Introvert to International Speaker: Oscar Garcia on Empowerment and Self-Belief

Join us as we explore what it means to lead with authenticity and resilience through the lens of Oscar Garcia's career. As a first-generation program creator and proud Latinx entrepreneur, Oscar's narrative provides valuable lessons on the significance of hard work, cultural identity, and community support. Listen in as we discuss the pivotal moments in his life, his path to becoming an international speaker, and his mission to empower others by sharing the lessons he learned from his diverse experiences.

Co-produced by the Warrior Entrepreneurship and Innovation program and the Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing at Stanislaus State. The E&I Studio is edited and recorded in the KCSS studios on the campus of Stanislaus State.
The views expressed by guests on this podcast are not necessarily those of the University.

Chapters

• 2:03 Oscar's Early Life and Family Background
• 14:12 Supporting Student Success and Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
• 27:31 Lessons from being a small business owner
• 39:07 Redefining Innovation for First-Generation Students
• 48:53 Leadership and Influence
• 1:07:01 The Underdog Dynamic and Childhood Experiences
• 1:19:01 Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking
• 1:27:48 Complete the Sentence
• 1:41:12 Random Association
• 1:42:25 The 11

Transcript

0:01

Oscar Garcia, CEO of Aspira Consulting, is a one off and a real one. He is a first gen program creator, devoted community advocate, successful international speaker, and entrepreneur, and proud Latinx. When I had the opportunity to finally meet him through business, social media, I wondered how long it would take me to discern the person from the Persona. Oscar self identifies as an introvert. However, when you see his many talks online and witness his Persona in action, you take these data and assume that there has to be some degree of carefully manicured image. When I saw him speak online, I figured, this guy can't be an introvert. How does he manage to be so natural and at home in front of so many people? What I discovered from our first conversation is that Oscar Garcia is one of the most genuine human beings I've ever met. It's all real. His drive, passion, his need to send the elevator down, pay it forward, pass the torch, pass the baton. Whichever metaphor you wish to apply to, it is so much less what he does than who he is. This week, we welcome Oscar Garcia, international speaker, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, triumphador, whom I have been a fan of for quite some time on LinkedIn, a place that I live outside of Stan State. Welcome, Oscar, to the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Studio. Pablo, muchimos Gracias. Thank you very much for the invitation. And I've been looking forward to. To this podcast here. And I got to tell you, you and your team are organized. Cause when I do mine, I just go off the feet of my pants and I got your questions and all that. I'm like, this man is organized. I love it. I won a thousand copies of Oscar saying that so that I can show everyone I know. See, see, there is a method here, right? We try to stay. Thank you so much, Oscar. Gracias. Thank you so much for your kind words. We, we try to keep things as organized as we can, but we focus on the stories, and your story is so compelling. So to that, your value or the value you place on community and the places that we come from as Latinos, Latinx is such a huge part of what you do. Can you tell me about the community in which you grew up and what from that place is imprinted in your DNA? Yeah, so, absolutely. So I was born in southern California. At the time, my parents were migrant workers down in the Coachella Valley Palm Springs area. And a month after I was born, we returned back to Mexico to Zacatecas, which is where my parents are from. Lived there until I was five years old. And during those first five years of my life, my dad washing carnicero. He was a butcher. Had his own butcher business in the Mercado. And my mom also had her own poultry business, also selling chicharrones. And so I spent my first five years of life, literally, I'm a little tricycle, riding up and down the Mercado, you know, hanging out with the other kids that are there and just knowing the other vendors and so forth. And then about when I was five, my parents decided that for financial reasons, they wanted to return to the US, to California, work for about a year, save money, and then return back to Mexico. But that never happened. We came here, my parents, for a few months, also continue to work again as migrant workers, following the different crops. I remember waking up at, gosh, I don't know, maybe four or five in the morning, getting ready with my parents and then going off to the fields. And of course my parents are working and I'm playing in the fields with the other kids that are hanging out there. And I actually had a blast. I mean, who doesn't want to play as a kid, playing with Kurt, you know, all day long, right? Right. And then, and then eventually we ended up moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. My mom's sister, my aunt, encouraged my parents to move up here because, again, better jobs and so forth. My dad in the Bay Area worked for many years as a dishwasher. My mom worked in the hotels, in housekeeping. So, yeah, so I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area before going off to college. And when I look back, it's really interesting because a lot of you asked me in terms of the DNA and what can I remember, reflect on? It's really over the last probably ten years that I've done a lot of self reflection and looking back, right, as they're like, wow, why do I think, why do I believe? Why do I do? Or how can I translate that experience into something positive? And really, when I look back at my childhood, I really look back at resilience. Knowing how or learning eventually not knowing, but eventually learning how to navigate to culture. Two worlds, you know? Because prior to coming to the US, when I was five years old, I mean, hey, all I knew was Mexico. That's all I knew, right? Like, even though I was born in the US mexican area, but all I knew was Mexico. And then all of a sudden, you come. We come to the US, and it's like, uh, what? Like, what's peanut butter and jelly like? Right, right. Like, I'm eating bean tacos, you know, and that, like, peanut butter and jelly was like, I've never had it. And so it was also learning, like I said, how to navigate those two cultures. And I'll get into a little more here about that and many other things that I reflect back on how they have served me now in both my personal journey and my professional career as positive assets. And I can relate a lot to that, too. The traversing of two communities, as it were. The community that you joined, the community from which you come. Yes. Did the home come to be Mexico in the United States from your perspective as a child? So the short answer is yes. Yes. And I grew up in a household where my father was very adamant in that my brother and I, my younger brother and I speak Spanish at home. Even when we would, my brother and I would talk to each other at home, it was, it needed to be in Spanish. And I grew up in a household, too, where, you know, listening to what now we call the, you know, the. The music. Epoca de oro, Javier Solis, Lola Veltre. Right. Like, you know, that type of music. I grew up in that. And just the food. I mean, my mom always had homemade chili at the table. It's like you had the salt shaker and you had homemade Chile there at the table, and tortilla. And so, yes, my home was Mexico Mexicano, but there were some challenges with that, because when I left my home to go to school or as I grew older, eventually into the workforce, it was like putting on this mask and taking it off in La Casa. And then I go to school, the workforce, and now I have to acculturate american culture and so forth. In the evolution of the northern California Latinx business community, can you see parallelisms between that? Sort of having to acculturate yourself, having to don that other guys in order to traverse. Did you see a lot of that impact, the evolution of the Latinx business community in the Bay Area? I have seen it over time, impacted, and ive seen some changes to it. So when we first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and this is back in 75, there were not a lot of mexican, at least not at, we lived in the peninsula, to be more specific, Mount View, which is now Google headquarters. Okay. They own, like, half a mountain view. Okay. Silicon Valley, capital of the world and all that. But back then, Mountain View was a very still a blue collar community, but there weren't a lot of Mexicanos. If we wanted to go buy tortillas or mexican food, we had a drive down to San Jose. That's where, you know, the closest mexican supermarket. And then, of course, over the years, as immigration has increased and has changed and so forth, right, more Mexicanos, Salvadores, colombianos, etc. Etcetera, right. Moving into the Bay area, the peninsula, and other communities, from. From a career, business standpoint, same thing. I mean, it's the natural, right? The more numbers you have, the more people, Latinos begin to develop small businesses. You begin to see more of them in the professional setting. Although don't get me wrong, folks, okay? Those of you listening, when I say more, I'm not talking about that. We are all sudden, like, we're like 50% in tech because we're not. Okay? But now you begin to see two of us in tech instead of just one. Okay? Right. So, yes, I have seen that evolution, those changes here in the Bay Area. And the peninsula, in your travels, when you look at a region like the central California Valley and bringing the Central Valley and the Bay area and put them together, what parallels do you see? What similarities, differences do you see in terms of evolution? What can we learn about our evolving business community? One, some similarities is obviously more Latinos. Definitely. Okay. I definitely see a lot more Latinos in the Central Valley. It's really interesting because while we still have a long ways to go in terms of equity, education attainment, career pay, etcetera, and so forth, well, let me say it this way. With the Bay Area has been experiencing what I experienced in terms of a small number of Latinos, you know, being in certain areas, whether it's education, whether it's in the professional, and now, at least here in the Bay Area, you see a little more than that. Like, right. What I'm seeing in the Central Valley is almost like that same journey where you starting to see a lot more Latinos in the Central Valley, but you're also not seeing a lot of Latinos in positions of leadership, positions of influence, et cetera, and so forth. I'm also seeing some of the challenges of how school districts or communities are trying to adapt and adjust to serve the latino community, whether it's the students, etcetera, business community. I'm seeing that. And whereas I saw those things maybe 2025 years ago here in the Bay Area, it's like I'm seeing those things happen now in the Central Valley. Right. To trying to figure out, like, okay, how can we, you know, we have a lot more Latinos here. What can we do to serve them? I see that in higher education too, as well. I mean, you know, your university, look at UC Merced too, as well. And some of these other universities that are adapting and trying to figure out a, there's more, more Latinos here. What can we do again to better serve them? Right? Absolutely. And a lot of it also, I mean, I see it in the classroom when I teach. It's a lot of the stuff that you touch upon in your practice with ceilings, that perceived ceilings of success for individuals will have students say, this is excellent work. What are your plans for graduate school? And then sort of the automatic, especially within our community, is this sort of graduate school. I mean, that's, is that for me type of thing, this, this quality work, it's almost, it's almost like a ceiling that exists and persists that sort of stops that. How do we, how do we address this with our students? So it's a great question. So there's some, some ways that I feel, because I've experienced it myself in my own journey. So, first of all, I think we need to step back and we need to understand that there is three levels of a journey. What do I mean by that? There is the survival level where you got to put food on the table and I mean, the basic necessities of life that we need. Then there is the next level is the success. You graduated maybe from college, you have your ba, and now you're working at a maybe white collar job, and you started earning a little more income. You started having more things that maybe your parents didn't have, you didn't have when you were younger. And then that third level is significance. When your needs are met and you've identified what your purpose in life is and now you're out there serving that greater purpose, it's like you're working towards that legacy. So if we understand those three levels and where students are at the level, then, one, we can better help them move up to that next level. And so, for example, if you have a student who has graduated, got their ba, and now they don't see themselves into grad school, okay, what can we do? What are some things that we can do? Number one, is getting around other people that they can relate to. Expose them, okay? Expose them to other folks that are at that level. And here's the thing. Yes, ideally, if it's other Latinos and so forth, of course that's ideal, of course. But just anyone that is achieved that level of success of that next area. Why? Because it's also about just in general, seeing people's and hearing people's stories. Listen, I don't just love just listening to other latino success stories and trials and tribulations there's other non Latinos that I'm like, man, they went through all that crap. I can do that too, right? Because there's this common thread of just trials and tribulations, regardless of whether you have the same ethnicity or culture, et cetera and so forth. The other thing too, is, Suzanne, that I think we need to do is helping students believe in themselves. Helping students believe in themselves. And see, sometimes we as educators, we as professionals, or we as mentors, we look at students through our own level of accomplishment and we put a lid then on that student's potential. Just because I can't run the 100 meters in under, you know, 10 seconds, it doesn't mean that I should hold you back, Pablo, if that's your goal. In fact, I'm going to do whatever I can to get you around some non lazy oscars that can help you, train you, to get you there. But see, sometimes as mentors, educators, professionals, we look at them and it's like we try to protect students from failure. Hmm, okay, I can see that. And because, my gosh, I don't want you to fail. Are you freaking kidding me? If my mother would have worried about La media apprehending her, you and I would not be here on the podcast. That's right, correct, correct. Same, same. I mean, I mean, I just like to think of things that very practical, very simplistic way sometimes the more education we have, the more street dumb we are. Oh, yeah, no, I agree with you. I agree with you. We become, what's that expression? You're in a place for so long, you sort of become that place. You start the further from the neighborhood you get. You know what I mean? Exactly, exactly. You know, you stop eating. I stopped eating that chile and all of a sudden, ketchup. Ten years later, down the road, ketchup is spicy. And I see that so much of it, I think that in terms of you touched upon migration, is there something that second generation, third generation and so on, Latinx students, people can learn about? Respectfully, about legacy, like you mentioned, in terms of migration and how it's a universal thing. I mean, we're all new to some place, to some job at some place in our lives, right? And that goes for everybody. Yes. So I believe here, first of all, let me address something here. When you talk about like 2nd, 3rd generation, is that I think sometimes the next and further generations that you get from, you know, the immigrant, I think sometimes we begin to lose or forget the importance of that struggle. It's almost kind of like let me use the butterfly metaphor here. So when you have a caterpillar that is metamorphing into this beautiful butterfly, right? It's in a cocoon, and you look at that caterpillar as it's transformed into that butterfly, and it gets to the point where it begins to move its wings, and you see it wiggling inside that cocoon, trying to break free. If you and I were to cut that cocoon to make it easier for the butterfly to get out of the cocoon, we actually would kill the butterfly. Why? Because it's in the struggle of that butterfly breaking free from cocoon that is strengthening its wings. It's strengthening in that struggle to try to break free so that once it is free, the wings are strong enough to be able to fly. And so what I believe is that we sometimes get into this idea of, like, I want to make things easier for my kids because I don't want them to struggle. So therefore, I'm going to do this. This is a nap. And this, and then the third generation, as well, the fourth generation, the fifth year. And what happens now is those wings are not as strong. And I can see that. And it's a balance here, too, because I'm also not saying, like, make life tough for everyone. Absolutely not. Like, I do want to make my life better for my kids. Okay, I do. But at the same time, I want my kids to see the struggle that my parents went through to understand it, to see the struggles as an entrepreneur that I'm going through. Or, you know, my dad would say, let's chingas ponemos, aquinas unidos. Right? Like, I want them to see that struggle, because the more that struggle stays in, the more my kids can be, like, appreciate and continue to learn. It's. It's like I'm passing on that. That seed, not just of a legacy, but that seed of resilience, that seed of sisa Puede, that seed of soy chingon. Soy chingona. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I think we're just an opinion. We're pretty unique. I think all cultures honor their legacies and their histories beautifully. What's sort of unique to us, which I can only speak intelligently to ours, Latinos in general, we do value that legacy. So, like, for example, we know that our grandmother, in my case, my grandmother worked as a seamstress in the. In the Carmen district in New York, you know, is where we came through so that we honor that really, really well. Is there a way to balance the honoring of the legacy and the struggle while still saying, okay, these are the shoulders upon which you will stand if you choose to. Don't forget to struggle. Yours will be different. Yours will be new. Yeah. No. So, first of all, listen, I stopped trying to balance things. I'm going to tell you something. The word balance is a gringo terminology to make us feel good for all the other shit we don't do at home. Okay? Because the reality is, can you imagine telling a student during finals, don't study too hard, don't pull all nighters you need to ban. You wouldn't tell them that, right? Because there's a time and a place when you need to go all out, and then there's a time and a place when we need to step back and chill like a villain on the beach. And you've seen my pictures on LinkedIn. Okay? I'm chilling. I'm chilling like a villain on the beach. So the answer to your question to come back is, I don't think it's about balancing that honor and the struggle, but it's more about knowing. It's like a tool belt. It's knowing when to pull out the soyorguyoso. I'm proud to be Mexicano. And then there's a time when it's like, I need to shut my mouth up and hear, Pablo, honor your culture. Sure. Okay. There's a time when I need to come in and be authentic. Like you see me on LinkedIn. You said it at the very beginning, like, this is Oscar Garcia. Yeah. Because I got freaking tired of trying to balance shit. Okay, sure, sure. Is blending a better term than balancing it? Is it? It's discernment. It's discernment. Okay? That's what I think. It's more of discernment. And it goes back to what I just said earlier. You know how sometimes we hear people say, you got to speak up, you got to speak up. Yeah, but like I said earlier, sometimes you need to shut your mouth up and listen. And knowing. Having discernment when I need to advocate, like, I'll give an example. A few years back, before the pandemic, okay, I was at my brother's house and had a party, you know, and all that type of stuff. And he invited his neighbors and my cousin in law, who doesn't speak English very well, he's here in the US and stuff like that. And, you know, when he drinks, he gets a little happy, you know, kind of that happy drunk or whatever. And his English. Festive. Yeah, it's. His English is he speaks with a very heavy english accent. And my brother neighbor was at the party, a white woman, and she proceeded to tell him that she didn't understand him and that he needs to speak better English. I'm shaking my head now. Exactly. You know what? No, I was not cordial. I was not anything. I was like, no, we are not going to go down this path here, okay? And I said some stuff to the lady, okay. Very forcefully because that was a trigger for me. That reminded me of people making fun of me when I was young. Oh, yeah. Speaking English, my parents and other folks that you and I know. Okay. Yeah, that's what I said. Like, having that discernment when, like, no, you know what? The hoops are coming up. That's correct. No, you're absolutely right. There's, there's moments and moments. And isn't it interesting how as we evolve, we start to develop that sense of discernment? Okay, you know what, I know which battles to pick and which ones not to. We come out of the gate in our twenties and it's like, okay, yeah, that's cool. You know what I mean? And then later on, it's like, yeah, it's not a hill. And then passing on to your students, like, that is not a hill you want to die on. Exactly this. Okay, okay, I'm with you, and I will support you. So much of it is learning. What does the term lifelong learning mean to you? Oh, you know, to me, what that means is having a hunger for knowledge, then applying that knowledge. You have to be hungry for it. And then you also have to apply that knowledge. Because I love, like, I mean, I told you at the very beginning how organized you are with your, with your podcast. Like, I learned something from you. Great, Franklin. Just the way you sent me the format and everything. I even told my daughter, right? And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I love this guy. Like, I seriously, like, if we hadn't, if we didn't even have this podcast, just by you getting that email from you with that one pager, I learned something from you. That's so kind of you, but it's. Because I'm hungry for that knowledge. But second part to that, Pablo, and this is where many of us dropped the ball. We don't apply the knowledge. And you ever hear that, right? That, that phrase, knowledge is power. Knowledge is power. I'm like, that's not true. Applying knowledge is power. Okay, brilliant. My parents were diabetic. I know I shouldn't be eating pandulce, but guess what? I do. Esquanchas buenos. I mean, what are you gonna, what are you, what are you gonna. Yeah, you know what I mean. You just brought up another wonderful point, and I appreciate the compliment. The staying hungry for knowledge, being open to these things in spaces where, at least in my experience, when I see Latino Latinx entrepreneurs, there's a sense of certainty in craft in terms of, if I'm meat cutter, if I know meat, poultry, supermarkets, what have you, there are things that I know. These are things that I brought through legacy from my home country. These are things that I practiced here, and now I'm ready to do my own thing now. Also, at the same time, there's a lot of learning that we do as we become small business owners. And your story, we're going to go into how wonderfully diverse and even eclectic I would say your career has been. What would you say has been the most powerful learning experience that you've had as a small business owner when you were starting out? One of the most powerful learning experiences for me has been that activity beats perfection. Because before I used to get ideas and I would analyze them, I would talk to a bunch of people, I would talk to experts, and I would germinate that idea in my mind. How can I do this? How can I? What about this? What about that? And then life happened. My parents got sick, my kids got sick. You know, I got laid off from my job, you know, the things that just took my focus away from that idea, because obviously I'm having to attend the immediate right, getting that new job, taking care of my parents, kids, etcetera and so forth. And I never did anything. That idea just got shelved. And as a business owner, I realized when I finally did take that step to go pay for my business license, I realized that it is in taking action that you oftentimes will perfect your craft. You will determine what you like to do, what you don't like to do, et cetera, and so forth. And that's why I say, like, activity beats perfection. Who or what would you say has been your greatest teacher? Los chingaso de la vida, my friend. That, for those of you who require a translation, is life's lumps, put nicely. You know, I mean, there's many people are my parents. I do talk a lot about my parents and teachers, but let me just go with what I just said. And it goes back to some of the things that I mentioned earlier, is that, I mean, I was one of those folks that followed that path right to everyone said, you know, go to college, get a good job, you know, get married, kids and all that. And then I, you know, being first gen and being my parents translator since I was five years old until they passed away. Right. Those, those cultural also influencers, aspects that also play a role in shaping who we are and our experiences and so forth. Then in my forties, got divorced, went through just a lot of personal, financial parents passing away and just, you know, just got into some relationships that I wasn't ready, I shouldn't have been into and screwed those up and so forth. And, and, and so when I look back is it's been those life experiences, those lumps that have taught me a lot of lessons about myself, some self discovery, my journey, what to do, what not to do, et cetera and so forth. And I've read it many times, I've seen it many times otherwise. Says, you know, the best experiences are seeing other people go through those challenges. So you learn from them. But it's true. But in my case, I went through many of these challenges. And so, yes, those trials and tribulations that I've been through have been my biggest help, giving me my best lessons. You learn a lot from running into something I want to talk about, something that you specialize in, which I find so powerful, so impactful, so important to any community, and that's culturally relevant learning. When did the circumstances of your life and learning align to lead you there? So when I started my company nine years ago, I started doing LinkedIn trainings, helping professionals with their LinkedIn profile, using LinkedIn for their job search, career journey, personal branding, et cetera, and so forth. And I began to, because as an introvert, we typically tend to do a lot of self evaluation, self reflection. We talk to ourselves a lot. And so I began to do a self evaluation of my workshops, like training. I'm like, wait a minute, why is it that people struggle? Because I would teach them, like, like on their about section on LinkedIn. I'm like, write it in the first person. Write it in a way where it's like a personal story of yourself, but then you combine it with your career journey and so forth. And people were having, were struggling with the personal aspect of it. They're being very mechanical. Oscar Garcia graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with the BA in chicano studies and has been working in the tech industry for twelve years. You know, like, that's very mechanical. This is great. My profile sounds just like that. Keep going, please. Go on. When you look at mine, you know, I tell you, like right off the bat, I'm an introverted international speaker. You know, growing up in the US, people made fun of me for speaking Spanish, for speaking English, and in Mexico, they make fun of me for speaking Spanish, and blah, blah, blah. Right. Like, I get very personal, but it's weaved into a professional, personal story. And so when I made that observation, I'm like, why is that? Why is that? And then all of a sudden, I'm like, ah, again, because I reflected on my own trials and tribulations, my, you know, my challenges and my career journey and so forth. I'm like, it's because no one's ever taught me and no one's ever teaching, nor have I been teaching professionals, especially minority professionals, on how to be professionally authentic. And how do you become professional authentic? Well, by focusing on culturally relevant career and leadership training. Culturally relevant, from my perspective, is helping Pablo embrace your journey, translate your journey. Excuse me? Embrace your journey, harness your cultural wealth, and translate your journey into that powerful career narrative. I see. No one ever taught me how to do that. No one ever taught me how making chorizo, coming home every Friday from UC Berkeley and helping my dad make Chorizo and then going and selling it at the San Jose flea market. No one ever taught me what were some of the positive career skills from that experience. Instead, I was embarrassed. Oh, see, I didn't want to talk about it. Yet. When I look back at that experience, I learned entrepreneurship skills. I learned work ethic prioritizing, because I had a balance whether I had to write a final study for a final come home and help my parents. Sales people skills. Yeah. Like business development, safety. No one ever, no one ever sat me down and said, oscar, let's break this down. And not only just break it down and look at the actual career leadership skills, but now let's correlate those skills to a resume, to your LinkedIn profile, to an interview. So it really is interesting because you, we sort of come to this country, and I understand why it is. Acclimation is stressed, but I don't think that people really put a lot of interest or value on. Well, when you acclimate, you invariably lose. There are things that are lost in translation, as there were. So a quel sarape that you're carrying with you is you can take the threads from this and blend it into, you know, your personal brand. Yeah. When I, when I read these things on LinkedIn, and it's funny how, like, thanks to people like you, it's almost like we've, you have forced the dialogue in the direction where you're empowering people. So I'll see profiles where I go, so you na chingona. And it's like, yes, exactly. I start clapping at the computer screens. That's it. No, no. Is it a point in time that we're in now where culturally in this country we are now saying, you know what? No more. We're going to tell our stories. We are going to empower. We are going to, like, 25 years ago, was culturally relevant training of any kind really a thing? No, no, no. And I thank God, and I always say this, that I am grateful to everyone that has gone before us for smashing and doing the things that they have done to make things better for us. Because each generation, we have ourselves and we fight and we persevere. And it's like, imagine, like, there's this tunnel, right? We're in this mountain in this tunnel, and we're like, you know, chipping away. Chipping away and clearing more of the debris. Clearing more of it. And I believe that it's because, again, of past generations that we are where we are today. And what I do see is the younger generation feeling more empowered to be, again, their authentic selves. Right. I mean, think of it like, for example, like Bat Bunny, Carol G, and some of these other, you know, Latino Latina singers and pop artists, right? The way they sing, what they sing about, et cetera and so forth. I mean, I still every once in a while hear about, oh, the artist made a crossover, but I'm hearing less of that. It's more like, forget the crossover. This is just who they are. Correct. And I love that. I love that because it's actually, it's like, that's how we should be. It's like I've listened to music from other languages and I don't understand the lyrics, but I just love the melody, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I've had so many discussions about bad Bunny, specifically with friends and family or not of puerto rican descent. I grew up in Puerto Rico. I don't know, I just love the music. I don't understand what he's saying. You know, everything he says is what I grew up with. So it's almost like having a conversation with a phone, conversation with a friend. It's what it is, you know? And so much of it is innovating in spaces that previously were not innovated in. Yeah. What should the word innovation, do you believe, mean to first gen Latinx students here in the Central Valley? Yeah. So what I think it should mean is that being comfortable and being first in playing that role of first, I see for many years. Look, first of all, in the US, generally speaking, the word first or first generation does not have a positive connotation. Typically, when we think of first generation, we think of maybe low income parents, not college educated English as a second language, etcetera. And those labels do not have a positive connotation. But as I shared sometimes in some of my trainings, I said, let me ask you a question. When we read in our history books that Neil Armstrong was the first American to set foot on the moon, how do our history books refer to him? They refer to him as a pioneer, not as a first generation moonlander. And I'm like, isn't that interesting? Because he was a first generation boomlander, but we call him history. We call him pioneer. So I'm like I said, we are pioneers. And not only reframing first Gen into pioneer as positive, but the other thing too is that, at least for me personally, I'm okay being the one that's going to open the door for others if I don't go through that door. I'm okay with that. Obviously, it's cool if I do go through the door. But we all have a role in life to play. Like in sports right now, baseball. I mean, you do not win a game, let alone the World Series, with just nine pitchers. Everyone plays their role to the best of their ability. And as a first generation, if I'm the one that's opening the door so that the next generation goes through, hallelujah. You see, sometimes we get caught up in this, like, opus. You think, okay, I have to go through the door because, hey, I'm like, I've been busting my. You know what? You know, like, I deserve it. Now we get into the me attitude. Yeah, it's so funny because we, at least in my experience, and I can only speak respectfully to my experience, we come into this country and we try to do what we can to build a better life for our families, for our children, etcetera. And when you accomplish a certain thing. I remember I had an aunt who mefelicito. She congratulated me on going after masters and actually, you know, and graduating, and she started talking about the kind of cars that I should drive at this point. And there's like a lot of cultural conscience, like, I'm sorry, I. Consumer consciousness that came into this, right? And here's the craziest part. The further I went on, the more grateful I was rather than spiking the ball, which I thought because in business school, they turn you into, you know how it goes, they turn you into, like, a chess beating. You know, you're now the viking, right? Like you are conquering. Right? So when I finished my doctorate, I felt immense gratitude. It was nothing about spiking a ball. I just thought about my grandmother. Yeah. I just thought about family. I just thought about the things, the sacrifices they did. Never into it. Did I even start thinking about first gen? You know, is it a label that we should, in your example or what you're doing, reimagine? Do you think. Do you think it's gotten that sort of. I think so, too. I think. See? So, yes, I think we should reimagine. Now, I have had some. A handful of folks that say, but Oscar, you know, we have young folks that are. They embrace that, you know, the first gen label. But do they know the alternative? Because. Because here's the thing, is that. And we get into this now, we get. We're getting into this more. The cultural. What's the word? The cultural boundaries that you and I, as Latinos, give each other versus someone that's not Latino. There's wider boundaries. Certain names that we could call, like, if you're, you know, if you and I, one latino to another, we can call ourselves certain names that outside of that, someone else, if I can call it, we punch them in the face. Okay. Yeah, that would be a problem. I forget the label, you know, or the wording for that, that we allow ourselves. And so with firsthand is, are we showing students the positive side of who they are? And now you give them the option, and therefore they're able to choose whatever it is that they want to, or maybe they want to be called something else, or are we only focusing and showing them this one side? And that's the only thing you have? Hey, listen, I used to watch. I love this show. I shouldn't be alive. Okay. That show, I shouldn't be alive. Real life stories, unfamiliar. Yeah. And I remember seeing this one episode, this small plane crashes in the african Sahara, and this one gentleman decides to venture out, travel like, I don't know how many kilometers to try to find safety. And he's going through the Sahara, obviously, no water, and he comes across a puddle of water that elephants had urinated and made it, and that's what he drank for, survival, because he had no other alternative. Got it. So we don't offer any other alternative. And all we're telling students firsthand. Firsthand. Well, of course they're going to pick. The word gets used so much, or the term, rather, gets used so much. That I think it does lose some of its power. But I can only speak to what I see as an educator on the classroom side of it. And our institution does a marvel. I think we succeed even more than we're aware, because at every graduation, and this is true, my favorite part of every graduation is when we try to control for noise. It's like in noi cornetas. You can't be in. There's no cowbells, there's no bells. None of that stuff's allowed. Get on that stage. And they start. Juanita Gutierrez. And it is absolutely gorgeous. And every time I hear it, it makes my heart sing. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, there is there that element of, you were the first, but remember, you're the first to come out of here. There were people upon whose shoulders you stood on, and that's family that made those sacrifices. I think I agree with you in the regard that, yeah, there's a way to contextualize it so that it doesn't get watered down, it doesn't lose its power, it doesn't become pejorative. You mentioned earlier the importance of application of an education. And I think that your practice, your career, the amazing things that you're doing, speak to applying so much of who you are into what you do. What do you feel that our students here would be best served to know about applying, what they learn with us? You know, how earlier you mentioned about Sarape and, like, you know, wearing it. So I think students, when you graduate from college, you are given this not only a great education, but you also have now a certain higher status in society because someone that's college educated is, you know, in our society, we value that. We, you know, more standard. And so it is a. It is. Think of it again, think of it as in, like, this powerful thread, okay? And then as a student, first gen, minority student, Latino, Latinx student, you have your cultura, your experiences, your journey as that other thread that now we can weave those two threads and all the other identities that we have because we're not just one or the other, okay? But there's so many other identities, so other experience that we can weave all those threads into such a stronger, more colorful sarape or stronger rope to hold us, to pull us up. And I also. And so I want students to not forget that it's like, bring everything that you have and be able to weave that into something stronger, something more powerful, something more lasting, because, quite frankly, that's what I've done. I mean, when I eventually got to the point when I'm like, oh, my gosh, making chorizo is powerful. Having gone to Berkeley is powerful. You know, being Latino and this and that and so forth, these are all about. I've, like, I've woven that into a business, into my identity, you know, into my identity. And it's. It's. Yeah, it's just. It's just freaking amazing, you know, when we're able to do that. So much of this involves or demands leadership. What does the word leadership mean to you? What do you believe makes a good leader? I love John Maxwell's definition of leadership. He's one of my favorite authors on leadership. And he mentions how leadership is influence. And I've said this many times that it doesn't matter whether you sit behind a mahogany desk or you clean a mahogany desk. We have the ability to influence others. And oftentimes when we think of someone that's a leader, we think of more from a position or a title. A vice president, a CEO. They're leaders, it's true. But that's based on a position or a title in society. Yet oftentimes when we look at history like Rosa Parks, back in the day, Rosa Parks was just like you and I, but she decided one day not to give up her seat to that white man. And it was the spark that started so much of the civil rights movement. And look at her, you know, today we look at how we view her. And so leadership, to me, is influence. It's a powerful statement. You can reach so many people through influence. It really isn't about title. I agree with you. What do you believe makes a good business leader versus a good community leader? Is there bifurcations or difference for you? Yeah, you know, there's a lot of similarities between the two, because a few years back, with the help of family and friends, I co founded a nonprofit that was totally volunteer based. And when you are a community leader, you have to have a strong vision, and you have to learn how to get people to buy into that vision. Those that do buy into your vision, they're volunteers. It's a volunteer army. You're not paying them or anything like that. When you have a business, you also have to have a strong vision. You also have to get buy in. Except that from a buying standpoint, it's from the standpoint of that the customer determines whether or not they buy into it. They buy into your vision with their pocketbook, with their wallet. Honestly, I actually believe that a community leader is even a stronger or can potentially be a stronger leader than a business leader for the reason that I just mentioned earlier, that as a community leader, there's no vested interest, aside from the fact that someone believes in your cause. Right. Well, the challenge is different. Yeah, it's entirely different. But the profit motive. Yeah, exactly. There's this motive here. Here I'm the community leader. It's about justice, or whatever the cause happens to be that you get people to buy into that. I remember when I ran the chamber of Commerce, and every year we did the annual art and wine festival. It was our largest fundraiser of the year. About 150,000 people went through the festival for the weekend, and we used close to 500 volunteers to help us run it. We had a small staff of total, seven of us. And I remember that first year that I was the head of the chamber of the art wine festival. That Saturday morning at

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00 a.m. when on the walkie talkie, the radio, they said, okay, everyone, it's 00 a.m. we are officially open. We had been planning the festival for nine months, and all of a sudden, it hit me, Pablo, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, we are no longer in control of this festival. Meaning, like, my staff and I, it's in the hands of the volunteers, right? And I would tell my team that it's one thing to be their boss and tell them what to do, because, right, they don't do it. You fire them. Versus having volunteers telling them what to do when they do it, because a volunteer can tell you to go take a flying leap. And some of which of it speaks to being able to inspire people to believe in things larger than themselves or their transactional aspirations, there's nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, you do a job, you expect compensation. That's how it works. But then taking that step beyond that and believing in something that's larger than yourself, your institution, your job, whatever it may be. Yes, that's the trick. If it were a trick, who's the leader who most impressed Oscar in his early years and why? In my early years, for my parents, because I saw them, of course, I worked very hard, but I saw them also bounce back from setbacks, not quit, keep persevering. And that has made a huge impact in my life, because that's one of the attributes that I have, is, like, right, resilience and not quitting. And in fact, you know, it's true. I say it jokingly, but it is true. How I'm negatively motivated, you tell me I can't yeah. You tell me I can't do something, I'm going to prove you wrong. I see the chip is still firmly upon your shoulder. Yeah, yeah. You tell me I can't do something. It's like when my high school counselor told me not to apply to Berkeley because I wasn't going to get accepted. I walked out of there. I'm like, I'm going to show her nice. So early on. Yes, it's definitely my parents. What was her just not to take any shots at the counselor? What was her rationale for not having you apply to Berkeley? She looked at the facts, and I don't blame her. It kind of goes back to an earlier conversation. We talked about how we try to protect folks. She looked at the facts. She looked at the prior incoming freshmen's grades, GPA and SAT scores. And she looked at mine and she's like, oscar, I don't think you should apply. Your grades and SAT scores aren't high enough. Okay. And again, so the facts I can see are there. Sure. It's the data. She emitted data. But this goes back to what I mentioned earlier, Pablo, is I've learned to look at peoples potential, not the facts. Right. I see that its almost like in the hiring process. Asset based approach. Asset based approach. Could you expand upon that for us, Jeff? So we can look if were hiring someone, or you meet someone for the first time and you can look at the facts. Maybe that first impression, someone shakes your hand, a student shakes your hand and you can just tell theyre not looking you in the eyes. I feel uncomfortable. I mean, the first impression is that they lack confidence. Sure. Okay. But what we don't know in that first impression is what their story is. What have they been going through? Maybe they lack confidence because at home they're constantly being verbally abused or no one's ever believed in them. Exactly. But deep down inside, they're over there trying to break out of that and they're trying to do something different to change that. And it's not until you one. It takes some time. I think it's a skill. A skill that we can learn to see the potential in someone, to go beyond the facts. That first impression, and even if it's just like, just maybe just a little sliver, something positive, something that you see in them, maybe it's just for that student, it's just like a little ember. And you see that. You happen to see that. Okay, you know how in Spanish we have the word fee horn? Like, oh my gosh, noticing everything. Like, I am very fijon in people's potential. Excellent. Like, in the hour that we've been here, I thought, I can already rattle off ten things about you already that I've seen. That's remarkable. Okay. And I'm talking about positive attitudes. Absolutely. Okay, excellent. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And so that is something, you know, to be able to see in people and students, to see that potential ride in them. That's what I mean by that asset based mindset. Because we, as humans, are naturally programmed to be negative. How do you mean? How many times do we not hear you drop something like cell phone? And I'm so dumb, I keep dropping my phone. I see, I see. Okay, you turn in something late, man. I'm always late. How about this one? Okay, TGIF. Now, maybe I think, like, oh, come on, Oscar, what does TGIF to do? I'm going to tell you what it has to do. When I was a kid, I never said TGif. I didn't even know what the heck that meant, because every day I was fricking happy, and all of a sudden, we become adults, we become professionals, we become educated, we have a corner office, and now we have happy hour. What happened? Okay, what happened to happy life? I'm just as fired up, and probably you are forewarned. Now, don't ever send me a message TGIF, because I'm just as fired up Monday as I am Friday. I'm just as pissed off Friday as I am on Monday. I do not let the calendar dictate my attitude, because every day is a blessing. Theres a lot to be said for the compartmentalization of time. You just said happy hour. Why 1 hour? If you do it right, it doesnt end up just being an hour. But I see what youre saying. There is a compartmentalization in terms of experience. And heres the crazy thing, Pablo, because as things opened up over the last year and a half, and we started going to conferences, I run into other professionals that are maybe mid level in their career. And like you and I, we follow each other on LinkedIn, and I see what they post, I see the things that they do, and I. Hey, Miguel. Hey. Oh, my gosh. Finally, we get to meet each other. This is me talking to them. Miguel. Hey, man. It's finally great that we get to meet each other. Buddy. I've been following you on LinkedIn, man. You are doing some amazing things. Thank you, Oscar. Really, really appreciate it. Miguel. I don't know, man, but I just have this feeling that one day you're going to be college president. No, no, no, Oscar, no, no, no. Don't say that. And you know what I. Tell me again. I said, miguel, if I could only let you borrow my eyes so you could see the potential that I see in you, you wouldn't have said what you just said. And that's what I mean. Pablo, about asset based approach versus deficit. The majority of us have a deficit mindset. Then we pass it on to students. We pass it on to our kids, our spouses. I've noticed that to be really cultural with our communities as well, that expression, you're still lacking a lot, or when you're saying somebody's very focused on details or whatever, the details invariably go to your errors. Do you know what I mean? Exactly this detail? And we mean well. I know we mean well. Interesting inversion to look at it from an asset based approach as opposed to a deficit. Like I said, I mean, I'm not Pollyanna here, that it's like, oh, everything's all rosy. Okay, no, no, no. But rarely does anyone ever teaches us to be fijon on the positive side of things. It's always on the negative. I'm very fortunate to be able to lead the Warrior entrepreneurship and innovation program here at Stan State. It's one of the great blessings of my career. And just to be a sense, it's an hispanic serving institution. We do our very best to serve our students here, but there's always room for improvement, I think. And I think that part of the beauty of being able to liaise with and work with the business community is that we get to see what it is to apply theory, to apply our learning at the collegiate level, to see what is really out, you know, in these streets. How do you feel that institutions in general can better serve our Latinx community in those spaces? In terms of application? Yeah. So, in entrepreneurship. Yeah, well, this is, I think, in general, and definitely in entrepreneurship, but what I believe is that many people, staff and faculty, they themselves are struggling with some of the similar struggles that students are struggling with. Imposter syndrome, lack of confidence, coming back from COVID As things have opened up, there's the pressure of getting enrollment numbers back up, et cetera and so forth. Student engagement. Staff and faculty are experiencing some of the similar things just in a different level and different experiences, but the challenges are very similar. And I tell you this from personal experience, because I do professional development training of staff and faculty, and when we do some of the exercises that we do, it's like, I oftentimes take staff and faculty back to childhood experiences, and they're like, oh, my God, I'm still, what happened to me, what was said to me, or what I experienced, I'm still carrying that weight today. They haven't healed from that pain. And I think one of the first things we need to do is as an institute, or institute institute is to provide that type of professional development training where staff and faculty themselves get healed. Because, Pablo, if you're hurting, how can you help someone else that's hurting? That's pretty tough. Yeah, that's pretty tough. Let me break your leg, and I have a broken leg and see how well you can help me. Pretty tough. Let me break your spirit in your heart. And it's even harder. For sure. Many professionals with broken spirits, they're broken in the inside. And we give them this responsibility now to go serve first gen, you know, hsi, you know, and stuff like that. It's tough. Who is Oscar Garcia? Oscar Garcia is someone that loves empowering others. So opportunities come to them. And I say that because when we feel empowered, when we are empowered now we can choose to decide to whether we want to sit at the table or whether we want to own the building and rent the tables and the chairs to others. It becomes a choice. When we feel empowered, we are in a position of whether or not okay, being invited to speak or not to speak. It's like, actually, a couple of days ago, I did this post on LinkedIn. I constantly see posts from other Latinos, especially that Latinos are underrepresented, and you name the category, and that Latinos represent 3% of those in corporate american leadership cassette. Okay, again, I agree. Those are the facts. But you know what? Oscar Garcia got tired of waiting his turn. And so I decided to create my own opportunities. I decided to create my own podcast. I decided to create my own YouTube channel. I decided to create my own events. I decided to go from introvert to international speaker, because I'm not going to wait for anyone to knock on my door and be like, ask her, do you want to be? No. Like, I'm grateful that you invited me to the. To. To your podcast. And I don't mean to send out disrespect, but you don't invite me. I'm going to sleep like a baby, just like I have every other night, for sure. And that's what I'm talking about, empowerment. And the reason why I also say, now I so opportunities come to you, because now it's that introvert side of me. Like, I don't like sales, I don't like, I feel. I know this isn't that fit. It's just me being the way how I feel. I feel like in sales, I'm begging someone to buy for me. And I thought of this. I'm like, wait a minute. There are people out there that learn how to market themselves. Obviously, they're good at what they do, but they've learned to attract opportunities. Now, I am not a LeBron James. Steph Curry, I'm not implying here with this example here, but I guarantee you that LeBron James isn't begging basketball teams to see if they want him to play on his team. I think it's the other way around. We've sort of touched upon this throughout our time together today. The underdog dynamic has always resonated with me personally. It may be part of our experience in this country. When did it come to mean to you what it means to you now in the telling of your story and of our stories in this country? Like, when did that click? Actually, when I was in elementary school, English is technically my second language. I mean, granted, I learned how to. Yeah, granted, I learned how to speak English when I was in kindergarten, but it took me a few years to be able to pronounce certain words and so forth. You know, I would. Back then, they called it ESL classes, English as a second language classes, and it would make fun of me the way I would pronounce certain english words. I felt inferior. I felt dumb being the only one to be called out by the ESL teacher or tutor that would come to my class, and I'm the only one that gets up and goes over there, you know, to get some help and so forth, all those things, right? Like, it just was wearing on me, like. And I'm like, you know what? I don't like this feeling. I want to be just as good as my other friends and peers and so forth. And so that underdog attitude of, like, I'm going to work hard so that I can be in the regular English class and etcetera and so forth started. Then, over the years, okay, it has transitioned into really embracing that underdog and also reflecting back on my parents and especially my dad, where my dad would say, oh, no, suspe sumido. Let your actions speak louder. And so I took my desire from childhood of being just as good as my peers, and then that work hard attitude, don't. Don't brag. Don't let other people know what you're doing. And then all of a sudden, before you know it's like, voila. Here we go. Right? Here we are. The success that you're able to accomplish. And that's what I do, really boast about the things that I do. And if I do, I do it in a way from a position of being grateful and do it in a way, too, where it empowers and encourage, it inspires other. But it's not about, like, oh, look at me. Look what I accomplished. But you better believe inside of me, I'm freaking competitive, dude. Okay? I am freaking competitive. Oh, yeah. It comes through, man. It comes through. It comes through. To what degree is Aspira consulting an extension of a part of you, past or present? You know what? It is a part of me. Because just think of the name Aspira. It's a spanish name word. And in English, as I tell those gringos, just change the last a to an e. And that's what it means. Aspire. Exactly. And also our logo, that v shape, okay, it's kind of going up. And so everything is the name. The logo is in alignment to what I mentioned earlier about who Oscar is. And that is I empower you. So opportunities come to you. It's me. It's all in alignment. Who I am, my values, my story. Right? Like, I share my story. Not again. Because it's about inspiring other people. Not. I don't give a rib about the accolades, okay? Accolades do not pay bills. Correct. Okay? But I share it. Because if it helps a student, a professional, or someone believe in themselves and be like, man, if that freaking ESL dude who couldn't pronounce marine world, who speaks with the list? Who says, huh? You know, when he's public speaking, if that dude can frickin make money, I'm gonna tear the shit up. Nice. What does it mean to be a Latinx leader in the current political climate? Yeah. So this is a different conversation, and I'm not gonna go down this here, but just to highlight some. So I will tell you, for me personally, Latinx, I mean, I don't care what you call me. Like, I know who Oscar Garcia is, okay? And we know this evolution. When I was in college, it was Chicano, okay? It's like my major was chicano studies, okay? Now it's Latinx, you know, and so forth. So, hey, whatever, Latinx, whatever, you know, what it means to me is to lead with my authentic heart. Because. And I put deliberately put those art and authentic there because, I mean, if you. I mean, I know we're not video recording this, but as you obviously, you can see my background image, okay? It's not the Golden Gate Bridge, not Silicon Valley. Okay? It's my parents hometown. Okay? In Mexico. All right? This is me. And so to be able to lead authentically of who Oscar Garcia is, whether I'm talking in a corporate environment, whether I'm talking to someone in Las Pulgas, or I'm in Mexico or Pakistan, Kazakhstan, wherever it is that I travel around the world like, this is Oscar Garcia, okay? But also with the heart, because it's having that compassion, that empathy, going back to what I mentioned earlier, that hunger for knowledge that, you know, I want to learn about you. Like, I want to know your story and knowing also how to connect with the person's heart first before I connect with the person intellectually in terms of. This work, the tapestry evolving through traversing so many different sectors, public, private, entrepreneurial. If you were to set the scene of a play, how would you set the stage for the inspiration that led you to starting Mesa de la Comonidad and Mountain view? Yeah. So. Oh, my God. You're thinking way back. You're thinking way back here. I gotta get to know you, man. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So here's the way I would set the scene, is you have a couple with two young kids that are working in Silicon Valley, both college graduates, and living their life, right? And to some extent, getting caught up in climbing the corporate ladder and not being as aware as to the inequalities that were happening in their own city with other Latinos. And I tell you that because that's what happened with Mesa de la Comidada, is that my kids at the time were in private school. The local school district was looking at closing one of the elementary schools that was about 90% latino students. And so on a personal level, it wasn't going to make a difference. They close to school or not? Because my kids were in private school, but they were fine. They would be fine. But I remember going to a school board meeting and just being a fly in the wall, not really even wanting to be there working all day and not really wanting to be there with my foot up against the wall, standing in the back of the auditorium, and just seeing a handful of moms, spanish speaking moms, trying to address the school board, their concerns about the school being closed. And the school board took a break from the meeting, and the moms thought that the school board meeting had ended because they didn't understand the process. They didn't understand how things worked. And it took me back to when I was a kid. And I was my parents translator at school and how my parents didn't understand the system either. And I said, wait a minute. Fast forward 30 plus years later in the school district isn't addressing the needs of now more Latinos in the school district, like by having a translator? And as we say in Spanish, I got ticked off. Oh, yeah. At the lack of change. And that became the impetus of starting Mesa de la combinida to serve as a bridge between the spanish speaking community, the school district, local government, police department, and other organizations in the city. So that's what we did. So it's advocacy. People get this twisted all the time. They think that assimilation, you know, it's a, you know, and we're done, right? No, that took, what, two generations right there. Yes. For that to even have a hope of being addressed by your work. You are a self described or self confessed introverted. I'm not going to go into the irony of you being an international speaker. However, I will go back to your experience as Silicon Valley business show host. What was it? I mean, now we've got the benefit of hindsight and looking at what you've done, but at that point in your career must have been different. What was it like going, you know what? I'm going to be the host of the show. Take me through. Yeah. So, see, in order for us to grow, we have to step out of our comfort zone. We have to stretch our comfort zone, right? Otherwise we don't grow. And I remember that show, Silicon Valley business. There were, for a few years, my board chair kept saying, oscar, you should start a show and bring business professionals, especially since you're the head of the chamber, et cetera and so forth. That was like, are you kidding me? Tv? Like, heck no. Like, again, my natural Persona is an introvert. I'm like, oh, no way. And I remember one holiday season, going to the tv station, to the holiday party, and there was two producers who had lost their host. And they came up to me and they asked me not if I wanted to be the host, but they asked me if I could connect them to potential speakers. And one thing led to another, and they're like, hey, you know, well, would you like to be the host? I'm like, I've never done this, all right? But I said to myself, you know what? This is an opportunity to venture out, get out of my comfort zone and be the host. And it was tough. I mean, it's one thing to do a podcast. You know, you can do retakes and stuff like that, whatever and over there on the show, it was just one straight live. Yeah. And it's. And it's different. You know, you got that camera in front of you that you have to be staring, pretending it's another person that you're looking at and so forth. But it was a great experience, looking back and again, stretching my comfort zone and just feeling more and more comfortable to ultimately eventually do public speaking training, etcetera and so forth. I know a good segue when I hear one. The moment you took stage as the host of the Silicon Valley business show, butterflies, I'm assuming, right? They're there, right? Okay. Yes, yes. Does any of that stick with you before or moments before you take the stage as an international keynote speaker? Oh, yeah. All the time. I tell people that the fear of public speaking doesn't go away. What I've learned to do is control the fear. Those butterflies. The butterflies are always there. They don't go away. They don't go away. They're there. They're there. But I've learned how to control that. And you know what? My brother's a police officer, and, you know, as when you share some stories, some of the things that you've gone through, that fear, we can learn to manage the fear. We can learn to manage our emotions to control them. Sure. We can't. It's not. See, I sometimes will hear people say, oh, you know, eliminate fear. Like, no, that's actually a natural human. It's an evolutionary response. Yeah, exactly. To protect us. Right. That's what kept us alive, you know, in the time of saber tooth tigers, you know? I mean. Yeah, exactly. You know, and so it is how. It's learning how to manage those feelings, that feeling of fear stage. We got to discuss this offline because I was terrified of public speaking, and my solution was like a good eighties kid, throw yourself into the middle of it and start acting. Cause that's fantitas. I was like, jump in a cold water, right? And it's funny, the butterflies still come, but for some reason, thanks to people like you, I take it a different way. So what used to be distress is now Eustress. It's like I'm just, you know what this is? You know, I'm getting the energy starts pumping up, and prior to that, I'm just dead quiet. And people think, man, the guy's going through hell here. But no, I can't wait to run my mouth in public. It's like, it's. You know what I mean? It's interesting how we have different processes. They learn so much from other speakers. But to your point right now, the other part, too, because I get asked this about, like, how do you do it? You know, the other part, too that I share with people, and oftentimes we don't talk about this, is what are your core values? What's your true north? What do you stand for? Have you identified that? Because unless we identify our true north, our core values, the things that we do are going to be much harder. We're going to quit, you know, as soon as, you know, something happens. And see, for me, I've learned to identify my core values. And there's three. Number one, I love helping other people dream bigger. Number two, I love inspiring them. And number three, serving them, helping them. If you were to put your research hat on and analyze my post on LinkedIn, you're going to see that either one or all three of those things are addressed in my LinkedIn post. And so therefore, when it comes to public speaking, I'm not thinking about how much money I'm going to get paid. I'm thinking about, can I help the person? Can I inspire them? Can I help them dream bigger? And that becomes a greater purpose than my fear. My purpose becomes larger than my fear. What drives you in terms of, because I think you may have touched on it. Maybe I'm just looking for you to expand on it selfishly. But what drives your commitment to give back to the Latino Latinx community? There were people, and there have been people in my life that gave to me, gave to my family unconditionally. And I view it as a moral responsibility to take that torch and pass it on, give it on, give it to someone else. You know, when I was at Berkeley, there was a lot of homeless people on campus, and I got desensitized to homelessness. I would walk past a homeless person and they would be asking for money. And, you know, I would ignore them. My friends would tell me, like, yeah, Oscar, dont give them any money because you dont want to contribute to their vices. Maybe theyre going to buy alcohol, drugs, cigarettes and so forth. And logically, it made sense. Then one day, ive graduated from Berkeley. Im working in downtown San Jose. Im coming back to my office, and Im walking through this courtyard in downtown San Jose, and this homeless person comes up to me and he says, excuse me, sir, can you spare some change? Without any hesitation, I reached into my wallet, and I gave them whatever it is that I had at that time. And I didn't care. Pablo, what he did with my money. I didn't care if he bought alcohol, drugs, whatever. I didn't because I gave him that gift unconditionally. And thank God that people in my life haven't judged me when they gave either to me or to others, to my family, excuse me, unconditionally, because I am not perfect. I have made many mistakes in my life. I've made people upset. I screwed people over. I've done all the mistakes that every human being out there, I'm not perfect. Yet there are people that still gave to me and my family unconditionally. And so therefore, I view it today as a moral responsibility. You do the same book or film that changed your life. Yeah, book. A film that changed my life. So for me is I go back to John Maxwell as my favorite leadership author on leadership. And a long time ago, in fact, I still carry it in my backpack. It's all worn up now, but I bought his. His Bible, the leadership Bible. And I'm not one that understands scripture and stuff like that. I couldn't even honestly quote you a passage. Okay, I'm not one of those folks. But to me, spiritual growth is something that's important combined with leadership. And so when I. Every day, I read a passage, a leadership passage from John Maxwell, leadership Bible, that has helped me tremendously in my life. And it's like, definitely food for the. Soul song you've heard that made you say, that's me, that's my life. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. There's a song. Actually, there's a couple of songs. One is Mark Anthony's vivid mi vida. Right? Live my life. I love that song. That's like my Anthem song. Because having been through what I've gone through, and, you know, especially in latino culture, we talk about or think about, like, oh, come on, de Sila Gente. What are people gonna say? Oh, yeah. And it's like, having been what I went through, I'm like, for example, I lost my dad Thanksgiving weekend. Four months later, my mother passed away. I'm so sorry. No, thank you. Thank you. And literally 30 minutes after the funeral service, some of the guests went off to work, lived their life as they should. As they should. As they should. But I thought to myself, you know what's interesting? Because they're living their life as they should. Why am I concerned about what they say, what they think? I gotta live my life. I mean, as parents. I want my kids to be happy. My parents wanted me to be happy. I wanted them to be happy. So guess what? As Mark Anthony said, you know, vivid mi vida. It's a great. The other one, Santa Cecilia version of. Oh, my gosh, I'm forgetting the name of the title, but it's the title of the song is about being mexican american and being proud of the las dos culturas. Because, listen, okay, yes, we get slack from, you know, american culture, but we also get slack from, excuse me, Mexicanos as well. Okay. As I said in my LinkedIn profile, in the US, I'm too mexican, and then Mexico, I'm too gringo. Oh, I get that all the time. When I go to Ecuador, I'm not enough of either. It's like. And I just came to. I just came to the point in my life where I'm like, screw both of you. I know who I am. Kind of like, when they go to Mexico, I'll get them the local discount. Ilo de Mexicanos. When they come to the Es, I'm going to be the best translator. There you have it. We should do this every week. Complete this sentence. Recently, I've. Recently I have taken the step to grow our team at a Speeda and bring in people that really are bought into the vision and also will help them grow professionally too, as well. Wonderful. The longer I do what I do, the more I. The longer I do what I do, the less I know. The reason I say that is earlier I mentioned about how knowledge is power. For example, as a business owner, been doing this for nine years, and Aspida has grown. You go to a different level in that journey, in that growth, and you realize that, yes, you do take things that have helped you from the past, skills, experiences and so forth, but you're now at a new level and you don't know certain things. It's like, it's like, for example, in college, you go from a freshman to a sophomore to a junior to a senior, graduate school, right, etcetera and so forth. Like, there's just new things. You're constantly realizing that you're a freshman in life almost every year. People will surprise you most often when they. When they lead with their heart. We are naturally selfish people. Naturally. I include myself naturally, right? What's in it for me in that type of stuff. But when someone genuinely reaches out without any ulterior motive and just, hey, you know what? Like you like, I am so grateful. I know it's been very hard for us to do this podcast, but from day one, when you reached out to me via LinkedIn, through email, through my assistant Sonia, and we weren't able to do it, you know, last, last semester and so forth. Not once did you make me feel like, you know what? Forget Oscar, man. I mean, like, we're going to go find someone else. But every single time, the way you communicate, it was with just kindness. And I saw that, I picked up on your tone, et cetera and so forth, and it's like, I mean, dude, you're like, this is the first time we're actually seeing each other, okay? I mean, other than that, it's been communicating, but even just a little bit that I know, like, I would not hesitate you to invite you over my house, man. You know? Hey, come over. We're gonna break some bread. Oh, let's do that. Absolutely. I'm an admirer of your work, and your work is important. It's extremely important. And I learned this from an american boss of mine years and years ago named Jerry McGuin. He said to me after I saw him get disrespected by a higher up in the organization, being the young, you know, the young 20 something system. Why do you, you're gonna. And he said to me something that I hold sacred to this day, I always extend professional courtesy. I don't always receive it, but I always extend it. So I appreciate that very much. Oscar, you will know your journey's significance. When, Mina, we're not gonna be around for this, but when they read you Lichi and, and they talk about the impact that you made that you had in their life, that's, I believe, when you'll know how much impact you had on someone, we're not going to be around. Okay. To hear that sometimes I've said that the most important speech is not the one we give, but the one that will be given at our eulogy, and what are we doing so that, that moment, people speak highly of you and the impact and the positive impact that you had in people's lives, there are. Always people who, there will always be. People that will criticize you, and that's okay. Surround yourself with the few that will uplift you and believe within you unconditionally. Life has taught me, too. Life has taught me to pursue a quality of life. My mantra. Oops, sorry, Stephanie, again, go ahead. Yeah, so life has taught me to pursue a quality of life because we oftentimes in society, and I'm talking about american society here, obviously, is we're taught to pursue an education, to pursue a good job, to get that white pick of fence, to get that nice car, all these material things. Yet in my travels, internationally, Mexico, I look at my family, for example, in Mexico and just other people that live on a fraction of what you and I live here in the US. And how happy they are. How happy, in fact, oftentimes even healthier, emotionally, etc. And so, like, seriously, like, I never hear anyone back home in Mexico, my family member talk about work life balance. Oh, no, no, no. I have. I have twin uncles, one that lives here in the US. He's been here for many years. And I. And then the other one is in Mexico. And my family were like, yeah, the uncle that's in Mexico looks younger, yet by american standards, he has a lot less than my uncle here. He's a lot happier. So that's why I said it's like quality alive. My mantra is to empower others so. Opportunities come to them. That's. I mentioned that earlier. I mean, that's what it is. You see that on my website. Again, as I mentioned earlier, when the content that I share, when I speak to someone, when I interact with someone, I want that person. After we have a communication and we engage, I want them feeling better about themselves than when we first met. Winning teaches you. Winning teaches you the sweet taste of failure, because we cannot win without failing. I once told a group, this is actually in Pakistan. I remember this, that when we enjoy the sweet taste of failure as much as we enjoy winning, we're going to kick butt, dude. Because so many of us are afraid of failing. I mean, just think of education system analyzes you for getting an f, yet you come out to Silicon Valley and they're like, in the tech world, they're like, fail fast. Wait a minute. Yep. They just taught me for like 16 years that if I get an f, I'm a failure, I'm a loser. And now you're telling me as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, that it's okay to fail and to fail fast. Which sort of answers my second question, but I'll ask you. Losing teaches you. Losing teaches us to be grateful for those that support us. Think about this in boxing. In a boxing match. Big fan. Yeah. After. Yeah. After every round, the boxes go to the corner and they have their team working on them, and it's like, hey, you can do this, do that, do this. Right there, they're cheering them on, supporting them, giving advice and so forth. And, I mean, you're getting your, you know, what kicked out of you. Okay. Each round now. Yes, ultimately, right, you have a winner. Sometimes there's a tie and so forth. But losing teaches us to appreciate those that we have in our corner and not take it for granted. Because, listen, I'm a human being, too. It hurts losing. I also need encouragement. Okay? And having someone on your side to encourage you and support you is tremendous value. Mentoring means. Mentoring means listening more with your heart, the needs of your mentee. See, as a mentor, we naturally are the ones that are in a position. Right. I'm the. I'm. I'm the mentor. You're my mentee. And so I have the wisdom. And so it's like, it flows one way, right, from me to you, from me to you, from me to you. But in order to really have a very strong mentorship relationship as a mentor, we oftentimes need to see with our heart in terms of what is it that the mentee isn't saying? Their body language, what, experience? Because oftentimes, that can be a lot more telling as to what it truly is going on, because we're naturally programmed to mask our feelings. Don't even get me started with the whole being, you know, latino males. I mean, right? I grew up with my dad. I grew up with my dad telling me, hey, Los Angeles, and the only time I saw my dad cry was when he was drunk. And then you go, listen to Vicente Fernandez, and he's singing about being at the bar because this woman left them drinking tequila, crying his eyes out of. And what's the message? To be fair, no force of stoicism can stand up to El Vice. And there's nothing that's going to stand against that. It's impossible. It's a category five hurricane. When you think you may not be. Enough when you think that you might not be enough pause and reflect out of how far you've come and then continue moving forward. Being the first means. Being the first means that someone else paid the price to help you be the first. Because that's another thing. Don't even get me started on this one. Okay? It's like, this is another gringo terminology here that I don't agree with. Okay? Solopreneur. Solopreneur. I'm like, seriously, like, solopreneur? Like, you're the only one. Like, no one created the Internet. You did. Like, you know your content. You created everything. You got to the airport. Someone manufactured that car. Maybe you took Uber. Like, right? Like, no. There's always others that have helped to come along the way, and we can't. For me, being the first means that someone paid the price for you to be there. It's like, be grateful for that. Like, do that self reflection. Be grateful for it. Yeah. Life does not roll off around you. Like, here's a good, you know, you have your, your producer that's helping you here. You're not doing it solo. Absolutely nothing. Legacy at this point in my life. Means, for me, legacy means that 100 years from now, when I'm long gone, and my great, great great grandkids stumble across some AI version of media and they hear, they see this podcast and like, Oscar Garcia. What? Oh, my gosh. That's our great, great grandfather back in 2024, you know, on this podcast. Oh, my gosh. And they start listening to it and they start learning and being influenced. That, to me, is legacy, because I want you to think about something, okay? And again, because I've experienced this with my parents, but if you ever gone through someone's personal belongings, you know, photos, for example, of someone that's passed away, you start reflecting and looking at them, and you might come across a picture of your grandfather or maybe great grandfather or grandmother. Great grandmother. And you don't really know much about him. You start inquiring, and then all of a sudden you realize that they did this, this, this and that. You're like, holy smokes, man. I come from, you know, some, some chingon, chingona, you know, lineage here. That is what, to me, legacy is like. My kids don't listen to me. I'm here to influence them. I'm here to influence my great, great, great grandkids. Because in the process of influencing those future generations, I will have influenced these other generations. Random association. You know the rules. I'll say a word, and if you like, say the first word that comes to your mind. Migration is legacy. Survival is a stepping stone to a life of significance. Application. Applying knowledge. Commitment is success. Authenticity. Authenticity. Let me say it this way. Authenticity is. Is professionally authentic. Cyclical. The sun doesn't shine on the same dark spot every day. We all have a season, my friend. We all have a season, right? You never know, right? So that's why I'd be grateful. Done a great show. Love. Unconditional leader. Influence. Gratitude. Blessings. Craft. Give it away. Moment. Cherishing. Time. Time is precious. And now we come to the part of the show which we affectionately call the eleven, which we shamelessly pilfered from James Lipton, who shamelessly pilfered it from Proust as a parlor game. What is your favorite part of starting something new? The creativity phase. When you start something new, you have all these ideas, and you're. And I get to be very creative. I enjoy that. In terms of how to bring this. Idea to life, what is your least favorite part of starting something new. My least favorite part of starting something new is the details of how to do it. What interests you most? What interests me most is understanding what motivates people to take action. What interests you least? Being around negative people? People that have an emotional cold. This is a radio station, after all. What music, artist, genre or song reminds you most of your early days in entrepreneurship and innovation? Oh yeah. I have to take it back to Rocky IO, the tiger. We went survivor for the first time on this podcast, which now I think may be a miracle if we wouldn't get sued for it. I'd love to just play out the show. What food or beverage reminds you most of your memories of your first startup? Oh, my first startup. Well, okay, you said startup here, so pizza. That's like the food for choice for startups here. You know, pizza, quick, dirty, tasty. Yeah. What profession, non entrepreneurial do you admire most? Motherhood. Because again, in our society we tend not to value it as much. I'm talking about from a business corporate standpoint. Right. A mom gets penalized for taking time to have a family, you know, start that family. Yet when we think back at all the skills and the things that a mom does, it's twenty four seven and yeah, it's, it's such a blessing and so powerful and beautiful. What job prior to entrepreneurship did you like the most and why? So my dream job prior to this? Washington, working for a manufacturing consulting company that did business in the US but also in Latin America. Really? And yeah, so I actually, first I started off by supporting the salesperson in Latin America and then eventually I took over his position doing sales and I liked it because again, I'm fluent in Spanish, the culture, traveling to Mexico, the maquiladoras and so forth. And in fact, I remember, I don't know if it's still there, but back in the day in Puerto Rico, there was a manufacturing facility called life scan that made the little test strips for glucose monitors. And I never did get a chance to go to Puerto Rico, but yeah, that was my dream job. Right. What job prior to entrepreneurship did you dislike the most and why? Oh my gosh, I remember one summer because I worked every summer to help pay for college and I slacked off. I don't know, I just didn't have things together prior to summer break, summer vacation. And I remember my uncle saying, hey son, there's a job at the factory where I'm at which you'd be interested. And at the time the pay was actually really good and what it was was literally for 8 hours, I would bend over, pick up 50 pounds sacks powdered sugar, and then arrange them on a pallet. And then there would be another person to come with a forklift and take them away and, you know, put them away. And Pablo, I mean, I'm not exaggerating. Within 45 minutes of like, just bending over and picking up, first of all, my hands dried up because it's powdered sugar. And then they began to cramp up and then your back from bending over constantly. Oh, my gosh, I only lasted that job for two weeks because I also got motivated. Like, I didn't care if I worked at McDonald's or whatever it is that I did, but I was like, I'm out of here. Physical labor will do it to you like that. Yes. And lastly, if a heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? Oscar, you kept me busy with your prayers. That's, I told you earlier, for me, spiritual is something that's important. I pray every day, every moment, and that's what I want God to say. He kept me busy with your prayers immediately thereafter. What idea or innovation would you like to pitch him her? They it with the universe as your marketplace. Ooh. So as a speaker, as a trainer, I see other speakers, trainers that now are in their sixties, seventies, some eighties, you know, famous speakers, Brian Tracy again, John Maxwell and some of these others. And hey, I mean, life happens. You get older and you're just not, your voice changes, you're just looking. I mean, right? Like, it's like, it's like when we see Mick Jagger now on stage, they're like, oh man, that's cool. But it's like, damn, Mick, I'm a. Rolling Stones fan, so I'm gonna let that one go. But, and so what I would pitch, the idea is to take Oscar Garcia today, create an AI avatar, beat it. All the content that I've created so far, and I continue to create, so that over time, basically, the Oscar Garcia right now, look, it gets immortalized and the content changes, adapts to the future. But my energy that I have right now today, my excitement and the ability to inspire other folks is there, even though I might be 90 years old and I'm like slobbering on the other side of my mouth. But there's AI. Oscar Garcia still doing his thing. We're going to have to do that before you get there then. Yes, let's do it. Pablo Scott Garcia, thank you so much for visiting us at the entrepreneurship and innovation studio, sir. No munchies. Gracias. Pablo. To you, your team, for what you do. Life does have a way to bring like minded individuals. And so thank you for what you do for the students, our community as well. Thanks for listening to this episode of the entrepreneurship and Innovation Studio. This podcast is part of the Warrior Entrepreneurship and Innovation program, affectionately known as the WEI. Our series is recorded on the campus of Stanislaus State at the KCSS radio station and produced by Frankie Tovar. Follow and subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. I'm Dr. Pablo Paredes Romero, wishing you the best of everything. Always.