Made By Challenge

Raised in Cuba's Darkest Years, Now She Teaches AI | Yane Diaz

• Alberto Sardiñas • Season 2 • Episode 2

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Born in Cuba during one of the country's most difficult periods, Yane Diaz grew up surrounded by scarcity, uncertainty, and limited choices. Yet those challenges became the foundation for a remarkable journey that would take her from immigrant entrepreneur to AI professor, emotional intelligence coach, and business leader.

In this episode of Made By Challenge, Yane shares how growing up during Cuba's Special Period shaped her mindset, why she walked away from a traditional path, the painful lessons of losing a company she built, and how emotional intelligence became one of her greatest competitive advantages.

This is a conversation about resilience, entrepreneurship, leadership, reinvention, and what it truly means to create your own opportunities when none seem available.

If you've ever faced setbacks, career pivots, or moments that forced you to start over, this episode is for you.

Hosted by Alberto Sardiñas.

Subscribe for more conversations with entrepreneurs, innovators, creators, and leaders who transformed adversity into opportunity.
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SPEAKER_02

So I was going to sign the share the shares that day and I cut my finger. Seven stitches here. So I couldn't go sign.

SPEAKER_01

Born in Cuba, raised to be a lawyer, walked away from law school at gunpoint. Lost her company the day she was supposed to sign.

SPEAKER_02

When you know what you don't want, you know what you do want.

SPEAKER_01

Who's the villain in this story? AI professor, emotional intelligence coach, two careers most people say can't be helped by the same person. And prove that having a job and being entrepreneurial can exist together.

SPEAKER_02

The biggest tragedy in life would be to be here having, you know, the human experience, being alive, and to waste it. Because you're a victim of a system.

SPEAKER_01

Because every breakthrough begins with a challenge. Jane Diaz. Made by challenge. Most people watch this, get the value, and disappear. The ones who subscribe, they're the ones building something. So hit subscribe, turn on notifications, because you never know, you never know which guest drops the next exact framework, the one that you need, the one that rewires how you think about your career and your life. Jane, you grew up in a system where people didn't have a lot of choices. You were either with the government or against it. Do you think that's where you learned that maybe not everything in life should be so black or white?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yes. I think that was my first introduction to the playground of life. Um, for those of you who don't know, I was born in Cuba. And I grew up in Cuba until about 11 years young. And so when you grow up in a country like that during the time that I grew up in, I was born in 88. So imagine growing up during that special period where there was nothing, and growing up knowing that you couldn't say certain things that normal kids could say because your parents could go to jail.

SPEAKER_01

If if people needed to understand what the special period means, what was that?

SPEAKER_02

So the special period was a time in Cuba where there was a lot of scarcity. A lot, a lot of scarcity. Basically, whatever was coming in was coming mostly through Russia. At the time, you know, they they had uh relationships. And so, you know, food was scarce, so you had to scramble to find food. Uh sorry, other things were becoming um like resources, like you know, basic necessities, toothpaste, uh, toilet paper, like none of that. You didn't have any of that, you know, maybe TMI for the episode, but like we had to rely on newspapers and things like that for basic necessities. You don't think about that?

SPEAKER_00

Toilet paper. Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It's funny because I have a lot of these stories. I never think to share them, but it's it's stuff that you you don't think about. But when you grow up in a country like that, during especially a time like that, um, things like even gum are commodities that you don't have access to. So when you do, you chew it, you put it in the refrigerator, you save it so that then you get back and chew it again.

SPEAKER_01

Is that what people are living in Cuba right now? Is it similar because there's a lot of talk about Cuba in the news right now?

SPEAKER_02

To be honest with you, I think it's much worse from what I have heard. Um, I do have worse now. It's worse, yes, much, much worse now. Um, I haven't been to Cuba since 2007. So I came to Miami, specifically United States in '99. I visited twice, and then after 2007, I never went back again. I have relatives there. I have cousins, my grandfather, and a few other people that I am in communication with, and so I hear it from them. And I hear it in my household. My dad is very involved with you know everything Cuba and news and friends, and he knows a lot of people over there beyond family. So I hear these things firsthand from them, and it's the situation is much worse. The electricity, I mean, I don't know if you've heard, but the electricity comes in maybe 30 to 40 minutes a day, if at all.

SPEAKER_01

If you're lucky, right? If you're lucky. But now that you mentioned your father, I understand that your parents went through very creative ways in order to be able to find very basic necessities for the family. Can you tell me a little bit about that and what did you learn from it?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's uh probably a very important area to understand if you want to understand my life, because so my father has always been an entrepreneur. So imagine being an entrepreneur and entrepreneurial in spirit in a country that forbids businesses, that forbids anybody to be a business owner. Like, you know what it is not to be able to be a business owner? That's the environment that I grew up in. So if you wanted to raise chickens and sell your chickens, if you wanted to make tomatoes, puree, bottle it, and sell it, that was illegal, even if those things were yours. And so my dad did all of that, and not only that, he did um, he sold tamales. Uh you know, he did all sorts of things he could do to put food on the table, but he was a wealth by trade. Selling tamales was illegal, yes, because it was for your a business, basically.

SPEAKER_01

So anything that would sound like a business was absolutely illegal in Cuba for decades. Now you come to the US, there's so much unfairness that happened to your family that suddenly is it correct if I say that you start being a little bit pressured to go into justice and to become an attorney after everything that the family went through.

SPEAKER_02

Well, actually, if I can tell you since when, since about four or five years of age, it was expected of me that I will grow up to be a lawyer. And the reason why is because when I was three, my father, because of his nature in entrepreneurship, he was put in jail. And not because they had any charge on him other than this the charge at the time was peligrosidad, potential dang and dangerous person. They didn't have any proof other than he doesn't have an official government job right now, like he's not employed at the moment.

SPEAKER_01

So he's a dangerous man because he doesn't work for the government.

SPEAKER_02

Right at the time, right? So like he doesn't work for the government. Um, so meaning he has no job, so he shouldn't have have any income, but somehow he's feeding his family and somehow he's putting food on the table. So naturally, he's doing something that he's not supposed to.

SPEAKER_01

So he went to jail for that.

SPEAKER_02

So they put him in jail for how long? Two years. And I think he got out a little bit earlier. So my dad's thing was always like, I'm gonna get you out of here, you know. Like in his mind, it's like I'm gonna, I'm gonna build a better life. Um, and you need to be your own boss and you need to be a lawyer. And then in his thinking, right, to use his words, it's like lawyers are just legal thieves, you know, like you need to be able to defend and to be able to work the law so that and I think it was coming from his own experience, feeling helpless that he wanted justice, justice, he wanted justice, yes, so he wants justice.

SPEAKER_01

You come to the US, uh, you know, you spend, you know, your years, I mean, going to school, etc. And there's a point in which you're looking at law school and you're visiting some schools, and then there was this weird thing that happened that made you say maybe we shouldn't be here.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I basically made all of my academic decisions based on the fact that I was going to go to law school. Straight A student, graduated at the top of my class at the University of Florida, and then I spent a year studying for the LSAT, and then I got into Vermont law school, which I wanted to do environmental law at the time. And so my dad and I we went to Vermont to go visit the law school, which the law school, by the way, is probably the biggest thing in that town, followed by a grocery store one-eighth the size of a public's, like, you know, in my perception. And so my dad and I are driving around and we're a little bit lost. So we kind of parked in front of uh just momentarily in front of someone's house. And a guy, the owner of the house, I would imagine, comes out with a rifle. Hey, what are you guys doing here? Like, literally pointing at us, and I'm like, okay. But I kind of was feeling already that I didn't want to be there and that I really wasn't in it. Like my heart wasn't really in law.

SPEAKER_01

But what was your reaction? Somebody's holding you at gunpoint.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Because you parked in front of the driveway and you're visiting this law school. And what was your reaction when this happened?

SPEAKER_02

I literally said to my dad, whatever, we handled it. We said, No, no, sorry, we, you know, we're just finding directions, we're gonna leave. And he was fine about it, right? But then I look at my dad and I'm like, I don't want to stay here. And so he he he says to me, right? He goes, I'm so glad you said that. Let's go. Because he didn't want me to go away for for studying. He said, Miami has great schools. Like, why can't you just be in Miami? I'm an only child. So, and I have a dad that's a provider, a protector, you know. So it wasn't, it was like almost like, oh, thank God. Yeah, okay, let's go.

SPEAKER_01

So this was the sign that we needed, both of us, it sounds like, right? You had and your dad said, Yeah, let's just get out of here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

What happens with identity at that point? Because it's probably not easy when somebody has to be telling you what to do, what your life should look like, and then there's suddenly a realization moment in which you are like, no, no, no, no, let's just find another path.

SPEAKER_02

I think that was honestly the first time that I got to stop and really think about what do I want? Because honestly, I didn't know. You know, my plan was law. That's it. All of a sudden I have no plan. My entire life, I've been making decisions based on this plan. And so now I have no plan. So what am I gonna do? And I said, you know what? I'm gonna take a break. I said, I don't want to go to law school. He thought I was gonna go back to law school, but in Miami, right? So I said, I don't want to go to law school. I'm gonna take a break and I'm gonna just get some work experience and maybe I'll go back and get an MBA in business because I always want to be my own boss, right? Like, like was expected also. So I did that. I started looking at something in marketing because of uh Sex on the City character, Samantha Jones. I don't know if you're familiar with the series.

SPEAKER_01

My wife is very familiar with the series, I'll tell you that much.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so Samantha Jones is one of four friends in the series, and she's very, you know, she's like like a character that I was really drawn to because she was very liberate, liberated. Um, she was in PR and marketing and all of that. And so I was like, oh, that's she's cool. So I was thinking, you know, let me see what she did. So, and then soon enough I applied marketing and then I started working.

SPEAKER_01

So you wanted to semantic Jones your life. Pretty much, and you did that.

SPEAKER_02

That was my reference.

SPEAKER_01

But I understand that, like a lot of people that are watching or listening right now that are going into an entry-level level marketing job, you started going through a very tough schedule and just a very exhausting experience. Can you walk me through that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so it was exhausting and exciting at the first time, at least at first, because very young, I was probably 21 years of age, I started working with an international investments and insurance company out of based out of Miami, but they sold their products internationally. So I started with them as an event coordinator because they needed uh someone to finish planning an event for their agents that were coming from Latin America. And so I did that with them for three months. And then after those three months, they promoted me to marketing coordinator for the health side and for the investment side. And so I did that for about a year and a half, and then I wanted to start traveling. So I asked them, you know, what do I need to do in order to travel? Oh, well, you need to be in sales, right? And so that's when I started working hand in hand with one of the owners of the company. And I traveled with him to multiple places in South America. I got to learn to recruit the agents, train the agents. In fact, I opened up two markets for him via LinkedIn alone, right? And so then we visited and actually carried through with the work. And so the schedule was very demanding, um, especially because with the travel, with everything, and the expectations of being perfect at everything, you know, like I was that type of person that was the first one to come into the office and I was the last one to leave. Whenever there were agents in town, we would entertain those agents.

SPEAKER_01

So beyond working hours, so this is dinners, cocktail parties.

SPEAKER_02

You got it.

SPEAKER_01

So wow. So it starts building up. You're in your early 20s, and suddenly you're generating multiple million dollars for this company in revenue, and something starts feeling off.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So my body, about the third year in working with them, I started to experience gastritis. And you know, a lot of people maybe hear this and say, oh, whatever. Yeah, I have that. Like most people have that.

SPEAKER_01

Get some pepto.

SPEAKER_02

Get some pepto, or you know. Um, but in my case, it was not just gastritis, it was the the fact that it would wake me up at night, two in the morning, with like extreme chest pains, and then I would have to go and walk around the house to see if it would come down. Um, water would actually burn me when it would go down. And, you know, this was happening almost weekly. So I ended up having to go get an endoscopy, you know, because I thought maybe I have an ulcer, you know. And so at the end, I didn't have an ulcer. And the doctor at the time just said, here, that you just have an acidic stomach, take this medication for how long? For life. I'm like, what? I'm not, I don't, I don't want to be bound to anything for life that it's gonna hurt me in the long term because the medication was gonna cause other issues.

SPEAKER_01

What was the discovery then physically and psychologically?

SPEAKER_02

So the discovery came after I left this job because I was already starting to feel like this, you know, I don't have joy in what I'm doing anymore. Like I'm I'm feeling burnt out. I'm feeling like not valued because at some point um there was a change in management and things were happening, and so um it was those some things happened that I wasn't very happy with and they were quite discouraging. So I was like, you know what, I think it's time to pivot. I had given myself two years, I'm here for four because I was making such good money, you know, and um and learning, and I'm very grateful for that as well, because that was really a great school for me and great people too.

SPEAKER_01

This episode of Made by Challenge is powered by Saglow. Every business you walk into started with someone who took a risk. But behind every great local business, there's also a place that made it possible. Saglow is a team of shopping center owners, operators, and retail specialists who create the environments where entrepreneurs open their doors, hire their teams, and serve their communities. From grocery stores to neighborhood shops, they develop and manage spaces designed to make everyday life more convenient and more connected. Because community isn't built online alone. It's built in real places where people show up at Made My Challenge. We believe opportunity grows when you create the right environment. Saglow is doing exactly that. Building the spaces where businesses launch, families gather, and communities move forward. If you want to see how communities, shopping center owners, operators, and entrepreneurs can flourish together in a way where everyone wins, visit Saglo.com to learn more. Saglow, creating the foundation where challenge turns into opportunity. Do you think the money held you longer than you should have been there?

SPEAKER_02

I would say yes. At some point, because they I tried to leave earlier, right? I actually tried to leave and the boss wouldn't let me. You know, he said, you know, he almost cried and everything is, and so I said, Yeah, because I need to make more money. And so he's like, How much more money do you want? You know, so so yes, they they kept me, they kept me there. And at some point I realized I was negotiating my peace for a higher salary. And you know, I later learned after I left that the gastritis, I was I was having headaches too, as well, very recurrently. Um, I later learned that it was actually because I was operating under strenuous working hours and then low grade anxiety. Low grade anxiety, the kind of anxiety that's there that you almost don't realize you have it. And that's it's like that little voice inside that says, This is not it, but we're here. This is not how I want to be living, but this is what I'm doing. So when there's that mismatch, you get anxiety whether you realize it or not. And so that was actually the cause of the gastritis.

SPEAKER_01

When somebody's in the middle of the hustle and they don't know what's going on, how can you identify low grade anxiety and why is it so terrible for you?

SPEAKER_02

I'm glad that you asked that. I think it's important that we understand our nature, our human nature, our body, our spirit, our mind. We we're not just this physical form that you see here. We're energetic beings. And so usually things start at the energetic level and then it manifests in your body. So, one way, if you're in the hustle, if you if if you know that that's the rhythm that you have, I would say listen to your body a little bit more. Because the body, you know, compared to just the mind, the body actually has deeper intelligence. The body goes beyond because it it houses everything. I mean, we're talking about just pausing, pause, and do a little check-in with yourself. How does that body actually feel? And let me tell you something, not everybody is able to perceive it. Because when the mind is running at a thousand miles per hour, you become quite disconnected from even being able to perceive and feel the sensations in your body. The body is constantly talking to you. I learned this when I was 19 when I went to a meditation retreat for 10 days. And so I realized that the body was talking to me all along through the gastritis, through the headaches, and through this sense of like emptiness that I was experiencing the last year and a half that I was working with with the company, and I wasn't really listening. The same, the same was happening when I was studying for the LSA and I was having such a hard time concentrating, right? The body was talking to me like, hey, this is not it. This is not the path. But I I didn't know. I didn't know how to read it. But then looking back, I realized, oh, I understand now. You know, that wasn't the path for me, and I know 100% it wasn't.

SPEAKER_01

You were going very black or white in your career. You were ready to be an attorney no matter what. Suddenly everything pivoted, and suddenly now you are this employee that it's like working all these hours a day. So you went to a lot of different extremes. You would think that after realizing that you had this anxiety that was killing you inside, that the next decision would be that you would start taking it easy. And in this day and age, you're a professor of AI at Miami Dave College. You're also an expert in emotional intelligence, but none of that happened after the job because the next thing that happens after the crazy job is that crazy entrepreneurial project. How in the world? What happened? How do you end up going from a full-time job to this crazy failed entrepreneurial project?

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so listen, this was uh a great opportunity at the time. I was leaving already this company, and my professor, my former college professor, calls me and she says, I have this idea, and I need to come and help me bring it to life. And so I was gonna go to get an MBA. And I'm like, oh, but here I have a real life experience. I'm gonna go with the real life experience. And so I did that. I moved to Gainesville. Um, I spent all of my savings in this business. Okay. I believed in the vision, I believed in the project, spent all of my savings.

SPEAKER_01

What was this business about?

SPEAKER_02

So it was an actual app that we were building, a web app and mobile apps that we were building to track the soft skills, the acquisition of soft skills in college students and high school students.

SPEAKER_01

What is a soft skill?

SPEAKER_02

So, soft skills is everything like emotional intelligence, leadership, contribution to community, uh, leadership um involvement with different, different extracurriculars, right, that are important because students are acquiring these abilities beyond what is measurable. What is measurable? Test scores, GPA, right? So we already had systems for that, but we had no way of measuring everything else, which ironically are the things that are gonna now, in this day and age of AI, gonna be more important than even IQ for succeeding in the world.

SPEAKER_01

So it sounds like the type of project that would be absolutely successful. I mean, everybody talks about soft skills, everybody wants to say that these are the things that are gonna drive the future, as you will just said. Why in the world did this fail? What went wrong?

SPEAKER_02

What went wrong was the partnership. So we were doing really well. We were doing really, really well. We even got a grant for $200,000 of how well we were doing. We work with the UF Innovation Hub and everything. So all of that was going great. Uh, the partnership with with my former business partner, I don't want to give away too much for out of respect, you know, but there were some challenges with mental health.

SPEAKER_01

Come on, we like gossip.

unknown

Come on.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, no, no, no. I'm kidding. It's about the lessons, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah. So um, there were some mental health challenges. And let's say we had a massive clash in values and how we were dealing with even investors and and and people that were supporting us. And so um, I said to her, um, this doesn't work. This is not right, this is not correct. And um We need to rethink here how we want to move forward. And so she erratically got that. And um she pretty much took the company. And you know, because the day that I was gonna this is the thing about the universe. The day that I was gonna go sign the shares, you know, we were gonna go in a 60-40 split before we started off with much bigger gap. Before when I was gonna go sign those chairs, those uh shares.

SPEAKER_01

You get 40% of the company?

SPEAKER_02

Uh yeah. I cut because I invested the same amount that she did, right? Out of my money and she out of her money, same amount as a loan to the company. But she brought me in, it was her idea, it was her project, right? I brought it to life for her and so, or with her. And so we had a certain arrangement of uh I I think it was like 10 to 15, and then she got the rest. But after the investment, the involvement, and everything, it was more equitable that it, you know, she wanted to keep a 60-40, not 50-50.

SPEAKER_01

Ready to sign the shares.

SPEAKER_02

So I was going to sign the share, the shares that day, and I cut my finger, seven stitches here.

SPEAKER_01

So I couldn't go sign and seven stitches on your thumb.

SPEAKER_02

On my thumb, right? You can still see the mark there.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

So that, but see, these are the blessings that come in form of, well, in this case, pain, that the way, let's say, of life, nudging you to where you need to be.

SPEAKER_01

So you couldn't make it to the side.

SPEAKER_02

So I couldn't make it, and the whole thing went down a day later.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

So then because they weren't officially signed, she said, well, she basically took the company, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. If somebody watching, like Jordan or Erica in their mid-20s, are about to partner up with someone because they're a good match to invest, to create something great, to work with AI together, to Vive Code together, and they're about to get into this, what lesson could you teach them that could be a great warning for them based on what happened to you and your failed partnership?

SPEAKER_02

I would say definitely start using AI to come up with the contracts as a support. I wouldn't say this, you know, before AI, but now I can say that. At least get something down on paper. And if it's going to be a partnership of two people, where two people are actually going in full in, both people, I would honestly suggest go 50-50 because that way it gives you an equal amount of decision-making ability. It's not even about the money, it's about making decisions for the company of where you want to go. And so I would say one of the mistakes that I made is because I knew this person for so long. She was my mentor during college. She was a very important person for me, helped me a lot when I was a student. Um, we had a friendship of between professor and friend over over 10 years before we went into business together, you know. But there was no way that I could have predicted what was going on and the hardship that she herself was going through when it comes to situations with mental health. And so all I would say is since you don't know what could happen or how somebody could evolve and change, just get the paperwork in order, you know. Um, start with the draft with AI and then have a lawyer review everything, sign it before you go full in investing money and everything into a project. I'm not against partnerships. I think partnerships could work really well, but take your time to really vet your person. Look at their values. I think that was one of the things, too, that if I had more consciousness at the time of looking at the values of people, right? And looking at them through a more critical lens, I should say, um, then maybe I would have made a different decision, right? Even if I loved a person, you know, because it's like, it's like um, I think it was Maya Angelo that said if somebody shows you who they are the first time, believe them or believe them the first time, right? And so that's something that I learned from that experience. But at the same time, I'm grateful. You know why, Alberto? Because it brought me to my purpose. Because being there and being not just in the in the building with my partner of this business, but also being around high school students, college students. She had two daughters that I practically helped raise since I was with them in as a student in college. And I was seeing something that was very worrisome. I was seeing that the students, especially the high performers, were having extremely high anxiety, panic attacks. Her daughter, her older one, was um at the time even cutting herself. Not not to harm fatally, but just when I asked her, I said, What do you do? That, you know, she said, because I want to, it gets my mind off of the anxiety.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

So imagine this, right? And so why did it connect me to purpose? Because in the midst of somewhat of a short depression that I underwent when everything fell apart and I had to, you know, pack up and go back to here Miami. Um I I was one one afternoon, I was in a very, very like ugly cry type of stage, um, really depressed. And then I just get this idea of E.I. Jane, emotional intelligence Jane. And I think of this character that I've seen. It's your company now, which is now the name of my company, which then it became the name of my company, EI Jane International Inc. Now it has evolved. Since then it has evolved in concept. I have positude now as a concept that I'm, you know, it's front and center. It has matured, we should say it that way. But at the time, it came as this idea of a character because I was around college students and around high school students, and I saw the extreme need for guidance when it comes to being human, when it comes to managing the one thing that you're gonna have all your life and the one thing that's gonna separate you from AI, which is your emotions. And so, and and your beyond emotions, your mindset, everything that comes with that. And so that was the intention. And you know, it brought me to my purpose to really bring forth this type of consciousness and awareness and help people just become the best they could be to really enjoy life.

SPEAKER_01

It sounds to me like you went from black to white or from white to black and very big extremes to now learning how to live in a gray area that's a lot more settling and a lot more balanced for you. We have been sold the idea of going all in, all into entrepreneurship, all into being the best employee for 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and just giving it a roll. And then suddenly you go through both experiences, neither one of them works out. How do you go and describe the rock bottom that the second experience brought you? And how did that turn into a platform that is successful and balanced as the platform that you have today?

SPEAKER_02

It was exactly through the hybrid approach. It was it was that gray area because at the same time that I was going through this period of depression and failure, the pres, the now president of the company that I had left, the insurance company, he calls me and he says, Hey, are you ready to come back already? Because he he was always checking in, right? And I was saying, no, I'm doing this business. And then he calls me one day and I'm like, oh, actually, this just happened. I'm gonna go back to Miami. But I'm creating my company, EIJ International, and I'm gonna be dedicated to this thing and that thing. He's like, okay, but can you also work while you're doing that? Because we have not been able to launch a successful product since you left. Everything just takes too long. And so I said, Okay, but I have to work from home. I always have to like I have to be full-time from home.

SPEAKER_00

You said yes again to these people? Why didn't you say yes to these people again?

SPEAKER_02

Because I was able to work from home, because they were able to pay me a good salary, and because I I could, you know, I was building something now.

SPEAKER_01

Because it wasn't extreme anymore.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So my perspective changed, you know. And the company had grown by this. The things were a little bit different. And so they had grown, and I saw a different potential and I saw different opportunities with them. But the main thing is that I saw them as my investors in my dream. And I think that perspective shift makes a big difference. And working from home, also, you don't have to be in an office environment where there could be certain politics and environment that's just not, you know, maybe what you want. And so it worked out. It worked out at the time. I worked with them for two more years while I was building myself. Because guess what? I thought of EIJane, but to be able to deliver on that, I had to become it first. So that was one way that I started to build identities. So the first identity that I built from that moment was this person that you see that's very composed, that has emotional intelligence, that practices it in her daily life with people, I became more loving, I became more compassionate, I became more intentional about my interactions with people and things like that. So I literally built and you know, lived this identity that I created. And so my perspective was just completely different by the time I was working with them. I was more confident also.

SPEAKER_01

Jane, in this emotional craziness where we're seeing that we have to go all in with the extremes, who do we have to blame? Who's the villain in this story?

SPEAKER_02

You know, that is a really good question. I think it's a systematic issue. Um, I think it was created likely since the time of the Industrial Revolution. I think what was happening is that uh, I don't know, the Rockefellers or where I don't want to name names, you know, but from an objective point, just observing, we are all victims of a system designed to keep us in fear, not in love. Because love is what builds, love is what creates, love is what elevates, love is what makes you um really become the best that you can be. Fear is a mechanism used for centuries for control, for control of humanity in one way or another.

SPEAKER_01

Who's trying to control us now, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_02

I'm all about focus on whatever you can control, and the first thing that you can control is yourself, um, and just start to become more aware.

SPEAKER_01

And that's exactly where I wanted to go. What would you tell someone who is about to burn it all out because they heard the advice on a podcast like this one?

SPEAKER_02

I would say pause once again, pause just for a moment. The best thing that you can do right now, because the world has changed and the world is gonna continue to change quite exponentially with all of the new AI stuff going on. So, what I would say is pause for a moment and before you make any life-changing decisions, go inside for a second and get really clear. Get extremely clear about who you are, what you really want, what are your values? Look at your story. You know, your story has clues on your purpose, on what it is that you came here to do. And so look at your stories and especially look at those areas of your life of immense pain, which is the the whole purpose of this podcast, right? Made by challenge. What are those challenges that you've experienced in your life since the moment you were born onto the present moment? Try to find that conducive thread in your story and get really clear about that. Hey, I can help you with this. And I teach and I teach this all the time, right? AI can help you become more clear. And then from that level of clarity, start designing how you want to live your next five, 10, 15 years and who you need to become. Because speaking of identity, identity is not a fixed thing. You can decide how you want to spend your life and do whatever changes and behaviors, et cetera, you need to do in order to align with that vision that you have, right? Well, my encouragement would be do so from a place of clarity and a place of alignment with whatever you're here to do. I do believe there's a creator. Call it whatever you want. I call it God, the universe. In fact, I like to call it the Godiverse. Whatever it is that you believe in, that's fine. I do believe there's a creator, and we were creative for different reasons. Find out what lights you up, find out what gives you joy, what what something that you can find meaning in. And if you're gonna burn everything, go burn it for something that's meaningful to you. That even if it were to fail, for you would be a success. Because you wanted to do it and you consciously decided to do it.

SPEAKER_01

Because you tried, right?

SPEAKER_02

And because you tried, because you wanted it to, not because you thought systematically that's what you needed to do, not because it's the dream of your dad or the dream of your mom or the dream of society for you, but figure out what is that dream for you, for you in your in your essence. And I just want to add one thing because you know, I don't I don't want to leave anything behind. I just had this conversation today with somebody who called me and she wants to work with me to help her make the transition from corporate to entrepreneurship. And the first thing I said to her, speaking of the gray area, the first thing I said to her is I do not advise you to quit your job and go full in on entrepreneurship. Right? Keep your survival needs met. She has a family, right? So keep your survival needs met because it's really hard to create from scarcity and it's really hard to create from stress. So it's better to create when you have tranquility, when you have peace, because then you focus on the right things.

SPEAKER_01

You know, this is the balance that you have found.

SPEAKER_02

Correct.

SPEAKER_01

Because you have found how to be a professor and at the same time a businesswoman and find a successful grade without having to go all black or all white in your life. Now, it's interesting because you're talking about AI, you're talking about emotional intelligence. You are a professor in one of the most advanced AI programs in terms of education in the country, one of the earliest programs in the state of Florida, which is the Miami Dade College program for artificial intelligence. At the same time, you are an emotional intelligence uh coach. How do you make those two coexist? Because in the world that we're seeing on social media, you're either all into AI and vibe coding and making sure that you will develop the next app, or you're not touching a computer and you move into the mountains.

SPEAKER_02

Right. If only life were that way, right? So uh, well, first of all, I want to say, you know, Miami Day College was a massive surprise for me because before I started working with them, I was actually there for a conference where they invited me to speak. And that's when I learned, oh my God, Miami Day College is killing it in the world of AI. I don't know if you know this, but they were the first to have um the Bachelors of Applied AI in Florida. And they're one of the largest community colleges, most diverse, that are literally leading the conversation in AI, especially with the department that I work with, which is the continuing education department. So I remember sitting there in that conference that I was a part of and was listening to the president speak, and I was, and I was like, wow, it would be really cool one day if I could work here. Because I want to be, you know, where the conversation is in AI and I love to teach it.

SPEAKER_01

But how does that coexist with emotions?

SPEAKER_02

And so, because my initial plan with EIJ was to teach emotional intelligence in, you know, since an early age to college students, to high school students. And so I use AI to teach emotional intelligence, right? Because AI really, as we know it today, is a mirror to you. It's a mirror to the human using it.

SPEAKER_01

But what does artificial intelligence know about how I feel? I mean, is it really supposed to know? Can that be a replacement for my psychologist? Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_02

No, no. I'm not, I would never say AI will replace your psychology, a psychologist, your psychiatrist, your medical professional, or anything like that. No, no, no. Use it for clarity. Because because we are our own, you know, we are we limit ourselves. We ourselves are our own blockages in a lot of things. And what helps us unblock a lot of times is just having someone ask us the right questions, like you do in the podcast, like your producer does in the podcast, right? And so if you learn to speak to AI in a way that AI can be a co-creator with you of your life experience, you're gonna go ahead much faster because you can talk to a psychologist. But you know what? A psychologist has benefits because they're human. But because they're human, they can also be biased. And sometimes psychologists can influence, or coaches even, can influence you in certain directions where it's not necessarily what is for you, but rather their opinion of what should be for you. Does that make sense? So there's always pros and cons to everything in life, right? So what I say is use AI to help you get clear by prompting it to act as different roles. You can ask AI, act as my psychologist, act as my mentor, act as a combination of a business strategist with um, you know, a spiritual teacher. And from that point of view, this is my objective. My objective is to know myself better, to discover myself better. So I need you to ask me intentional questions that can help me understand myself better and then reflect it back to me.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so you want to use it as a mirror, but not necessarily as a source of advice, is what I'm getting. You're saying use me to understand myself exactly.

SPEAKER_02

It's a source of perspective, right?

SPEAKER_01

Help me understand myself.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

But at the moment in which I have to make big decisions, maybe I want to put a human in there.

SPEAKER_02

I would say absolutely put a human in there. I don't think the human should be replaced because AI doesn't have experience. Like AI, AI has conceptual experience, but it doesn't have real experience in the world. Um, it is said that with robots now, it's going to start having somewhat of experience, but I don't think it'll ever get to the point of experiencing emotions in the same way humans experience emotions, right? But it can understand emotions at a little bit of an intellectual level. And so not from not just from that, but from an experiential recount of other humans, right? It does have data, it has information. Okay, so I say leverage at least some of that information. So, for example, how have I used it with emotions? You know, I have said, you know, at times, look, I'm feeling, I'm not sure how I am feeling right now. You know, I might say something like that. And, you know, then I might give it a situation and it might reflect back to be, okay, it sounds like you might be feeling a little bit, let's say, bitter. Okay. Then I can be like, what I don't really understand what that emotion of bitterness really means. And give me some examples, right? And then it would explain, well, bitterness typically is this. And here are some examples of how it manifests in the world. So then I can be like, oh, I didn't think of that as bitterness, but it's true. I did behave in that way. You get what I'm saying? So you can use it responsibly in that way, right? Um, but again, not as a replacement to another professional who has lived experience, but rather as simply a mirror, you know, a mirror. Just like you talk to yourself in the mirror, this mirror can talk to you back.

SPEAKER_01

Jane, for somebody who's listening or watching right now in their mid-20s, and they're stuck at this job that they hate, or they're stuck at this start-up that they created with someone, which ended up being an absolute mess. And they want to get out of the black or white. They want to get out of the extreme situation that they're living in. Where do they begin?

SPEAKER_02

I would say definitely get into self-awareness. Basically, what I say. What the first step is where am I? Where do I want to go? What do I need to do to get there? Getting that clarity, it's important. I would say, I would say to the person, if you have the means, find a mentor, find a coach, find somebody who has walked the steps that that you think you want to walk, and just pick their brains, write them an email, or you know, get exposed somehow. But if you don't have access to that, if you're not able to do that, start the work with yourself. Okay, I am unhappy here. What is it about this that's not working out for me? Okay. Because when you know what you don't want, you know what you do want, right? So figure out what is it that is not working out, and then figure out what are the steps or what do I need to do to transition from here? It helps to have another person that's experienced with this to go through it with you. But if you don't, the next best thing I would recommend is just start talking to AI and explaining. If you have the chance and if you have the means, get education. You know, um, you said a young you said a young person. Did you have a particular age group in mind?

SPEAKER_01

Mid 20s.

SPEAKER_02

There are programs. So, for example, I'm part of the continuing education department at Miami Dade College. They are extremely Affordable. You know, one of their big things is democratizing education and access. I would say first thing, start learning skills related to AI in one way or another. You know, um, it's probably gonna position you in the best place so that you have the freedom eventually to build what you want to build. There's never been a better time in history, in recorded history, I should say, for entrepreneurship. And I say this because again, not black and white, you can be an entrepreneur and also be an employee. Because at the end of the day, we we tend to have these limitations in our minds. If you're doing work that lights you up, it doesn't matter whether you own the company or whether you're working with a team. In my case, you know, I did that I am an entrepreneur, but I did entrepreneurship by myself for a long time. And it's fine, but it's really nice to be able to work with a team. So be part of a college because I'm part of a college now. I have amazing people that I get to work with every day. I'm learning because you know, my job is as an AI professor, imagine my job requires me to be constantly learning, not just teaching, but constantly learning because new things are coming out every single day, you know, and so that's really fun. And I get to be part of the group of people who are literally leading the AI conversation, not just here in Florida, because from what I hear, it's nationally. So, so you know, I I think the gray area is really the best place to be. You just gotta know that that's what you want. That's really the number one thing, know what you want.

SPEAKER_01

So, Jane, growing up in Cuba with all the hardship, thinking about law school and being scared away at gunpoint, joining a corporate job, leaving it, joining a startup, getting out of it, founding EI Jane, becoming an AI professor. What are the challenges? What is the most particular challenge that, in your opinion, made you who you are today?

SPEAKER_02

I'm not sure there's one particular challenge that made me who I am today. I've had a combination of things. I think that growing up in Cuba and experiencing the level of fear and scarcity and uh bondage, you know, uh imprisonment in in many ways, not just physical imprisonment in a jail, but rather not being free, not feeling free to speak, free to do whatever, having the choice to go study this or study that, because you also didn't have that over there. And so coming from that background and and being here in this country that affords the opportunity and you're not limited. You you can be free. I think I've been seeking freedom my entire life, you know. Um, and I think that's probably the biggest thing. Growing up that way, it made me so that I just constantly seeking freedom. And by the way, the reason why I got into emotional intelligence to begin with is because I realized how imprisoned we can become in our own being, in our own bodies by the emotions that don't feel good, you know, by fear-based emotions, anxiety, depression, all the different things. That to me is a form of jail, internal jail, right? You can get out of it, right? Sometimes it's really hard, but you can get out of it. And and that has led me, you know, with my decisions when I felt that, you know, because I'm unconventional, I'm like what you would call the rule breaker in my family, right? I decided to go away to college when no, you were supposed to stay here. Um, I've had many different types of relationships and different genders. So it's like, you know, what? And so I think growing up the way I did, and all of a sudden being in a place where you get to exist and just be who you want to be, um, has really shaped how I make my decisions because I don't want to be bound to anything, not even to a pill when they said I had to take medication my entire life. So I guess that drives everything I do.

SPEAKER_01

So let's imagine that we are at a hundred years from now, we'll pretend like Google still exists and that people still search Google style and somebody searches Jane Diaz. What would you like those top search results to say about you?

SPEAKER_02

I love this question. I'm glad you asked. I would love to be remembered as someone who liberated humans from themselves. Someone who was a reference that you can design your life in the gray. In other words, right? You can design your life however you want to design it and enjoy your human experience. Because to me, the biggest tragedy in life would be to be here having, you know, the human experience, being alive, and to waste it because you're a victim of a system, because of what you think your society wants you or not wants you. There's nothing more sad for me, more devastating for me, than not being able to be who you're here to be, not feeling free to experience all the things that life has to offer. So I don't want anybody to waste it. So if somebody were Googling me, you know, 100 years from now, I would want them to see this is the person that through her life experience gave everybody else permission to just be exist and vibrate in love.

SPEAKER_01

Jane, you have taught us about authenticity. You have taught us about lessons in every experience, you have taught us about living in areas that are not cool anymore because of what social media and the world wants to depict. But I think you have also taught us a lot about the humility of going through life, accepting every challenge, and understanding that at the end of the day, we are all looking for freedom. So thank you for sharing that. I commend you for what you do. Very appreciative to have you on the podcast. And thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01

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