get connection with economies Zaken and then start up your business. Actually, a few businesses started up during that time and we did get some members. Our membership is about 50% companies less than 20 people, so most of the members are not large businesses. People think that it's a false thought that people think that Atya only represents the big companies.
Speaker 1:How many members are there right?
Speaker 2:now we have about 160 members.
Speaker 1:Shit.
Speaker 2:But we used to have Atya and back in the day its heyday, had over 300 members. Why do you think it dropped? It dropped because of differences in before my time. I guess differences in opinion within the membership. From what I understand, um also different, different ways that they went.
Speaker 2:So atia we just had an event last week where we invited all the past presidents who are still alive, um to come, because again you're 80 years. So we invited them to come celebrate with us and to hear their stories and hear their opinions of what ATIA needs to do. So these are things that are interesting to hear about and they're willing to help us. So because they used to be so big, they had a very strong voice. Atia still has a very big voice, strong voice because we're in a lot of different committees. We're in a lot of different supervisory boards. A lot of times when the government needs to have an employer organization, they invite us to come sit on their boards or their committees to have that opinion of the business sector. So that's how your network is more diversified.
Speaker 2:Something you asked before is more diversified um, something you asked before where? Where is the added value? Right now also, we have very good connections also with the different stakeholders, so with the department, the impuesto, the duana. Even if we're very sharp on them and and you know, talk, talk, articles and stuff about them um, yeah, you have to be critical about, about work we do have good communication with them. The rules of the game were set when I guess I started also, I started talking about them. Look, I believe in collaboration, but Atia has to be the watchdog and we will stay critical about stuff. So those are things that we keep doing.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you're bored.
Speaker 3:Okay, listen, did that? Sure you're bored Her.
Speaker 2:Okay, listen, did that answer your question For sure? No, for sure.
Speaker 3:Okay, so listen, I hope y'all drained out all of these Atia things, because I don't know if this is the Atia thing or we here to talk about fucking headache.
Speaker 1:Why did you just censor yourself Radio? I don't know. I was like I. I was like I think it's because it's like at the elevator I haven't said it by AdWord yet. Right, I know We'll get there, but I'm like, okay, that's enough. Okay, but when do you pay for a moon or a fire?
Speaker 2:It depends on the size of your company, so it depends on how many employees you have.
Speaker 1:Okay, if.
Speaker 2:I wanted to join. Employee of one One is 400 a year.
Speaker 1:That's not bad For being a room estate for those people Okay.
Speaker 2:So it goes from 400. It's staggered right. So it goes from 400. And the most expensive one is 5,500 a year. So again, you have to talk about 500 guilders a month for a large business. That's not that large.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, let's go back to, let's go to Hattick.
Speaker 3:No more Hattick. Patient is okay, but like we're here for network events, I'm just saying a little bit of both. A little bit of both, yeah, but damn, y'all had like a whole 20 something minutes talking about atia cool, cool, sorry, take over.
Speaker 1:Who headache is? I'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 3:Take over, bye, so okay, so talk to me. Like, what was childhood headache? Like, like what was your childhood? Like I want to know that, growing up in aruba, curacao, where the hell were you? I was in curacao. Okay, tell me like born.
Speaker 2:Born and raised in curacao six years old headache.
Speaker 3:Give me the lifespan. What was he doing? Where did he go to school? What were he's like afternoon? Like after school?
Speaker 2:it's funny that you take six years old, because that was a turning point in my life.
Speaker 3:You see, I always have the right ages, always.
Speaker 2:Six years old is when I started growing out of my asthma, and that's when I started gaining weight.
Speaker 1:Oh, wait what.
Speaker 2:That was my Shamu era. You know Shamu the Killer.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So when I was starting getting bigger, I was called Shamu.
Speaker 3:God.
Speaker 2:So you had every nickname. Yeah, I had very bad asthma when I was young. I almost died twice, um from asthma, but again when, when I started going out of it, I started gaining weight and but I was always the life of the party center of attention. Very important is that even if I was bigger or fatter than any of my friends that I could still try to out. I can try to beat them at any sport. Anything we do, I have to be able to do it.
Speaker 2:You're active in sports yeah yeah, I play tennis, basketball, everything everything softball baseball yeah yeah should we show the video you're?
Speaker 1:gonna edit it in. No, I can't stand it, honestly, the push-ups. No, oh yeah yeah, I lost.
Speaker 2:He loves to add stuff in I think I think he never played tennis after that again actually maybe not the truth. His ego was so hurt. No, I didn't want to keep playing the membership it was like fucking expensive. Yeah, I was a good, I was a good excuse. Yeah, no, that was the the young herrick. Always good, good grades at school. I was very bad at this naughty stout, stout, stout I could see that you look like you are a pest.
Speaker 2:Yes, I, I remember when, when I was 12, when I was in sixth grade, the the whole at this point, sorry.
Speaker 3:12, sixth grade.
Speaker 2:Are you in aruba or curacao? Curacao I. I grew up in curacao until my 18th oh damn my parents my parents moved here. When, when I went to college, my dad retired and moved here okay, finish the story, then we're gonna continue on this so when I was 12, um, my whole from school, I was literally bad kid.
Speaker 2:I always had great grades, like I was even the best in the class, but even the stoutster and and I remember one time, my, my last stuff that I got from my, my hoof does you had niveau laser. So you had to go read and one of the parents didn't show up and I had to go sit with a couple of kids that were like from the third grade and I had to do niveau laser with them because she's like heck, I don't have, I don't punishment for you, so go sit there. So I'll go sit in the ac that time. No, ac in curacao we're talking about I can't say what what decade this was but back in the 1950s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no. Thank god I shaved down today, man, no but so. But again, it was still a balance between stout and, and life is about balance. A lot of times, things's about balance, so that my growing up days were like that and then the barrio life, like what was that?
Speaker 3:like high school 16 type shit, boom I started type shit.
Speaker 2:I like that he's censoring.
Speaker 1:I know I think he's practicing he hasn't heard a curse word from me yet.
Speaker 2:It's the radio no, no, I started organizing events when I was 14. I started organizing events for my brother. My brother, what type of events? Um, the first thing I helped my brother with was jump ups. Like jump up, like how they have jump in now, curious. I used to have jump ups where they just close the street out and we used to. We used to represent a beer brand and they had a jump up, and I think the first one we did had like 3,000 people, three different bands. So at 14, I'm, you know, helping my brother who's who's 22, 23, organizing as he was working from my. My dad at the time organized this event and that's when events organization literally started. I, I, I was helping another friend of mine that did parties in facade at the time. Um, so, fiesta bailable, but on invite only basis yeah, yeah, I had my bailable phase.
Speaker 2:I still go to fiesta. Bailable, I, I love it. Yeah, I still go to. When they're here, we go to those events. So my, my, my upbringing, you know, was I had a good upbringing, but I was, my dad was always very you have to be conscious about, about where you live. So even though you live in a more, more affluent neighborhood, but at school, at everything, my dad always put into us everybody's human, my One of my famous sayings my dad has is if you cut somebody, everybody bleeds red.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter the color of your skin. And he said if they don't bleed red, it's a different color. Run Run.
Speaker 3:Get the fuck out of there. That's not a human dad. Get the fuck out of there.
Speaker 2:So my dad was very social. Balance. Yeah, my dad was very social, my mom very into into school. Uh, school had to be, it was important. So you're, you're both those things. Yeah, I, I balance man you're both those things I remember when, when, um, my mom would not be in in curacao, she would, let's say, visit her parents in Holland at the time, and my dad was alone with my brothers. Yeah, that was.
Speaker 1:Good times, Fiesta, salad and bread. Yeah, I could go out with my brothers.
Speaker 2:I could go out with my brothers. I remember when both my parents are gone, my brothers would come home and our house was just a party all the time.
Speaker 1:That's something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's something, yeah, and then then you know, but always, always respectful, and always still behaving right, behaving, misbehaving a little bit, but but not in a bad way, always remembering who you are, where you're coming from so answer me this give me one, the or the best piece of advice you got from your mom, and then give me the best piece of advice you got from your dad the best piece of advice I got from my mom.
Speaker 2:You know, my mom is is a one of my biggest supporters um you see, she gives so much advice yeah, but there's that.
Speaker 3:Do you know? That's that one thing you're. You just always remember the back of your head like your mom just keeps saying, like she's always like said that one thing, like what was that growing up for you?
Speaker 2:my mom was always, would always say school, you know, school, make sure your grades are good. If you you know, through school you can get far in life, even though I didn't believe that at the time. When you're young, you're a rebel, but, um, it's, it's where I am also. And also she taught me perseverance Go get what you want.
Speaker 2:A funny story is she used to work with the president or the chairman of the board of the central bank. They worked in a foundation together and when I started at the bank, the chairman called my mom. He's like hey, did I see Eric walking in the bank today? She's like, yeah, he just started today. And he's like, oh, harry, did I see harry walking in the bank today? She's like, yeah, he just started the days. And he's like, oh, why didn't you let me know, you know, and I'm like my mom's like, no, he doesn't want any of that. Everywhere, harry, where he went or where I have gone now, I I went on my own merit, um, so I worked, I worked at where I am. Um, my dad. I remember my dad's last words before he passed away were um, you know, and I told him. I mean, I told him, well, get better. So, but I always have that in my mind that even if you make mistakes, even if you do things, that life goes on.
Speaker 2:Uh, time stands for nobody and absolutely nobody that was one of the main things, that that my dad taught me school was also very important for him. I had a deal with my dad that I could do my mba um. He wanted one of his kids to do to do a master's and because my brother graduated and came to work, he never got to do it. So I I was the one after he passed away. My mom honored that that I could do my mba um and I'm happy. Just Just a quick thing I graduated twice undergrad and I'm that's probably the best decision I ever made, because if I didn't go to my first graduation, my dad wouldn't have seen me graduate.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the, the, the honor, like the, the pride he had that day, I get.
Speaker 1:I get the pride, the pride he had that day.
Speaker 2:I had never seen that from him because he was, he was. He was very emotional, but but I mean not that that emotional with me. Like my dad, my dad, you know what's funny is, my dad is a very emotional guy, big heart, um, all of us have that. All of us have a big heart.
Speaker 1:But to express, is a different thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, all of us have a big heart, but to express is a different thing. Yeah, yeah, but he. The funny thing is like when, when, um, I went to school, we, you know he, when the first day I go to school, like I remember he was crying in the, in the hotel. I cried and you know we're emotional. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go and, and the funny thing is my mom drops me off. So my dad was like I can't drop him off at the door, my mom drops me off, so I start chatting it to your mom.
Speaker 2:I was like why are you crying?
Speaker 3:literally what she asked me. Why are you crying? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna see you guys for a couple of months. She's like go live your life exactly now you can live your life, and that's that was actually a good advice for my mom. Um, also is go live your life and and the funny thing is I I laughed about that with my mom a lot afterwards is that, um, you see these kids like at the school I went to is a commuter school, so a lot of people live in in outside of atlanta athens, georgia, yeah, yeah so athens, georgia, is about an hour outside atlanta, and so all these kids are commuter kids, so they go to school during the week and in the weekends they go home, yeah, so you see all these people crying.
Speaker 2:I'll see, you'll see you. It's like Sunday. I'll see you on Friday. I'm like what Bitch I don't want to see nobody for three months, but it's a big transition.
Speaker 1:On the weekends it's like a desert, like deserted. There's nobody there. If there's no football game, there's almost nobody, it's only it's the townies state.
Speaker 2:but but you know it was. Let me tell you my, my college life was a great experience. I can't how many years are you there for? Uh, five, because my last year. That's why I graduated twice. My last year, um, I decided that I didn't want to do accounting anymore. Um, finance always came easier, way easier. I would study a week for an accounting exam and get a b, and for finance I'd study two, three hours and get the highest grading class, like I. Just that it just came easy. Like numbers came very easy. Um, the accounting, the rules in accounting, no, uh. So my advisor then told me you should just graduate and then come back, because then you can use all your accounting classes for electives, for finance.
Speaker 2:So otherwise I had to stay two more years and I didn't want to do that to my, to my parents budget either no no, I, I was on a leaning there, then your parents still have to.
Speaker 2:Even if you're on a leaning, you still have to find a way to work enough, yeah it's not enough so um, so, yeah, I went back and then, yeah, my dad passed away right before I went back, uh, like a week before 9 11. So that I see, yeah, yeah, I still remember that and he literally my brothers call me, come home like my dad had a stroke. My mom calls me and I spoke to him and that's what his last words were when he was in the hospital, you know, beat it a cg, and that's when I told him that. So of course, I'm at school the next morning.
Speaker 2:I get a call come now, like I mean come now like it don't work don't worry just come now, because I remember they called me at seven and the flight out of atlanta was at 11. So I'm like all right, I just grabbed the bag on on my way to the airport, called, called I remember delta airlines, I needed a flight out now and literally came here and I never got to speak to my dad again. I was here for two weeks, almost no more, because then, yeah, then 9-11 happened and then I didn't want to go back because I was here, I was home and I remember there were so many tourists stuck in aruba that day that that that that time, um, and I talked to the manager of of delta.
Speaker 2:I'm like you know, I'm at home, just whenever I go back I'll call you. She's like, yeah, go ahead, just just stay here. And and I helped them. So, when the time was right, I went back, I did my studies and then when I graduated, I actually had a very good job lined up in atlanta, but my mom asked me to come back to support as a moral, moral support, um, so she can settle down, etc.
Speaker 2:And after two years she's like you still want to go do your masters? And I'm like, yeah, I think I do want to go do my masters. And that's when I went to florida, nice wait.
Speaker 1:So when you went back to aruba, did you make it in time or no?
Speaker 2:see? No, I made it in time to see my dad. Okay, good, that speak to him.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's what I mean, like I wasn't sure actually he passed away.
Speaker 2:He passed away the day I flew back to atlanta. He passed away. He passed away when I touched down in atlanta. So when you left then I was on my way to school he was waiting for you. No, no, he literally my dad always told my mom he wants to die alone um and so crazy.
Speaker 1:Sorry to cut you out even with my mom.
Speaker 2:My mom passed away it's she was.
Speaker 1:We all knew like, okay, it's gonna next 48 hours, we don't know what's gonna happen. My dad was home all day, like never left, but my dad's like for one second. Hey, I'm gonna go to the chinese, which is like two minutes down the road. I'm gonna go grab something. Come back. The moment he left he got there, she passed away and it's like it's annoying and I'm like no, no, but it was worse.
Speaker 2:I, I, I went. My brothers, my brothers left. My brothers left, um, you don't forget that they were. I remember I was on the phone like, I think, my ex-girlfriend back then, and I was eating. My brothers left.
Speaker 1:My brothers left. You don't forget that day. Right, I remember exactly what I was doing. I was on the phone like, I think, my ex-girlfriend back then, and I was eating Wendy's Like I just took a bite. I remember my sister running out of the room. I was like I need to go. I think my mom just died and I hung up.
Speaker 2:I remember, like it's like asking somebody where were you?
Speaker 1:9-11 yeah everybody knows where they were exactly so that what.
Speaker 2:What happened was how, how it happened. My brothers, everybody was here, right, the whole family's in aruba, and my dad's best friend from miami was one of his suppliers, like very good friend. Um was in aruba, it was in curacao and he flew to aruba just to come see my dad. And when my dad heard his voice, his eyes opened, for like the first time and he wanted to talk like it was over a week that he didn't. He was just, you know, in coma yeah yeah, he was.
Speaker 2:He wanted to talk and and I had his hand, and and, and we were like, if you want to say yes, just squeeze my hand. Can you understand us?
Speaker 1:he squeezed the hand so then I was, was like he's going to pull through.
Speaker 2:So then all my brothers also like okay, yeah, we're going to go. You know life, we're going to go back to Curacao. I grabbed the flight back to Atlanta and then when I landed, I remember I never went to an airport that quick in my life, because about less than an hour and a half after landing I was halfway to school and the school was almost an hour and a half drive. And then, right, I remember exactly when my mom called, right, when I had to turn off to go to my college, so the road to take to the college. She called and all she said is I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm like I'm turning around I went literally back to the airport I had the same clothes as the day before.
Speaker 2:I just just went to a friend's house in Atlanta. I asked her can I leave my car here Because my dad passed away. I don't know how long I'm going to be now. She said yeah, just leave. Your car Took me to the airport and even you know the funniest thing is the same flight crew. They literally thought I was a mule man. They're like weren't you on the flight yesterday. And I'm this big guy.
Speaker 1:I was like what? For some reason I didn't picture that part. Yeah, I was like, oh fuck.
Speaker 3:Big guy Sean John Bistivo, full baggy Bucket hat Full.
Speaker 2:M&M. See full brill Bistivo. So yeah, you've been crying the whole night and and and they're like weren't you on the flight yesterday? No, yeah, I just got here. My dad passed right, oh okay, but then they were very nice and then they, they upgraded me.
Speaker 1:We won't come to business class.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're greeting me giving some grace.
Speaker 2:So so it it was tough, but again that I I think that if all that didn't happen, I still wouldn't be where I am now. Yeah, it was a learning, a learning, but but after all that didn't happen, I still wouldn't be where I am now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a learning, but after all that happened, yeah, but after all that happened I became completely risk averse man. I was the Mr Entrepreneur at the time organizing events. I didn't care, I knew I was successful at things and then when that happened, literally like that stopped. Yeah, take it easy, so you didn't have the net. My dad was always the net that would catch us. I didn't have that anymore until until I went skydiving, and that's when I like take some risk in life, yeah, and that that's when my eyes opened again, because I was events I was, I did everything, man and I, we used to invest.
Speaker 2:Literally when we did parties, I did, I organized. When I was dj, we organized latin parties, um this was when this is still atlanta, atlanta. When the latin boom was like the latin boom, when I did my own event, like when I did djing, it was more hip-hop and stuff. And then my our parties was latin latin party, when reggaeton was like even before that even before that um I don't know anybody but back there.
Speaker 2:So this was like 98, 99. So we were doing that's when, like shaquille and them, blew up pricky martin, like the whole latin scene yeah so we had those, those parties and we would sell. Literally we make a thousand flyers for like 20 bucks. Go hand them out. Go hand them out every night.
Speaker 1:In colleges.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go out. I went out every night, man. I lived your life, or you did. I lived that life too. So every night, you know I believe in that if you're successful in something, you have to grind, you have to be there I'm right. You have to be there, right you, you have to be. You have to be in that, in that business, every night, um, and and support everybody, like I supported our, our main competitors also.
Speaker 2:They never supported me, um, but again yeah, it's on them until until one of their friends came up to one of our events and he's like man I I see that that you were not doing anything shady like, like your event is is legit it is.
Speaker 1:You're not trying to fuck anybody over, no, no, just do it yourself.
Speaker 2:I am just doing me yeah, yeah, I, I supported their events, you know. So we had competition. I believe in competition, it's fine it's fun um yeah, but afterwards we all became friends. Just have mad after parties and stuff.
Speaker 1:But my, my friends till this day.
Speaker 2:Some of my best friends are still from from disney, but not many. I think about five or six that I still have contact weekly. So actually one of them is interesting. He wrote a paper on on on ai regulation and stuff so I need to go. I told him I want him to present something about that here, about what craziest guy ai regulation oh how they can move but but he, this guy, he has.
Speaker 2:He has a law that he wrote about um space debris. This guy is this guy's whole next level, so also also bartender. He was like like literally, this guy had also phases, but uh, I should have him to come here.
Speaker 1:He's, he's, he's a oh fuck, bring him to aruba, we'll put him here talk about space debris yeah I would love that.
Speaker 3:I love that type of shit.
Speaker 1:I just I just heard, I saw somewhere a video or there's so much debris in space that we aren't even aware of and they're moving so fast around the planet. That to the point where, if it's too much, you can't really leave, because you'll get hit by space debris, because there's so much shit out there so that's some video I saw. No, I'm down.
Speaker 3:I love that type of shit.
Speaker 1:Really what I can imagine you smoking a little bit and be like do you think aliens exist?
Speaker 3:no, I do. They do exist. You think so, 100%, there has to be. We can't be the only living being. I do agree. The news even talks about it. I do agree. Come on, come on, be for real, do you?
Speaker 1:think the earth is flat or round. I think it's both.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's go back to our topic.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how that works.
Speaker 2:It's a saucer.
Speaker 1:Can you like put your glasses up?
Speaker 2:I don't even know if you're supposed to be coming on the show.
Speaker 3:Whatever Headache, you know what? Listen. Next phase Like this guy is testing me, he really is. But anyways, before we close out, I have one last question for you. Okay, real quick, since we were just talking about your college days. Real quick. Yeah, give me one of your wildest, most fondest college memories. Ooh, how wild do you want to go?
Speaker 1:This is no filter boy. As wild as you want to go, that's what I have to think about. Yeah, like, hey, listen, you have to resign what you said, this shit, and it's kind of like If you do your job really well, nobody can make you resign.
Speaker 3:True Wildest or your fondest memory, like your best, like your top of the list.
Speaker 2:It's not wild, but it is one of my fondest memories is we used to be groupies of our, our gymnast gymnastics team. What you know, we had girls gym yeah I know gymnasts are hot man I. I like gyms that we had. We had um some girls watch that.
Speaker 1:Oh, I do gym like yeah, what's up haddock, how you doing?
Speaker 2:yeah, call me so so we were, we were groupies. We're like a group of 12 guys, man, and we were groupies 12 yeah, we're groupies of these girls and I. I remember that we used to go to all their, their meets and the coach, their coach there I think they were the number one team on in the in the united states when we were supporting them, and so we went to a meet in alabama and that was like the craziest thing, like alabama, yeah, drive, exactly, drive, drive.
Speaker 2:I think was like five, six hours to get there and then the coach had had fixed tickets for us. But we thought we're gonna get good tickets and they put us all the way up so yeah, there was like a road.
Speaker 2:There was like the last row and then the row after the last, and then then we won and then we went to the after parties and and you know I was at a pizza place. It wasn't very exciting. But after we got back to school, you know it was fun because we got recognition. They, when we go to the, the meets, they would, they would ask us to come talk, so that was like one of the most positive things to come talk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they would talk about us and and you know, I'll say y'all were like those dudes, y'all were like jocks that weren't jocks yeah, yeah, exactly male chill leaders exactly I'm not mad at that hey, we had fun, man.
Speaker 2:Bring back male chill leaders and you know what another fond memory was I was. I was a always a hustler during during college days, like you look like that we the, the scalp tickets. When people resell tickets, um, let's say, let's call it a resale, not scalping, but scamming. No, no, no, just like no, but we the tickets like we would get like five dollar student tickets and I remember some of the like 10 10, sometimes three, four hundred dollars, five hundred dollars a ticket for the college football games.
Speaker 2:Literally, people, people, people would call us like they I don't know where they got my number from. They would send sms's at the time on the old nokia phones damn bro five three the most I made was the most we made because we had one year 300 300.
Speaker 1:Don't incriminate yourself 300 during that time is a lot of fucking money.
Speaker 3:For $5 tickets. That is scamming on a whole different level.
Speaker 2:No, but we had 10 seats next to each other because we all went to buy tickets together on the 40-yard line in the student section, I think, row 10 or 11. So very, very close to the field, and you have all these guys on the street selling tickets and I would be on the street right next to a man and I'm like they got those tickets, but I got these.
Speaker 2:And it's funny because the guys would get mad at me because people come to me and they would buy from me and not from them. And then I would buy, we would sell the tickets. I remember that exact time that we sold the tickets for 500. I tell the guy, okay, how much, how much you're selling your tickets for now? And he's like 100. I'm like nah man, too expensive, too expensive. And then I'll wait till the game starts. And I think we bought the tickets for like 20 bucks each.
Speaker 3:So so we netted like like each like over 450 that is such an American thing though. Yeah, but Because my friends tell me they do this with concerts. Uh-huh, and we did it with football games. Y'all are scammers. Why?
Speaker 2:That is scamming. What about all the resale websites that do it?
Speaker 3:Scamming. Don't look at me, y'all are scammers.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I, oh my god, anybody, because they all got into the, they all got into the event, paying what price?
Speaker 3:yeah, this is the listen. It's called you you pay.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, now I'm gonna open the door. He doesn't want it.
Speaker 1:You pay, you pay your price for bitcoin, who bitcoin is based on, but also yeah, if the man goes up, if the band goes up, it's the man. It's the man. It's like how, how close you want to be to the fuel Very close Cool. It's 500 bucks, fuck. All right, cool. Supply and demand.
Speaker 3:You'd have $5 to 300?. Stop, that is scamming.
Speaker 1:If somebody came up, to you like hey Shark.
Speaker 3:I got 500 bucks.
Speaker 1:Y'all messing with the bullshit.
Speaker 2:If somebody comes up to you right now and says I'll give you a thousand, just because you accept it doesn't mean it's not scamming. The word nice, I'll give you a thousand dollars. Stop trying to like Okay, I'll give you a thousand dollars. Listen, that shit works for white people, not with my black ass Y'all.
Speaker 3:That was cute. Y'all want y'all to try it. I know what a scammer is. That's scamming.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yes, alright, then you're a scammer too. I'll scam. Yeah, I know I'll own up to it. Y'all don't wanna own it. That's a good argument. Y'all don't own it. Scam like how much? You bought it for 20 bucks, but it's a thousand.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you, and I'll tell you too. I'm like look, these are actually from Shein.
Speaker 1:They were like nine dollars so it's up to rely when you really want something, you pay the price for it.
Speaker 3:No, I just give people. That's why I keep getting blessings. No, you have to always give, always never, stop giving, that's the more you give.
Speaker 2:The more you give, the more you'll get man, that's the universe piece I'm talking about. You see, y'all gonna take that lyric right there.
Speaker 3:Okay, shout out to zacky, by the way, yeah yeah, because you the number one fan. You don't even want to give Zach a shout out. Y'all want to talk about Atia Like what Actually Zach can watch this episode because there's not that many curse words.
Speaker 1:We did it for Zach. There's not that many.
Speaker 2:Now we understand why he did it.
Speaker 3:There's not that many, but you know what I hey pal, what do you do on YouTube? I do he'll probably.
Speaker 1:He sees you he sees you guys on YouTube he sees the.
Speaker 2:No, he doesn't watch the show, but he sees the thumbnail he sees the thumbnail.
Speaker 3:Hey pal, he thought it was that, but no, because when you when you turn on a smart TV you're, you're, you're also subscribed we had 11,000 today on.
Speaker 1:Facebook nice, it's a little. Come through a little milestone almost at 5,000 on YouTube. It's not easy to grow on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Youtube is fucking hard no, hey, dude Ami, you know what the funny thing is? I do my positive quotes every morning, right, and the algorithm doesn't like that stuff anymore. Man, I used to get like three, four hundred, five hundred six hundred views. Now I got like 60. But you know, but the funny thing is is that of those, I know that there's the same people and they actually like talk to you about oh, man, I really needed this and that's that's the best thing for me is that that, that one person doing that.
Speaker 3:One person, you're good, good.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, the one, yeah there's actually a couple of people that they're like hey, I wake up and in the morning I just go to your Instagram and just see the quotes that you saw, and sometimes you just hit home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because it's consistent as well.
Speaker 1:Do you post it on your personal or do you put it on a page? No, on my personal. On, bro. I have the same shit with tori. I'm gonna because that same shit. I post something. Yeah, it gets x amount of views on my story post something with tori fucking three thousand.
Speaker 2:I'm like, and she's like you should post more often. I'm like bitch, what the fuck? No, I can't relate to y'all though no, no no I gotta now I'm using tori to get more views on my story yeah, yeah, if I, if I want to mess up the algorithm, I post up with zach, yeah he's like oh, you're sharing, I just need to view this. I need to start posting the stuff from carnaval man, he was such a trip in carnaval yeah, you're telling me earlier today he's he's a trip man he's, definitely he's definitely a good mix of of his mom and me, because we're both outgoing people but, his dancing.
Speaker 3:It's so much fun to watch me having a blast.
Speaker 2:That's why I mean it's funny, he dances like me, like I have the, like my type of moves? No, I'm not gonna dance, but he dances like I do I do something with my arms, I do something with my arms, and he does the same man and it's so funny to see like you see yourself like as a little kid there exactly the thing is dude.
Speaker 1:Like kids nowadays, they don't care about consequences no consequences they don't care about your opinion, what you think no because we're older, we have like a bigger conscience.
Speaker 3:We're like I'm sorry, sorry, sorry for saying the bad after weekend.
Speaker 2:There's going to be so many opinions about some pictures that are going to come out or that came out yesterday. Like me with my ex, we're both in the parade with our son.
Speaker 1:It's called co-parenting.
Speaker 3:Again even if you want to get back with your ex, it's not that who gives a? Fuck.
Speaker 1:Mind your business.
Speaker 3:I understand, but I mean who like a little couple.
Speaker 2:People said come back, come back of the year. No, no, we're better. We're better how we are now than we used to be, so it's it's much more healthy.
Speaker 2:Our relationship is much more healthy you know that, and that's for me the important thing is, is that that, first of all, I'm happy and that my son is happy, so, and and that she's also in his life, which he is also. You know, but I, we had a great time. Her and I were laughing the whole time. We're walking next to each other, like she goes to her friends, I go to mine, we take pictures, a couple of them together, a couple of them alone, you're just friends.
Speaker 1:You're just friends with a kid, like it is what it is.
Speaker 2:Man, mind your business see, and and the funny thing is the most opinionated people are the ones that don't have kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or they have their, they don't have their shit together, like, like, like mind you and yours exactly.
Speaker 3:How about that?
Speaker 1:Eric, I want to say thanks for coming on the show. Hey, so just keep it quick, very, because it's it's politics related okay like you kind of had like a part of whatever's coming up to go for the show, whatever. Is there anything you can talk about in terms of like, does it seem like? Hmm, this could work?
Speaker 2:I don't have a plan yet. No.
Speaker 1:It's new, at least do you have a plan, or do you have a plan?
Speaker 2:No, when I sat with Futuro before the elections, they had a plan. Afp had their 10 points, but a concrete plan not yet, and I think that's why they're sitting with all these stakeholders also. The only thing I'm afraid of there is that you're going to get a thousand opinions and everybody has something that's important right. So we're advocating, for example, for labor. We want labor to become more agile on the island. These are things that I'm talking, for example, the International Labor Organization also. How do we make it more agile on this island? You know, I think important things are going to be e-government. The red tape Stuff has to get out quicker man Dude, what the fuck Start a business.
Speaker 1:you have to wait like two months.
Speaker 2:But also we have to start help educating the public servants Also. The amtanar again start help educating the public servants also. The amtenar again in English is public servants, you're there to help the public.
Speaker 2:Yes, help the public. So how do we work together to get there right? If it's more digitalization, start implementing plans for the mindset to change that. Instead of inputting data, you get the data, you analyze it and then you have more time to help the people. Things will go quicker. So there's a lot of things that we talk about. I do have hope for the government to to sit. Bring you know, bring change. Uh, I think we need change it. It is something that it's not only us saying it, it's everybody wants something. I think the voters also made their voice heard. And then you have the issue that there's a lot of small parties.
Speaker 2:This is something that I discussed with them also in the past that you have a lot of small parties, and this time you saw the effect. You had six recitos right, I thought you were going to give me a high.
Speaker 3:You're giving me. I thought you were gonna give me high five. Leave me hanging too, man. No, no, no, no. I have a question. That's why I don't want to forget no, but, but that's that's.
Speaker 2:I do think that that they have a long way ahead. Um, and the longer it takes you know, I think I think speed and patrick said it the longer it takes the other, the other, the demissionary now are getting more power and ammunition see this. You see that they're they're underhandling the raft, for example. For us, the rafters is important, um, for me, business-wise, it's important to see that you know the less you have to pay, less interest. Right, you know there's, there's ways that we can get maybe even less, but again, these are strategies.
Speaker 1:See it's strategies that that you know there's there's ways that we can get, maybe even less, but again, these are strategies.
Speaker 2:See it's strategies that that you know we try to speak also to the government about. But again, government is not business and business isn't government. That's something that you have to learn like. The only way you learn that is is by sitting talking with them, hearing also what they say. Listen to what they say, but from the other side, from our side also what they see. Listen to what they see, but from the other side, from our side also. We want them to listen more and be involved from the beginning. A lot of times when we get involved, it's like at the end you get okay, we want your opinion on some type of law that comes out.
Speaker 2:But okay, the law's drafted.
Speaker 1:How did you get here? You should have told me when you started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how did you get here? You know we have all the experts. You have experts too, but then you're bipartisan.
Speaker 1:No, they have experts who are like book experts, not actual practical business owners.
Speaker 2:Again, this is something that we said before too. You know you can bring a law, but if you pay somebody, an expert, to do the work, we batal bapal. So if you want the law to say X, it'll say X, but maybe Y is where you need to go. So these are the things that and I do feel that, speaking with them, that they were more open. I know AfriPay is very open for collaboration, dialogo, social, that kind of stuff. We also told them okay, dialogo is interesting, but we want implementation. Let's not talk about it, let's implement.
Speaker 1:It seems like they're very good at it, just talking about it, not like whatever.
Speaker 2:but cool, but politics, it's a whole other game. Dude, it is a whole other game. It's something that I have to learn. Advocacy is sometimes frustrating because it's a very slow process. Business is quick and advocacy changing laws on this island, except for when it's taxes.
Speaker 3:What was?
Speaker 1:your question. It's okay, we can skip it, sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, it's okay.
Speaker 1:All right, hadik, thank you for coming on the show. We'll miss you Actually. Hazi so we'll see your membership application pretty soon. Yeah, well, it's 400 a year, so it seems like I can do it.
Speaker 2:I tell everybody, do it when it's. I've had people come and they literally the next day they come to ATI and I've told them you know, invest in your business first Build it up.
Speaker 1:you know, I mean it's 40 florins, but still that 40 florins is going to pay something else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because they see it then that they want to be part of the networking, that kind of stuff. But our networking events, if it's not a member only event, we do a lot of member only stuff, but the open, like the mixers and stuff, are always open for everybody.
Speaker 1:so okay, that's good to know.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so you don't have to, you can come try it out first and then see when's your next big event?
Speaker 2:uh, this year we have a lot of events. The next business mixer is going to be may. Um, this year we're going to have a master class series that we're going to do called creating the fearless organization, where we're going to talk about mindset generations. In may, we're going to talk about cyber security, ai and marketing ethics so ethics of ai, ethics of cyber security and marketing. And then in september, we're planning a corporate social responsibility and corporate governance master class, and these are all things that we spoke about in in the past. At leader of September, we're planning a corporate social responsibility and corporate governance masterclass, and these are all things that we spoke about in the past at Lidera, the corporate event. This year we're doing Expo Atia. So imagine like how Expo Cas was.
Speaker 2:We're doing something like that where all the members can showcase themselves and their business and their business, so we're selling you the real estate, you dress up your booths and what we want to do is, during the day it's going to be a career fair and job fair, where people can come in, they can learn about different, different businesses. Um, if you have your, your resume ready, come give that, and then at night we're doing a like a vip event, a big business mixer, where the people can come in with some entertainment.
Speaker 2:I believe you have to have the balance there too, so music a little bit music, not not a party, but some music in the background, you know make it, yeah, make fun make, do fun um, have some, you know some cocktails and stuff in there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we're we're.
Speaker 2:It's always. It's always since we started this. We have to make business fun. You know, in the past we got like atanir and stuff the best deals used to go down in the strip club.
Speaker 3:So yeah, that's what we say like the deals.
Speaker 2:The deals go down in social events and the the paperwork gets signed in a boardroom, so that's that's why it's important to do networking is definitely something that any entrepreneur needs to invest their time in and go to these events it doesn't have to be at the event. Go to any. Go to our competitors.
Speaker 2:Also go to their events, because that's where you meet all people, yeah all events, even if you go to like, like kiwanis parties, that kind of stuff, you go there, you get one. You pay the, the money, the, the price they ask if you get one client out of it.
Speaker 1:You're getting your money back, and now you get 10 5.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so that that's so. That's a little at. And then no leader. Leader this year, um, corporate event we have planned in november, but we will see there's a big one right. The 80 years, the 80, oh yeah, the. The expo is leading up to the 80th anniversary. The 80th anniversary will be a celebration for the members but, that's where we're inviting people from the ilos, international labor organization. We're inviting the atia from colombia to come um.
Speaker 2:So that's like the more protocol got it got event that we have to do, of course, um, but then, yeah, hopefully some party, some some.
Speaker 1:Well, we have time to plan stuff let me know for the parties we're there the business mixer is always a like, not a party, but um.
Speaker 2:The corporate event is where we try to mix like. Part of it is learning, growth, business growth, and then part of it is is mingling networking.
Speaker 1:That's like you said. That's what deals happen yeah, aruba's largest networking event.
Speaker 3:That's the tag for that par.
Speaker 1:All right, guys, if you learned something today if you want a business, look up atia. If you want to join them, follow us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go keep on instagram atia aruba. Um. Atia aruba is the instagram, I think. And what's your personal? Mine is haddock underscore enriquez so if you want, you know advice on books text heru anything, anything, your name is a river river big rivo, big rivo anything I'm always open, like I've had last week somebody come and asked me about my, my, my weight loss and that kind of stuff too I'm always open to to speak anything, anything and everything. Business-wise, not business personal, not a psychologist don't pay psychologist, go to him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, guys, um, but once again, thanks for watching and um, call us, subscribe, leave a comment. Like the video, do everything um biyama's uh curacao season starts next week, so it's gonna be fun 13 freaking episodes, so we'll see you next time, peace.