From El Salvador to NYC: Cold Showers, Rats, and the Real Immigrant Story

We dive into the leap from El Salvador to New York City—chasing a dream while living the reality. From dancing at a high level to working as a barista just to get by, Javier shares the raw, unfiltered side of the journey, including some hilarious and unforgettable stories along the way. This episode goes beyond dance—it’s about resilience, identity, and what it really takes to build a life from the ground up.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Alright, so I'm here with Javier Escobar. And you know what I meant to actually Google? And I'm gonna put you on the spot here because I totally forgot. Your last name is Escobar. The famous, notorious was Pablo Escobar, right?

unknown 0:15

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

And who was he? I don't know. I actually I wanted to Google this, so I just didn't sound like a complete moron. Who was Pablo Escobar? I don't even remember.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Well, Pablo Escobar um is with this guy who was basically trafficking a big, big amount of drugs into the United States that went into history for doing it, uh for doing it in the bigger amount, like in old times. So and he built a whole system. So yeah, we're talking about narcos, we're talking about uh people who own and make money in a very bad way. And yeah, the guy was very, very iconic. So there is, I don't know if there's movies about it, but there's multiple series about it.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

For sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

And Netflix. So those series are amazing, which romanticize a little bit these uh negative actions, right? And now it becomes more like a movie action or something like that, and people fall in love with those kind of ideas, and now it becomes like a cool character, right? So yeah, that was basically dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Was Narcos was that Pablo asked about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I watched the B I watched one episode of Narcos, and they uh uh maybe like two, whatever, but they did a um ah man, they spoke about that study in the beginning of one of them about the mouse or the mice that were um God, okay. Let me let me see if I can say this out loud. With it's been a while. There's a study where the mice were taken away. Ah, they were given water with cocaine in it. That's what it was. You hear about this? Yeah, yeah. So this is a true study. So um the mice were taken like they were uh put in like not solitude, but they were by themselves basically. And they were given water with cocaine. And what they realized is when they drank the water with cocaine, they couldn't stop, they became like addicted to the cocaine water, basically, right? And so that, yeah, yeah, that is like the study that everybody knows. That's the part of it, and that's what they mentioned in Narcos that, oh, you know, well, if you take a mouse and you put it out of its habitat, that's what it was. They took it out of its habitat, they put it in like a boring ass cage, and they gave it uh cocaine water, and it got addicted to cocaine water. And so that is what the guy said at the beginning of Narcos, and he used that as an analogy to like set the precedent for the first or set the presents for the first series. The problem is there's a second part to that story of the study. When they gave the mice back their uh yeah, that's what it was. It wasn't a mouse, it was mice, and they took everything away from them, and then they got addicted to the cocaine water. And then when they put things back in the cage that allowed them to play, that allowed them to hang out with each other, that allowed them to do what they wanted to do, they stopped drinking the cocaine water. And that was the difference. Yeah, wild. And so the study kind of was talking about, you know, maybe us as humans were thrown in this, yeah, man, we're 99.9% the same as the caveman and cave woman. And look at the world we live in. I mean, dude, you're in Poland, I'm talking to you on a microphone and a computer. Like, this is not, and we have, and I have blue light blocking glasses on. Like, this is not what we're supposed to be doing. Yeah, I should be sitting on the couch next to you having a normal conversation with a campfire. And so I sometimes wonder if this kind of like genetic mismatch theory, that's kind of the name for it, is the reason why, yeah, we're like, yeah, we're we're fucking depressed. And this was kind of what the study went into with the mice. They said, yo, these motherfuckers were just drinking a bunch of cocaine water, and then they gave them their natural habitat back and then they stopped drinking it on their own. And in the narcos, he didn't say that second part. And I was like, series off. Because I was like, that's just that that's not honest.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, man. I didn't know about that. That's that's very interesting. You know, about what you said, that maybe that's why we're so, you know, as humanity, I wouldn't say myself, but you know, as humans, there you find a lot of depressed people. I think that you're you you're totally right with that one. That because there is too much uh contact with this type of digital environment. Like if when you think about it everywhere you go, there is a screen. Now you go to a restaurant, you want to order something, QR code, order something. Everything is on screen, you know. Everything is a screen, our eyes are uh tired of watching a screen. It's like if if you're tired of watching your phone, what you're gonna do? I'm gonna watch something on Disney Plus or something like that. I don't know. You move from one screen to the other screen. So that's it. Yeah, it's wild. But it has its benefits because it gets us close to other people, and you can learn a lot online too. It's a big one.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I mean, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now if we couldn't do it online.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

Exactly. So yeah, I think that if we know how to use it towards the right direction, we're gonna be we're gonna be cool.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

But what's interesting is when I was young, uh, like I we're getting to El Salvador here in a second, but in the States, man, you know, kids, you wake up, you get your Pop Tart, your Fruity Pebbles, and you watch Saturday morning cartoons. And what is wild is I remember that uh when I was young and I'd watch a bunch of cartoons, my I would have this pressure in my head, I don't know, like after a few hours of cartoons, whatever. And uh and then, you know, I stopped it it came and go. I mean, I'm not a big TV guy, anyways. And then I was dating a girl and we started watching the Peaky Blinders, which is like one of the most amazing series ever. And so in the evening, I would start watching it, and I would realize that that feeling in my head came back. Like I always said I felt like my head was compressed in a microwave. And so then I started doing some reading, and someone's like, Oh, you should get like blue, blue blocking glasses, like blue light glasses. And I said, Okay. So I go to the place where I got these frames from, and it's like, you know, a little boutique of like mom and pop, and they're really nice, and they would never rip anybody off. And I said, Okay, I need some blue light lenses. They said, Okay, that's fine. So there's no prescription and just blue light. And I go to pick them back up, and they're like, okay, that's 250 euros. I was like, wait, what? Like, uh, the fuck. And now, like I said, they're they didn't rip me off, so I'm a little confused. Well, fast forward like two years later, and I've got this guy that works for Carl Zeiss. Yeah, the the I think Carl Zeiss, it's the lens that they do a lot with Sony. I don't know if they're owned by Sony. And I told him the story, and he said, Oh man, is there like a hologram on your lens? And I was like, uh actually, I think so. And he's like, Yeah, give me your glasses. I said, Okay. So he turns into light and he's like, bro, these are Carl Zeiss lenses. That's why they were expensive. And I said, Oh, really? And he starts like telling me the technical statistics, like whatever technicologies behind it about how they're like a million times better than the bullshit you buy on Amazon and this and that. And he asked me, he said, Do you notice a difference? And if I watch two, three episodes of Peaky Blinders back to back with these glasses on, I didn't have that microwave effect feeling in my head. So I wonder how many kids, especially like our age, I'm a little bit older than you, when we were kids and no one ever spoke about any of this stuff. Here we are, just like getting cooked, like mentally, and we have no clue. I mean, imagine the TVs back then, man, they were terrible.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Yes, yes. Man, there was not too much information about that back in those days. And me, I there was nothing. I started like feeling that I need glasses because yeah, after two hours that I, you know, I work a lot on my computer, you know, doing some stuff, doing some courses, or setting up a new process or something, and then after two hours, my eyes start getting tired and tired, tired, and I cannot run away from it because everything is on a screen, right? So I go to the computer to see my phone. I shut down the phone to see the TV. So it's like it there is screens everywhere. So yeah, I think that I might need one of those maybe.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah, I mean, I I yeah, I I really notice a difference, especially in the evening, because you go to bed in the evening, and if I did something online for like a few hours, like edited a program, worked on a program, anything. And I'm not even watching TV, man. I'm just working. Yeah, I really kind of feel like this this I don't know, man. My head, I feel like I pulled my head out of a microwave. And I really notice a difference when I have the glasses on. I mean, mentally, I'm still usually on, so I really try to cut the computer at like nine o'clock or something like that if I can. I'd rather wake up early and work because then I got the whole day, versus fry my brain in the evening. But I mean, like I said, man, with what we're doing and what you're doing, I mean, bro, sometimes there's just not enough fucking hours in the day.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Yeah, exactly. It's too many hours, man. Too many, too many more, but we love it.

unknown 8:53

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

So, speaking of that, man, where are you right now? You're in Poland, right?

unknown 8:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

I'm based in Poland now, Warsaw.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Oh, wow, you're based there.

unknown 9:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

All right, so let's back up a little bit then. We can bounce around. We don't have to go back to like the day you were born. We can we can go like around the you know around some corners here. But let's talk about. Um, I watched a little bit of some of the stuff you had with Yuri today, just to kind of get myself ready for the podcast. Yeah, Yuri Salsa, I think it is, right?

unknown 9:21

So who?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yuri, the guy from Florida.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Yeah, sorry, I called it Jürgen. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah, yeah. And uh, and he was you were kind of talking about like El Salvador and Diego being a good buddy of yours. I know when I spoke with you that I knew that you were in Poland often because of your girlfriend, and I heard the stories that you said about um about uh Empire and you know and everything there. So, what what brought you? When did you go to New York?

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Ah, that's a very that's a very good one. And I'm gonna start saying uh something very, very common in every single dancer. It was exactly after I gave up dancing. In that moment, I was in Switzerland, and this is a good story. I think I had never said this one before.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Oh, you were in Switzerland before?

SPEAKER_03 10:05

Yes, and let me explain you why. This is a very good story because I didn't quit my job, I got fired. And I'm gonna explain how that happened. So I went to Costa Rica, I started dating a girl, she becomes my girlfriend, right? That's in the period when I met Diego, but that's not important. So this girl, she got uh an opportunity to work in Europe, to dance with another guy. She was more experienced than me. So she got an opportunity to dance with another guy who lives in Switzerland. And yeah, it seems to be a good opportunity. She talked to me and I told her, look, go. She was 24. I told her, this is where you have to go. This is the age for us to risk and go. And she told me, but what about you? And I told her, Don't worry about me. I'm gonna catch up. I'm gonna go and see you. Because in that moment I was working remotely without telling my company. I was just taking my computer to Costa Rica, to Nicaragua, to the United States, to Mexico, to El Salvador, and I was not telling them anything. I was not asking for permission.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

So this was as a data analyst, right? This is what you were doing.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

In that moment, I was a manager already, a regional manager.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Yeah. So I was taking my computer everywhere without asking the company. I said, I'm gonna do it under the table because I wanted to dance, I wanted to develop, I wanted to do this, I wanted to do that, and that was used to be my life. So that job was the corstone for everything that I was doing because it was giving me money while I can move and train and get dancing, right? So very valuable. So, with that in my head, in that moment it made so much sense to me. And I said, huh, no problem. She goes to Switzerland, I'm gonna go to business her because I work remotely. What's what was the worst that can happen? They're not gonna, they're not gonna notice. It's been two years almost that I'm running like this. So she goes to Switzerland. Unfortunately, the Congress that she got hired, they were not selling too many tickets, so they start cutting off from the budget and from the artist. So even though she went to Europe, the festival didn't happen anymore for her. And I said, Okay, I I'm gonna go to BCDU so we can be together a little bit, and then we come back to Costa Rica. I go back, I open the computer, in the moment that I log in with my username in my laptop, like maybe after 30 seconds, I get an email. Cybersecurity. Oh my god. When I saw that email, I said I say, I said, I know where this is coming from. And the email said, Hey, uh Javier manager, whatever. Uh, we want to make sure that you are the person who has logged in in all these places in the last, I don't know, period of months. And you can see there Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, United States, United States, Texas, United States here, and Switzerland. And I was like, fuck. Then the Skype message from my manager. Hey, can we talk? And I was like, ah, I'm cooked. It's over. And I said, of course. In that moment, it hit me. It makes sense. All this time I have been able to log in in all these places because the company has offices on those places, on those countries. So the cybersecurity alert hasn't raised any red flag yet. But when I go to Switzerland and I log in, of course, there's no offices there. And when it comes to cybersecurity and stealing data from companies, these companies pay a lot of money for that because it's very delicate. And those are zero top policies. That if you fail, that's immediate, immediately you get fired. So I was a good employee. I get into the phone call. My manager asked me what happened, what are you doing Swiss playing? Look, I have been dancing, I'm in love with dancing, you know it already. She told me, Okay, look, we cannot do nothing here because you hit we hit a wall. This is zero tolerance. So, since you have been a good uh employee and a good manager and everything, I already talked to human resources, and we're gonna let you um quit. Yeah, it doesn't go on your record, and someone else can hire you into the same uh scope, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah, same position, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Exactly, exactly. Or she told me option B, you come back, but you have to work from the office because you break the confidence that we have with you. And that's when I said, nah, it's been almost two years without going to work in an office. I that was my life before, and I said, nah, I'm not coming back. No matter what happened, I said, I'm not coming back. I felt like someone told me you have to go to jail. That's how I felt. So I said, nah, I'm not coming back. I said, fuck it, I'm not coming back. I'm gonna quit. I lose everything. I lose the job that I had in that moment that I'm telling you that was my core stone and everything that I have built in that moment. It's it means everything to me, many different aspects. I was 28 years old already. So, and I lost it. And I said, and I blame not my girlfriend, not myself, I blame dancing itself. I said, This happened. This happened because I want to be uh a dancer, and so I developed this hate against dancing, and after that happened to me, and I lost that core stone and my possibility of moving everywhere I want. I I hate dancing in that moment. And I said, I quit. I'm not gonna dance anymore. I said, I'm gonna go to compete to Sal Salama because I won the competition regionally in Central America. They gave me a full pass and a ticket fly for me to go to compete. I said, okay, I'm just gonna go to that competition, and then after that, I that's it. I stopped dancing. This is nonsense, this is stupid, I'm stupid, I lost everything just because I wanted to dance. And that's when I text Diego. And I said, before I go to Italy, I should go to take one week of classes in New York. One week. I text Diego because he was living there. How much do you spend? What's the budget for me to how much money do I need for me to stay one week in New York? That's the question that I asked him. And then he started telling me, you have to stay, this is a place for you. You will see. I can stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay. He insisted so much that I said, okay, I'm gonna go. Step number one, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm going. Because at the beginning I didn't know. Then I told him, okay, I'm going. I am going to. And that's how I end up in New York. At the beginning, just to take a couple classes, and that's it. And then little by little I start developing this emotion again that maybe I can dance, maybe I can become a dancer. That's how I end up in New York.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

And is it like we get all political here quickly? Because you know, now you hear like, oh, with ice and this and that, it's so difficult to go to New York and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I mean, we don't need to go down the political road here. But was it hard for you to get to the States? I mean, like Diego, Yagitza, um, yourself, you guys are all in New York, and I think you're doing okay. So, was it hard to get to New York? I mean, I worked at a pro tennis academy and I had buddies from the UK, you know, we all over. It was tennis, man. And uh and they got in and out pretty easily. So, was it easy for you to get to New York and get what you needed to stay there?

SPEAKER_03 17:20

No, not at all. Especially for me, because I'm coming from a family, the typical family that that the family needs money. So, my dad left to the United States. He crossed the border illegally, he gets into the United States, like in the years of 2000. So, my family has a record that one of my nuclear family went already to the United States. So, when I went to ask for the visa, there is a high probability that they're gonna tell me no, the rejection percentage that we get in El Salvador for you to get your uh tourist visa is so high. Yeah, the only reason why they gave me the visa is because by that moment I already finished my university, I make a lot of money, I work in a corporate job. There's no reason why this guy is gonna try to stay in the United States if we give him the tourist visa.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

They made a mistake, right? So um yeah, so for to me it was very, very difficult to get into it in the United States. So, and also to get there and then find what to do, because at the very beginning you want to be a dancer, but for you to start monetizing your dance, first you need to go through a long path and different actions for you to gain authority, prove yourself, uh, get exposure, and during all that moment is the difficult part because how you're gonna make money while you're doing trying to build authority, right? It's is it's so difficult. So that part was a lot of struggle. That that was the biggest fight. And that I will say is when the other guy inside of myself died. Because right now you saw that I my name is Javier Escobar, right? And I think that you know me as Javier Escobar. Do you know have you ever seen my my other last name?

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Uh no, man. No, no, no. I know you from uh from Instagram and then the Latin company, uh the Latin festival in Stuttgart, that's where we met.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

My friends that they they know me from my other last name, which is Jimenez. I was Javier Jimenez. My my my fiance now, uh, she knows me as Javier Jimenez also. And then I changed my name to Javier Escobar, which is my second last name. That I did it for different purposes, but one of the most important purposes is to I did it as something personal to make sure that I'm gonna kill the other guy.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

You know, the other guy who used to be the data analyst, and the I wanted to make sure that that guy is dead, and that the only guy who exists now is this one. So that process started in in New York. It was very, very difficult for you as a Latino person to cross into the border, and nowadays, even worse.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

And so when you had uh you had the tourist visa, which is 90 days, right?

unknown 20:09

There you go, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

And then you just stayed like six years. Like, what did you do? So you had the 90 days, and then yeah, and then and then they walk me through that one.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Yeah, okay. I of course I did it legally, otherwise, I wouldn't even talk about this topic and will tell you off camera, look, let's not go there.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Oh, yeah, true, true, true.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

But no, I I I did it legally, so I I can talk about freely about what I did. So I get into a process with my dad. By that moment, my dad already has his paperwork done after 20 years staying there. So there was a window because I was not married in that moment that I came and applied for a process. I applied for the process, and yeah, they give me my it was basically uh not not a permanent residence, but they give you like a provisional uh green card.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know this well because of tennis. Yeah, a lot of my roommates had this when I was when I read out what right after I got out of university, I worked at like one of the most famous tennis academies in the world, and I was like one of the few Americans there because tennis at that moment in time was more European. And uh yeah, so I had brit roommates from New Zealand, from Australia, from Japan, from uh from yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I I know that I know this process well with the different visas, and then when you marry a foreigner, it's like a K visa. So yeah, so go ahead, not to interrupt you though. So then you got you got that visa, and then you just uh what you started working as a barista? Was that what it was?

SPEAKER_03 21:33

Yes, exactly. That that's how I started working that uh greetings to Nicolas, that's the name the name of the guy who helped me to find a job. I get into New York Tuesday. By Thursday, I was already uh working basically in this as a barista. Um I learned how to make the figures, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Hey man, that's important. Hey man, coffee's without a figure, without without a picture on top of coffee. He's not a man.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

But I have a very funny story about it. Me, I am the kind of person who I take opportunities. I when I know what I want, I don't care what I have to go through. I will take the opportunity. So I called this guy, right? They gave me the number. Look, this is the owner of the bakery. Make a phone call, ask for a job. All right. That's very normal in New York, right? A lot of immigrants trying to work. Hey, how are you? What's up? I'm looking for a job. All right. The guy asked me the questions. Do you know how to make coffee? And obviously not the normal coffee, right? I understood that he was asking me this kind of coffee, right? I'm not stupid. If he's asking me that, if I know how to make coffee, if I know it, it's because that's the only position available. I'm not gonna say no. So I told him, yeah. I told him, yeah, of course. I know how. And he told me, what's your experience? And I told him, look, I was living in Switzerland. I'm coming from Switzerland. I was living there for three months. And I work in uh in a in a coffee shop, and they teach me how to do coffee. I was like, oh sure. All right. Come by tomorrow, Thursday, uh Wednesday, and show me what you what you can do. I was like, all right, amazing. I was happy. I got my my interview, right? So I show up and I said, everything that I have to do is just watch watch a YouTube video. I don't think it can be that difficult. But I forget about it. I show up to the meeting, we sit, we talk, tell me a little about yourself. Normal interview. All right, let's go to the bar and show me what you can do. I was like, shit, I forget to watch the YouTube video. So I was like, can I go to the bathroom very quick? And I was like, Yeah, yeah, of course. I went to the bathroom, I pull out the video, I see it very quick, and I remember the instructions. Very easy. Make sure that you turn this thing on. And the guy said, if you want to be efficient, a good barista, while the milk is getting uh while the coffee is pouring out into the cup. That's the important part. You warm out the milk. That's that's what a good barista does. And I was like, okay, I want to look good. So I came out of the bathroom, I'm ready, I get the cup, I clean the cup. I try to look professional, like I get the cup, and I am cleaning the cup like this, and talking to you, so you can see that it's something that I do every day.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Yeah, you're natural, yeah. Sure, you don't have to think.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

Yeah, so I was here. And another waiter has come to ask the manager, who's him? They're like, oh, he's a guy, he's a he's uh he's a new guy. Uh he worked in making coffee in Switzerland. The girl, the girl was like, Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. No. Like, yeah, uh, and then here we go. This is the moment. This is the moment. The moment when I have to pour the coffee, remember, when I have to be efficient. So I hit the bottom to pour the coffee, then I start steaming the meal. Shh, this um shh, and I keep talking to him. And when I looked at him, I see that before he looked so convinced about myself, excited about hiring me. And when I looked at him now, now he looks mad and sad and depressed. And the girl, the waitress, that she looked already, that she was looking at me like I was amazing. She started laughing and she left. She just tapped his shoulder of the manager and then he left. I was like, shit, what did I do? What did I do? And I was like, no, and I was like, no, no, no, I have the meal. And I remember the video, man. And the guy kept looking at me surprised. Now he's surprised, and he told me, You really haven't noticed? And I was like, No. He told me, Look at the look at your left. And I looked, I didn't put the cup for the coffee to pour. So the coffee was falling into the floor, the whole coffee. And I did a whole mess. And he looked at me like you really didn't notice. And I was like, fuck. And then I turned off the thing and I told him, Look, man, I lied to you. I never took coffee in my life. But I need the chance, I need the opportunity. I came here, I need the chance, I need a job, and I'm not the kind of person who is gonna say no to an opportunity. I am a fast learner. If you give me the chance, I'm gonna learn fast. And then he stopped me right there. He told me, Look, shut up. Don't say anything else. And I said, Oh fuck. He's gonna say no. And he told me, Look, I'm gonna hire you. Not because you lie or not because I see that you're a fast learner, just because you have the right intentions. That what you describe right now, told me that's the immigrant, the the spirit of someone who wants to achieve something. And you remind me to myself. So you're hired. So oh shit, I got the job. You remind me to this movie. You have you seen this of this Ted, the Ted movie? The which one? Ted this uh movie called Ted.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Is that a movie or is that that's a that's a series, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:40

You know, it's a movie. I'm gonna send it to you later.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Ah, the one with the teddy bear, or no?

SPEAKER_03 26:45

Yeah, that one.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen the full thing of it, but yeah, I was very similar to that.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

But yeah, the guy at the end, he hired me, and that's how I started working in that in that um coffee shop, making coffee.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

And then what where were you living? Like, what were you doing? Because I mean, obviously, like I think I I remember like hearing a little bit about Yaritsa, and she was like, Yeah, like I didn't know anything, I didn't know English, I didn't know where to live. And I'm like, holy shit, man, no wonder you guys are successful.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

It's men, I'm telling you, not ever, not anybody. It's it's very few people I have found that they have the boss to do what we did. It's people very me personally, I just know Diego, Eliana, and Jarita. That's the only ones that I know personally. I know that they do, but I know their story. And then the rest of the people, all of them they they they they step back, they they don't do it, they they leave because once they realize what they have to go through, like I'm gonna go over right now, I don't have where to live, they cannot handle it. And me was the same. Diego gave me the chance to live, uh to sleep in the floor. My back was killing me already. And in that moment, I told Diego, look, I'm not saying that I'm gonna stay. I told him, I'm gonna see if I see opportunities or if I had the feeling, right? And if I want to stay, I'm gonna stay. So I was waiting for a signal when I couldn't move anymore with my back because I was asleep in the floor. Like once, I'm 29 years old. So in that in that moment, I was 29 years old. So I'm not young anymore, I'm not 18, right? And I'm realizing that I cannot sleep in the floor anymore. Before I can. Now, before I could do it, now I can. So I was walking, and this is another crazy story. And I was having conversations with God because I'm Christian, and despite my all my mistakes, I still try to talk to him. And I was like, ask, ask him, talk to me. Do I have to stay? I don't know what to do. Do I have to? Is this the right move? Is not the right move? What do I do? And I was walking by as sorry, I was thinking that in the apartment, and I was feeling so overwhelmed because the 90 days that you mentioned before, we're about to finish. This is when I have to make a decision. Yeah. Once I make the decision, I cannot look back. So, also, meaning that if I stay and I don't succeed on my process, I'm gonna lose the access to the United States, and I haven't seen my dad for 22 years in that moment. So if I lose it, I'm not gonna see him again. Yeah, so we go back into the same problem that we started. So it was too much for me. I went for a walk and I was asking for a signal. And when I was walking and asking for that signal and listening to Salsa, I look at the left and I see uh a mattress, a whole bed, new one, brand new in the plastic, brand new that it says the note with that sticky note that says you can take it, it's free. My bad was killing me. I needed a place where to sleep because I didn't have any anything where I can sleep, right? And I was like, no fucking way. And then I saw people that they were moving out, and of course I'm not gonna take something just like that. So I asked him, if this to and the guy told me, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What happened? And he starts explaining me. He told me, What happened is that I was moving, this is my wife. We were moving, we were moving in, but then we changed the decision, whatever. And the place where we're going, we already have a mattress. So I bought this one for nothing. I tried to send it back, but they don't want to take it. So if you want to take it, it's yours, nobody has to sleep in this mattress. I look up and I said, Okay, I got it.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

This is the signal, but of course, nothing comes easy. I believe that God can help you, but at some point you also have to put yourself into work. So I carry the fucking mattress like for 45 minutes, resting up again, resting up again into Diego's apartment, Diego's room, because he has roommates. And yeah, I sleep in that in that mattress. And after that, I I think that I left that mattress to Diego.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Crazy. And that was um, and so then how long were you uh how long were you so then you were with Diego? You were working as a barista, and then what you were just on fucking Craigslist looking for a place to stay, or what then?

SPEAKER_03 31:17

Yeah, exactly. Then I said, okay, I'm gonna stay. Next decision is I need to look a place for myself. So I started looking for a place. I'm moving to three to four different places. The first one was within New Jersey, uh, which is next to the river, right? You cross the river, that side of New Jersey that is very close to New York. I found a room for myself and with a lot of like seven people. I stayed there for two months. Then I went to Chinatown for like 15 days, living with a woman that didn't know how to speak English or Spanish or nothing, just Chinese. So I was talking to her, like, thanks. And then I moved to Harlem for one month. That that's a that's the other breaking point in Harlem when I moved to Harlem, and then I moved to Brooklyn, which is where I was I live the most.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

And speaking, I'm gonna interrupt you quickly because it sounds like you're in fucking Brooklyn or Harlem right now. What is that noise in the background? Which noise? I think there's some people like working or something, huh?

SPEAKER_03 32:21

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

I mean, I think it's fine. I don't know. I I like I said, we've got this like magic button when it comes to the sound on this uh Riverside thing, but um, yeah, it sounds like uh yeah, wow. I mean, I think it's okay. I don't think it's a problem. It just sounded like someone was sounds like you're in New York, man.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

The window is closed. So what happened is that I live in the very center of Warsaw, so there is always something happening here.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

I mean, that's also not bad.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

Yeah. So what I was saying.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

You were saying that uh yeah, that you were living in Chinatown with some woman, and then he moved to Harlem, and Harlem was another breaking point.

SPEAKER_03 32:57

Oh, yeah, Harlem was another breaking point. So, in that moment, I'm gonna tell you about it really quick. That's that's the second decision that I made. So I stay, right? I I there's no way back. I need to stay in and need to make it work. I said that I want to become an artist, I said that I want to live out of dancing, now I have to make it work. I have no more choice. So I have been working as a barista, I don't see any opportunities to work as a as a dancer, and I have these ideas on my head.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

So this is this is basically three months, right? Because you're at night, you're still under 90 days, so to speak, of you being in New York.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Three months already passed.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Oh, yeah, true. Yeah, yeah, of course. Because of the yeah, the amount of the different places you've lived, of course, it's passed.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

This is almost one year into it.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Okay, so were you dancing anywhere at that moment? Were you just working the whole time?

SPEAKER_03 33:47

I was just working, and and that that's that was killing me. That I stay and I risk everything because I wanted to dance and become a dancer, and I'm not even working as a dancer.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

So are you were you dancing on your own? Were you still training? Were you going to like social events?

SPEAKER_03 34:02

I was taking classes at Empire Dance Studio.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Ah, okay, so you were a student at Empire at that time.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

Exactly. I wasn't a student, and I remember now it was between six to eight months, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Okay, and how much was the membership though? Because that's also gotta be a bit steep.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

When you're was three hundred the full membership, three hundred dollars a month.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

What? But I mean, when you're working as a barista and affording rent, three hundred dollars a month is steep.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

Yeah, you have no idea, man. You have no idea, but you know, I I stayed for that, so I was yeah, I I was doing everything I could.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Wow. Okay, so yeah, so continue. Sorry, it's just interesting.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

Yeah, so um it's very interesting, I know. So uh I have all these thoughts attacking me in my head. So my body, my mind is divided between one guy who was the data analyst, regional manager, telling me or whatever. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What the fuck are you doing? You're yeah, this is stupid, don't be stupid. You have a career, just go back, and then you can keep training as you were doing it before, just find another job. You're suffering for nothing, literally. This is stupid what you're doing, and then I have the other side of my of my myself telling me, stay, fight for it. You can you can make it through, you can become a dancer. Those dreams that you have that one day you're gonna go into the stage, and the people will hire you and will make you fly to that, those things are possible. So myself is divided into this, and then I move to Harlem, and when things cannot get worse, they get worse. Always. Always. So I am very unhappy living in Chinatown with this woman that doesn't even speak uh English. And then I found a place in Harlem, it looks good. I pay a lot of money, $200, $200 more, but at least I'm gonna have my own room, I'm gonna have a bathroom that I can use, whatever. I go into the apartment, the apartment has rats. This is winter, plain the middle of the winter, and the apartment, the room doesn't have a heater, and the cherry on the top, the what the water in the bathroom, there's no hot water. And I wake up at 6 a.m. to go to work. Yeah, and there's no hot water. What? What? So I started sending emails, complaining a lot with the landlord. They don't move, it's New York, you know, they don't give a shit about nothing. It was like, yeah, fuck you, everyone has problems here, right? So it's it's uh I was complaining a lot.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

So and you couldn't go back to the Chinese lady?

SPEAKER_03 36:45

No, I I couldn't go back anymore. Yeah, and I have no money, I use everything that I have left for that shot that I took to go to Charlotte because I thought that at least I'm gonna have a little bit more peace.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:56

So here I am in this new apartment. There's not even hot water, I'm dying, I'm getting sick. Now, all those problems plus my thoughts, I break up, and that's the second breakup and the most important part of my story because it was like 2 a.m., something like that, after taking classes, and I couldn't anymore. And I am a data analyst, so I'm always analyzing my moves and trying to see what is best to and I don't find nothing what to do. I I don't understand what to do with my life. I don't understand if I have to go back, I don't understand if I have to stay, I have no idea what to do, and I completely surrendered and I went into my niece. I remember I was in the bed and I went into my niece, and I started crying like crazy and telling Don, okay, I give up. And yeah, this is a little bit hard, but I I told him I give up. I have no idea what to do, I don't know where to go, I don't know where the next options are. I I literally don't know. And yeah, I told him I I give up, I give it to you, I have no idea. So that was so hard to to go through, and yeah, it was like an internal battle. And after I give up, and I told him just I I was begging him. I tell him, Don't help me. Just tell me where to go, and I will go. I'm not asking that you take me, I will fight whatever I have to fight. I I go through whatever I have to go. Just tell me where, because I don't see it, and I in the middle of nowhere in the dark, and I don't see where.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, literally in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Like it's literally fucking freezing.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

Yeah, it was it was horrible. I it it was it was that was the the worst point that I ever reached in my life. And after that, something very interesting interesting happened. So after I break down like that, I don't know if it's one week or two weeks, I don't remember. But Adolfo comes to me and told me, hey Javi Dievo told me that uh you would like to join the team. Look, would you like to join to the semi-bro team? And I said, Fuck, finally, something happening.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Yeah, but how, so uh how did but but how? Because you had been at uh you'd been at Empire for how long now by then?

SPEAKER_03 39:30

I told you like between six to eight months.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Yeah, but I mean, so the thing is, is it is it really like that full of just unbelievable dancers where you don't stick out, so to speak? Or I mean, or do they just want to like, I don't know, it does it just take time? I mean, because if you're going to those classes and you're rocking it and you're a really good dancer, then aren't they at some point in time being like, yo, Javier, like what are you doing? Hey, you ever thought about doing a beginner's class?

SPEAKER_03 39:57

Yeah, exactly. What happened is that uh, yes, there is a lot of talented dancers because it's New York. And what happened is that I started dancing late. So my skills is not that are the top of the shelf. I I I started dancing in the cycles. There is not too much information. So when I show up to New York, I don't have a lot of skills developed. All the skills that I have developed, I did it online, by the way, buying and paying for training. Yep, yep, yep. That's how I got myself ready for me to go to New York. So there is auditions usually, but there was no auditions coming soon. So I was waiting either for auditions, I was waiting for Adolfo to ask me to join, I was waiting for, you know, I was waiting for something. And that was the first option that comes up. Adolfo offers me to join into the semi-pro. Okay, that is one thing to do. After I surrendered and I break down, that's one thing to do. And now this one, you're not gonna believe it. I get an email. A company from my country was offering me a job, paying more than what I used to, what I used to have before, and working 100% fully remote. No need of me showing up. What I needed to do is show up to sign the papers in person. I cannot do it online. And they are ready to hire me because there is a a person who knows me and I'm strongly recommended there by another CEO from another company. So that's option B. They are ready to hire me there. So, and then Adolfo told me, Look, Diego told me that you are in love with Fernando, that you like his style. So if you want to go to Italy and try there in Italy, I also can help you with that. I can talk to him about you, so you can get something. I don't know. So now that's the third option. So after I break down, like I don't remember if it's one week or two weeks. Now I have three options. I stay in New York and I keep trying in New York. And now I see an option, which is the semi-pro, which opens the window to many possibilities. Option two, I go back to my country and I get what I used to have before. Yeah. It's the life that I have been saying that I wanted so much. And then the third option, I go to Italy, and with a good recommendation on my back. So after I surrendered, I had these three options where I can choose. And yeah, after that I sit down, I talk to Diego, and I decided to stay in New York.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

So when you were so the semi-pro team, what is I'm gonna bounce around here a bit. What is the difference between the semi-pro? I mean, semi-pro and pro, there's obviously the difference is obvious. But like for someone that like, what is the difference though? So the semi-pro team, what is the pro team doing? They're going to the bigger festivals, bigger conferences, bigger.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

There you go, exactly. So the pro team in that moment is traveling with Adolfo, going to festivals within the United States, and the semi-pro team is basically, I used to call it the that we were the wannabe. One day I want to be. We're the wannabe team. That one day I want to be there, right? So you are just the next line in terms of skills. So there is actually one in the middle. There is the semi-pro. There was one in the middle that what that's why I used to call it the wannabe, and then the pro. Okay. Semi-pro, you almost make it in the pro. So I'm into the semi-pro first.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

And so it's so you and I mean Diego and Yaritza were also at Empire. So do you guys, did you guys make it through the whole process, or do a lot of you go from the semi-pro, you make your own career, and then you continue on your own without ever finishing like the final two steps, so to speak?

SPEAKER_03 43:46

Uh Yaritza, I don't know, but Diego he made it right into the protein.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Oh wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:53

He had more skills, more experience, he knows more in his body. He got right into the protein. I think Jaritza also. Did the same. I think so, but I need to ask her because I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

Judging by her skills, I would say that she also made it right away into the protein because she's very good. I don't see how she wouldn't make it, right? In my case, I had never done Spiderwood before in that moment. So yeah. To me, doing the semi-pro was a lot. And I started there fighting from the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

And so when you made it to uh when you when you said you were there for like six to eight months before the protein option came up, did you develop as a dancer from like the beginning to those six to eight months, like a ton? Were you were you yourself like a completely different dancer? Or did you just make well were you like a better dancer? Or if you would be like, dog, if you would have seen me eight months ago and you would see me now, you wouldn't even think I'm the same person.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

Oh yeah, yeah. I saw a whole difference.

unknown 44:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Yeah, that's what you said, Salsa Namar, or yeah?

SPEAKER_03 45:04

Exactly, exactly. Solo dancer. Very good for dancing solo, but for party word, none. Okay. Zeros.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Wild. So then, so then, okay, so then you're doing the semi-pro thing. And then when does um well when I met you uh in god Stuttgart, uh like a three, four, five months ago, whenever that was, you were already saying that 2026 is completely right? Was it in 25 we met? I don't even remember.

SPEAKER_03 45:34

What what what what are you saying?

SPEAKER_01 45:35

When we met, you told me, but let's just talk about 26. That's fine. Your entire 26 is already booked out, right? Like you know exactly where you're going, everything. When did that start to happen? Because obviously you went from sleeping with rats to dancing with uh, you know, with a membership to leaving with a Chinese woman. I mean, a little bit other order there, to to, I mean, when you when did you get your first event booked? I mean, you must have remembered that, uh, you probably started like crying when that happened.

SPEAKER_03 46:03

Yeah, it it of course. So uh when that happened, I was dancing in the broad team already with and I did this process of moving from one team to to scaling in and scaling into with into the system of Empire with Elian, no with Diego, because Diego got before he's helping me, but he was already um in another stage because I I got there late. So he comes and we did the process with him. So by this moment, I'm already dancing in the protein, and I have one year dancing there. I started dancing, let's put it on January, and this moment it was in November. Was in November, and I got hired, me personally, under my name, uh, for this festival that happens in Vietnam. SBK, where I have a good friend now, and I'm Oscar. But uh and yeah, by recommendation of one, if I'm not mistaken, I need to double check that one. So yeah, I was very happy. So I got my first hiring for May 2025, and I am in November 2024. So that's when I have to make the next decision, which is do I continue on the pro team or I get the fuck out.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

Yeah, because once you start doing once you start getting those job offers, then you can't continue on the pro team anymore, huh?

SPEAKER_03 47:26

And it will be very, very responsible. Yeah, if I'm trying I'm trying to something else here on the other side and not giving everything here, when I said I'm gonna give everything on this team, yeah. Very responsible, right? So there is a decision that you have to and right now the decision seems very obvious, but in that moment it doesn't seem that obvious. So because you don't have nothing on the other side, what's what's what's the the recommendation that everybody will give you, which is look, release this one once you get this one solid, right? That's the recommendation, but never release these two things because then you're gonna fall into the emptiness. So don't leave from the team from the pro team until you have a solid career by myself. That was kind of the promise and the recommendation, and that's how Diego did it. Diego and Yarita, they build up themselves the same way. So I was kind of expecting to do the same thing. But in my case, things were different. I never found a partner for myself, for example. I never found anyone that I can work with, so I was just by myself.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:31

That's when I made the decision. So when I thought about it, I went to talk to Adolfo about it. About look, this is what I want to do. And he told me, You're not ready. He told me you're not ready. So you shouldn't go, you're not ready, you shouldn't do that. You should keep dancing and stay here with me and whatever. That's why he told me. I don't recommend you to go, you are not ready. And I hear those words, and I told him, okay, but I made a decision already. I'm gonna try to make that opportunity to multiply it for as many opportunities as I can. And then that's when Adolfo hit me with the other option. He told me, All right, if that's your decision, I respect that. If you go out there and nothing happened to you, you don't find a way to work, you're dying. Literally, not nothing, it didn't work out for you. Feel free to come back. I will give you a chance to teach again, I will give I will give you a chance to be part of the team, and you do the process all over again. So go in peace. That if nothing works, this is your house, you can come back like nothing happened, and you start over all over again, and then you try it again later.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Yeah, but he's a cool guy, then, huh?

SPEAKER_03 49:44

Yeah, exactly. So once he told me that, I also felt better, even though he told me you're not ready, and I didn't agree with him. But even though he told me you're not ready, at least he's opened the doors if I want to come back, right? Because at least I was responsible and I talked to him.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

So but that's actually really cool on his end, man. I mean, that's that's very um mature is not even the right word. That's just it's it's it that's a response from a very grounded person, you know. I mean, uh, I don't know anything about Adolfo at all. I think it's quite funny he eats a very similar diet than I do. I he eats like carnivore. I randomly heard that in a video and I said, Oh, that's hilarious. And um, but yeah, man, I mean, a response from someone like that, either, you know, yeah, that that's pretty cool because there's I I there's not many people that would respond like that.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

It is pretty cool, and you know, Adolfo is a very um controversial guy in many aspects, and there are many people that they don't agree with his decision. I personally don't agree with many decisions that he has done when I was there, and he knows it. That's why I'm saying it freely.

SPEAKER_02 50:45

Because yeah, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 50:47

Because I don't agree with many decisions that he has done when I was there, but I am the kind of person who believes that we can disagree on something, and that doesn't mean that we're not friends anymore. So with Adolfo, I still talk. Adolfo still sometimes tell me, hey, I still remember our last conversation. I feel proud about you, I feel proud about what you are doing. And I'm like, yeah, I still remember that conversation too. And uh, and yeah, thank God it worked, you know. So I am that kind of person that even though I didn't agree with many decisions that he has done, I will still talk. And I still feel very good with him, and I appreciate that he left the door open for me in case that I want to come back. It feels like uh you have like an insurance. That's how I feel.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

That's how I feel.

unknown 51:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

Yeah, and it also is some, I mean, I I had a similar, uh not a similar situation. I had a situation where I came out to Germany to help uh grow like the tennis department in the sports medicine direction as physical therapy, strength and conditioning. And a few years later, the club absolutely fucked me over. Like so hard. And you know, and that's fine if if I'm German and my family comes from here and I have like an exit strategy or something lined up, but I'm on a work permit. I mean, at least it was for myself. Like the work permit was under my name. So it's not like I was with them, thank God. And uh, and then I went, I I remember being like, fuck, what am I gonna do? And uh, and I get this flyer in my mailbox from this like fitness studio like down the road. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. So I call my buddy that's working at the club that just absolutely screwed me. And he's like, Yeah, go check it out. And maybe when the guy goes bankrupt in like a year or so, uh, you can take over the place. So I was like, Yeah, I don't know. So I go and I meet the guy. Not really sure what I thought about him. Simon was his name. I said, Hey, is it okay if we speak English? My German's not that good. And we start speaking English together. Well, then right away I realized that he's a good dude, and I realized that he's really good at what he's doing because Germany and Europe, they don't, well, I'll speak for Germany. The strength and conditioning here is it's it's sorry, Germany, but it's a joke. Yeah. And so then I start seeing this guy, and he is a he's a he's a beast. And it ends up that he followed a very famous strength coach online in from YouTube since he was young. Joe DeFranco is this YouTube guy's name, and he's a big strength coach, worked with the best athletes ever. And so Simon was unbelievable. So I start working with him. He barely even knows me. Remember this, right? And then the club that screwed me over starts talking shit about him. Because, you know, we're not very, I mean, the town that we're working in is not very big. You got like a whole bunch going on outside. But either way, so then they start talking shit about him. And he's like, wait a second, what? I don't know any of these people. And he turned to me, he said, David, you know what? We're gonna make this work. I don't care if you can't afford rent because I was paying them for the room. He's like, We will make this work because they can go fuck themselves. It's basically what he said. I'm taking the words out of my own. And and I and I and I remember saying that to a buddy of mine, and he said, Wow, that's wild. And I said, What? And he said, Well, the club that brought you here that screwed you over, you just got rescued by a guy that sees what you can do with him, not for him. And I never forgot that. Yeah. And I thought that he took a chance on me. And to this day, we're still good, still very good friends. I mean, I'm not there anymore. But um, same thing. Like, I when he told me that, I knew right away, I don't care what anyone else says about Simon. I mean, no one says anything bad about him, anyways. I said, but that's insane. Like he bent over backwards for me and he didn't even know me. And the club that did know me completely screwed me over. So I'm always very aware of those small things. Like when I hear that, right? When I heard that about um about uh Adolfo, then I'm just like, wow, okay, that right there, I don't care what anyone says about him, I don't know him at all. But something like that is said by very few people. So that's that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

Exactly. That that's very cool, actually. And yeah, when we talk to Adolfo, I I like I said, yeah. I it's you know, I believe in them that we can be adults. I can tell you if we're working together, that that this is how I am. If we imagine that you and me were working together into something, into some business. That's okay. If one day you told me, you know what, fuck you having fuck this, fuck everything. All right, all right. We're working together. That that's completely okay. But tomorrow, let's have a talk again. Hey, you feel better now? Yeah, fuck. All right, let's let's retake it. That's that's how I am.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

Sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 55:15

Uh we are working together, but I don't like that. I don't know, you are uh you are cheating on your girlfriend. I don't like that. I'm not gonna work with you anymore. No, man, it's like we we we're working here. So if we disagree on something, or if if something we don't agree, we can talk about it like adults. And if you if you want to say some heavy words to me, all right, say it. If that makes you feel better, all right, say it, say it. But tomorrow, now that you feel better, let's work again. Let's make it a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

Yeah, and I think also, I think too, you know, like uh, you know, in that case, or I can't think of, I know this has happened multiple times in my life. I'm going blank on it, so I'm just gonna use the Adolfo case where you know there's been situations where I'm, you know, my boss will do something when I had a boss that I didn't agree with, and people would be like, yeah, but doesn't it piss you off? I'm like, why, man? Like the guy's the boss, like he can fucking do what he wants. And at the end of the day, if the decisions are that bad, then the plates won't function. So when you see something continuing to function, continuing to do well, yeah, maybe we would do different decisions, but at the same time, I got no place, I got no school where I'm charging $300 a month. So obviously, what that person is doing, whoever that person is in this example, is doing something right because I'm working for him.

SPEAKER_03 56:32

Exactly. So yeah, taking that that uh point that was I I felt like an insurance, and yeah, I've I appreciate that he left the door open for me, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

Yeah, that's really cool. That's super cool.

SPEAKER_03 56:44

I I I went, and this is important too, because I believe in manifestation. That when you throw yourself into the emptiness, I believe that God will help me. So I went back to my apartment with rats, and I said, All right, I give up to my pro team, right? Which is what's the most important project that I have in my hands in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

So you're still living with the rats at the pro team. You're still in that place?

SPEAKER_03 57:07

Um, yeah, I I switched up to another place now, living with Elian. This is after Brooklyn already. So I went to Brooklyn from Harlem to Brooklyn, and now from Brooklyn to the other side of Harlem, the one that is a little bit better. So I was there with rats also for my life. And I said, All right. I said, I don't know how I only have one hiring, but I don't know how. I don't know what's gonna happen, I don't know how this is gonna happen in which order, but I'm gonna travel the whole fucking world in 2025. How I don't know. The rent, the lease of my rent was over on December. This is November. On December, the lease was over. So November is the month maximum when you have to say if you're gonna stay for another year. Yeah, sure. For sure. I was late already. So I said, fuck it, I'm not paying rent. I took everything I had into three big trash bags black, and I throw everything that doesn't fit into a suitcase. Everything, just my costume and some clothes. And every time I need a new clothes, I said, fuck it, I'm gonna buy a new one. But I'm gonna travel the whole world in 2025, and there is no reason why for me to have a lease. And I'm gonna manifest that right now, and I throw it the same night, the same night, I throw it, and I said, December is the last year, the last month that I do here, and after that, it will make no sense for me to pay rent because I'm gonna be flying everywhere. So, why do I want another lease and be paying a thousand and something dollars in New York? No sense. That's what I said, and it's exactly what happened.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

So you so you're so yeah, but but back up for a second, because you had, I think SPK was in May, right?

SPEAKER_03 58:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

So then what did you have? January, February, what was your first one? Well, okay, so SPK was technically your first one, but obviously not if you have no fucking home in December. So where do you where what was the first where do you go?

SPEAKER_03 59:12

I went to El Salvador to run a project for for to to teach classes for one month. Okay. And while I was there, messages start coming in. Hey, are you free this weekend? Are you free this weekend? Are you free this month of this weekend? And little by little my calendar is start filling off every single weekend with a different city. I don't even know how. Right now it happened a lot that someone contacted me and it's like, are you free? I'm like, No, I'm already booked. I don't know what happened that year, but every person that was contacting me, I was full already in May, and I was just one weekend free. And the next person, exactly that one, boom, like that.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_03 59:53

It was impressive. I never crashed out with any event, and I had never and I I never got a request for the same weekend. I never said, Oh, I'm sorry, I'm booked already for that weekend. Never, because it never happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:08

The way everything fits into every single weekend, it was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

And can you make you can live off the money like that, right? I mean, because I guess your expenses are basically paid. You're it's a bit tiring, but the money you make from that weekend and what it's four weekends a month, basically, that's right, four weekends a month, yeah. Then then it then it works, huh?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:28

It it works, it's very exhausting. You I spend a lot of money because I had to pay, for example, for where I'm staying in to be the between days. Some sometimes I was sometimes with another friend, uh, sometimes I had to pay for myself. So in those moments, you still have to pay money, and it was very exhausting, but also gave me the freedom to move everything I wanted. And yeah, I was tired as fuck, man. But be careful with what you wish, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

So I there was uh I remember, I don't know if you ever saw the graduation speech where they gave um Jim Carrey his uh honor honorary doctorate. And so I was that that was when I really realized that Jim Jim Carrey had a just another level of kind of like um of of reality for himself, like inner inner peace to himself. I can't think of the word how I want to say it. But I remember he was on uh Oprah one time, and uh he was talking about when he was before he had made it anywhere, he would go to like the Hollywood Hills or whatever and see the homes, and he would visualize like living there, being successful, and all that stuff. And then Oprah was like, oh, really? And I remember he turned to her and he said, Yeah, I mean, I believe in manifest manifestation, but you also can't sit on the couch and eat a cheese sandwich. And I say that to this day. Yeah, okay, you can manifest everything you want. Uh on a side note, I got in this conversation with um Alexi. I went to an emotional growth boarding school for two years. So I lived basically like in the woods, spoke about my feelings for three hours a day, wasn't allowed to go home, wasn't allowed to watch TV, wasn't allowed to eat sugar, wasn't allowed to leave the campus. I was a bit of a troublemaker when I was young. And then we had these life steps where they would What's that?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:15

You sound like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I uh we had these life steps where they would put us in a room with our group for like three days, deprive us of sleep, make us like scream and yell and beat things, and it was wild. And uh and it was cool. Like it actually really helped me out. But because of that, I was 13 when I went there. And so it really set me on a different path to understand like myself and the universe, and just you know, that there's something else out there. And and I've said to this day, often I say, you know what? And I still do this myself. I say, universe, I want X, Y, and Z. I need, I'm lost, I'm trying to achieve this. And I always remembered, you know, ask the universe for what you want, but don't tell it how to deliver it. You're right? Because so many times you're like, I, you know what, I want to travel around the world. Okay, well, you might say, as a professional salsa dancer, well, then next thing you know, you might your your girlfriend might become one of the biggest salsa dancers ever. Like, you don't know. And then next thing they're like, oh my god, Javiera, I never knew you were such a good salsa dancer. Like, there's so many paths to success, but I think one just needs to, as my mom used to always say, let the universe know what you need or it can't help you.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:31

Exactly. There you go. I I totally agree with that one. And be careful with what you wish for because that too. One is I want to travel the whole world. All right, be ready, Papacito, because you're gonna work like a fucking bitch. Now don't give me, oh, I don't have time to make a career, a new choreography. All right, you wanted this, yeah. So you wanted this, all right. Now you have to make a new one, but I don't have a room. Okay, go to the park and practice in the park because you show to deliver. And I believe that I don't care about what your excuses are. Here, the whole world just is based on the outcome. Were you capable to deliver yes or no? I don't care if you lost the bus, if you lost the train. Were you capable to deliver what you have to deliver? That's that's the only thing that it matters. Nobody cares. Like when it comes about performances, that's what I tell uh my students. It's like you're not gonna go with a label in your back that says, I have only one week to learn this routine. If the people see you there, it's because they assume that you're ready, right? Yeah, so I should forgive you, right? So we're not we don't walk with the label here my back saying, I started dancing when I was 24 in my case, and I never danced nothing before. No, not at all. If I am there, it's because I should be ready. So, and and I like because in social media we see a lot of things, and I saw this guy saying something very true, which is oh, you want to be in the kitchen? All right, but it gets hot in the kitchen, it gets hot in the kitchen. You want to work in the kitchen, you want to be the main cook, you want to be famous, all right. Let's do it. But it gets hot in the kitchen, and the people, even though it gets hot, even though you're tired, even though you're uh suffering of this and that, they are still coming with the plates because they want to be fed. So that's what you want, all right. But then you have to handle it. You need to actually know how to handle it and deliver because that's yeah, or the system falls apart. Deliver, right? That's to me, that's what it matters. If you're able to deliver or not, I don't care the excuses, I don't care if this happened, if it only happened, I think I don't care. Were you capable to deliver, yes or not? So that that that's my kind of mentality, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:44

So yeah, yeah, and I think that's I think that's an interesting mentality to have because you know, from the sports medicine side and the strength and conditioning side on my end, you know, I'm coming from interviewing with Certousole and working with professional tennis and multiple sports, where you know, there's I Hundreds of millions of dollars involved, right? And then I start getting into social dancing and I see right away that the the top level pros have a level of discipline when it comes to learning the routines and dancing and doing everything they need to do. But I think because the like salsa in bacata and these Latin dances were never truly uh because they've never really truly become like a sport. So there's no, there's no, I mean, there's schools and dance schools you can go to. But I mean, if you look at like soccer or football or even like I said, Cerc du Soleil, there are strength and conditioning centers, there's physical therapists that they hire. And so the athletes from a very young age are either learning that system or they're coming from something with that system. And the more, you know, as I got the unbreakable dancer now, and the more I go into the direction of working with yeah, with dancers like this, it's it's unbelievable. They have so many of them have no guidance. And also what is interesting is I think they are unaware of the discipline that people like you, people like Alexi, I mean, we had a very similar conversation, Diego, Yaritza, the the discipline that they have where that is the reason they are where they are. And I think there's uh something lost. It's a social dance, and it has to be social because, like you said in your other podcast, it's one of the few things where we actually have human contact. But I think sometimes the problem is the word social is almost lost in the fact that yes, it's social, but it's still high performance mindset at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:32

I totally agree with that one. Yeah, yeah. I didn't that the thoughts get lost into that part. And I would like to just retake really quick what you said, which is the people is not aware of the discipline and that people is not aware of the sacrifices. One day I was uh we were making a live with my friend Elian on YouTube, and one person came to us, hey, what motivates you to keep going? You know, what makes you wake up and say, I want to keep going with this, with my professional career, whatever. And I told him, Well, the response to this should be very romantic and beautiful, right? Which is oh, dance move myself and my heart, and it does. But I told him, the work, the key work here is sacrifice. I have I have sacrificed so much at this point that it wouldn't make sense for me to step back. If I step back, now I will lose so many things. I have sacrificed so much that now it doesn't make sense anymore. When the only thing that it makes sense is to keep moving forward with non-stop and the same way that I have been already. And as you said, sacrificing with high discipline and doing the things that nobody is willing to do. If you do that, yeah, but how many people are willing to do that?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

And I think systems, you're a big system guy, and uh, and I think you know, when I spoke with Alexi, I know uh Anichi very well. I speak with you, and I realize, and also, I mean, Diego with his online success, with his online the success of his online school, that you realize that everybody, it comes down to systems. That at the end of the day, systems are what I mean, you're a data analyst, so I don't have to fucking I don't have to tell you this, but for everybody else that's not a data analyst, that that the systems is what I mean, we get up in the morning, systems and routines. We get up in the morning, we brush our teeth. You know, there's certain things that we just do that become like ingrained in our in our DNA, and people think like, oh, well then I have to do it all the time. No, I mean, let's go back in in our life and think about how many times you woke up and maybe you didn't brush your teeth. You were in college and you got hammered and you fell asleep at what your friend's house, you went home with a girl, like whatever. But in general, if you look at the graph of how many times you brush your teeth after you wake up within the first few hours, it's probably pretty high. And I think this is where a lot of people confuse themselves when it comes to dancing. They're like, okay, well, if I dance, I just need to dance every single day and I need to make sure. Yeah, sure, but you need to have a system so you're just not chaos chaotically, can you say that? It's just not chaos that you're just throwing everything at the wall and then three months later not really understanding what you did and did not learn.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:14

Exactly. Yes, and that's what I actually promote in my online school: the system, the repetitions that matters and the concepts that matters. Now, going back into social dancing, if you want to learn how to social dance, then learn the concept that matters. Oh, then I'm gonna I'm gonna become part of a professional team. That's gonna help you, but it's not the core skills, it's gonna help you. But if you want to get better at social dancing, and that's why that's the only reason why you're doing a thing, eh? No, wrong. Yeah, you don't know that's right, you need to learn the things that actually matter. And when you realize how many hours you put on the things that actually matters are not that high, and now we can create a system, something realistic that it fits you and it fits your life, you know? So we don't go to practice or we go to the gym to five hours, not necessarily at all. And I I guess that you know this.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:04

You I mean, unless you want to go to the gym for five hours because you got nothing else going on, then I guess sure. But if you're trying to achieve a goal and time is is is is important, then then yeah, there's a better way, of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:17

And I think that you you you know more than anybody when it comes to that. Like if someone comes to you and tells you, hey, I want to do the unbreakable tax. I want my body to be unbreakable, I want to recover, but I don't have five times a day to you will respond right away. You don't need five hours, you don't need five hours for you to do a day. You just need to do this, this, this into these specific days, and in this matter of time, this matter of time, you will get better with your strength, you will get better with your flexibility, you will get better with your health, you you will get better with all of this. But all many people they have the wrong perception that for you to be at that level, I need this crazy amount of hours and actions and this and that, and maybe it's not necessary. And when it comes to social dancing, I think it's one of those.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:03

Well, I mean, or or they're or they're already spending it. I mean, a great example just with what you said with the Unbreakable Dancer is when I tell people about it. They're like, Yeah, but do I have time for it? I said, Are you going to the gym? Are you stretching and are you doing mobility? Yeah, of course. I said, Okay, well, then I could probably save you 25% of your time and get you 30% better results. They're like, Well, where'd those numbers come from? I said, it's simple. If you're going to the gym, you're already doing what I want you to do, but I'm gonna give you a proven program of exactly what you need to do. And then when you do your stretching and mobility, you're gonna learn you don't need to do it at the gym. You don't need to do it all at one time. And you can break it up. It just needs to get done during the week. I said, and when I know that you're gonna get 30% plus better results, is because where did you get your exercises from? Um, well, okay, stop right there. You don't even know. Because if you knew where your exercises came from, you would tell me right away, oh, I got them from a personal trainer that works with dancers, whatever. You would know where they came from. The but the minute you say oh um, that either means YouTube, you made them up yourself, you don't remember where you got them, you just saw somebody else doing them. I said, You've got a guy with 25 years experience, a master's in human performance that's working with pro dancers that have created these things already for you. Like you literally just have to take it and do it. And I think it's the same thing with dancing, because my master's is in human performance. So I learn how to break like concepts down, so to speak. So I go into dance class and I'll look, you know, I'll dance with somebody. And even better example, I use your example. I was watching one of your videos one time, and I believe this was maybe one of the figures in your program, and you were dancing with your girlfriend, which is her name is what again?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:39

Paulina.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:40

Paulina, thank you. You were dancing with Paulina, and you guys were doing you were doing like a crossbody 360. So there was like a move that you were doing, and there was an open break, and I think the open break, your hand was behind your back or something. So right away you broke the concept down. You said, Yeah, this is an open break. If you're confused with your hand behind your back, put it in front of your back. Yeah, it's the same fucking thing, but I get it, it gets confusing. So let's make it simple. And then you were like, Okay, now we're gonna do the crossbody 360. And as you did it in the middle of it, you're like, stop grabbing your partner, do your steps on your own. And I turned to my buddy and I said, that is genius. And he said, Yeah, but why? I need my partner to know where I'm going around because of the momentum that we have. I said, Yes, sure, but you need to know where your steps are. You can't depend on her to have her body weight to make sure your steps are where they need to go. You need to know exactly where they need to be because then you can put them there when they don't get placed there. And then you know the concept.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:43

Exactly. Correct, correct. And that that's what I call having assistant, focus on what it matters for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:50

And also knowing what to break down. Like, I'll I'll give another example. Like when parents come, this is like an example I give to parents, and they're like, Yeah, the teacher says your kid sucks at algebra. That's bullshit. A kid can't suck at algebra. Algebra is math, math, is addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. I think there's really no more in algebra. So does your kid suck at all four of them, or one of them, or two of them? But you can't suck at algebra. So if someone sucks at algebra, there's a there's a building block in there that maybe he's not good at. So for me, funny enough, my eight times seven, nine times eight, nine times nine, like this little field of multiplication, this little area of like what I just mentioned, I sometimes have to think about it. And sometimes I'm like one figure off, one number off. So if I do algebra, I bet you 99% of my mistakes in the algebra question come from something directly there. Doesn't mean I suck at algebra. I could rocket addition, rocket subtraction, but maybe it's just my multiplication. But if I don't break that down, I don't know what that kid is not doing well. Because saying it's just algebra, that's bullshit. It makes no sense. Break algebra down and find out his weakness so you can fix it.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:05

Exactly. There you go. That that and that's to me is behaving the smart. Like literally, being a smart. And instead of me focusing, like you said, on the four elements, let's go to the one that is weak.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:17

Well, but you gotta understand that there's that algebra is made up of elements, just like you said. Like when you said, okay, do an open break, you have the hand behind the back. If that confuses you, put the hand in front of your back. The element is the open break. It doesn't really matter where your hand is, but I can understand you know it being a bit confusing because it's it it's a more it's a it's a higher level of the same move, it's a more advanced position of the same move.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:41

Exactly, exactly. That's basically how social dancing it is. Once you understand those concepts, you can come come up with your own MOOCs. So you don't need to memorize moves, you need to understand the concept.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:51

With concepts, you make moves, but not and with and then I also think with concepts, you also then can fix problems. Yeah. I mean, if you know, like I said, in algebra, if someone's not doing it well, you know that you can break it down to um, you know, the subtraction, addition, multiplication, division, whatever. And so sometimes if a girl is doing, you know, uh her left hand turn and she's not really changing her body weight on her right foot before she steps back, then I know that I can eat my steps a little bit so I don't accidentally throw my elbow in her nose because she's just not moving. But if I don't know the concept of what I'm doing, then I can't break my movement down to adapt to hers.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:29

Exactly. I totally agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:32

So now Poland, what's going on there? So how so when did that come into the picture?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:38

Well, Poland. So I decided to stay here because of my girlfriend. I'm so happy here. I love living here. I see the rest of my life living in this city. There is a lot of dancers, very high experience. I open my teams, I have more than 20 people on those teams. I have a semi-pro team with very good dancers, good people, a lot of experience. I'm making events, I'm making classes. There is a whole scene moving here that sometimes when I talk to them, sometimes some people they don't see it that way. And I tell them, look, I have been around the world already. What you have here is unique. There is a lot of good dancers, a lot of scene moving, there is a lot of movement everywhere, a lot of Cuban salsa, a lot of mambo, a lot of bachata. There is a lot of things to do. And I tell them, look, if you don't believe it, just watch me. I'm gonna make this capital move even more when it comes to salsa and when it comes to mambo. And you will see how a lot of people will come here. And I'm gonna be working towards those kind of projects to make it move even more. That's why I have the teams, that's why I have the semi-protein, because I want to have ladders for the local dancers to for them to say, okay, I'm a good dancer, I am 17, I am 18, I am 19, and there is a guy in Warsaw that has a system that I can go through, that I can go and scale, that I can grow up, go up into that ladder and then show up myself into the work, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:06

Okay, now how does that work though? So I'm gonna break it down and I'm gonna give it a great little marketing pitch for you here, too, because this is what I don't understand myself. So if there's a 17-year-old that says, okay, wow, something's going on in Warsaw, I want to go and I want to train there, or Euphoria dance, for example, in in Amsterdam. How let's, you know, how do how do people how do people do that? Is the kid gonna say, okay, I'm 17, 18 years old, I know Javier is in is in Warsaw, I want to go there. So he gets a barista job, he starts paying his rent, and he starts coming, he pays the membership monthly to your school, kind of like what you did, or how how does that work?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:41

Yeah, exactly the same. First, um, is to have someone who understands how the system works, is to someone to who can tell you, look at your eye, and say, You want to become a dancer, you want to be a professional dancer? The answer is yes, it is possible. How? I'm gonna show you the way because there is a lot of misconceptions of what you have to become good at. So I will teach them what are those skills that they have to become good at for them to have a position into the dancing world, and now that they have authority, and now that they can sell themselves, and now they can make a life out of it. Yeah, they don't have to give up and go to another type of career because oh, if I become a dancer, I'm gonna be hungry all the time, right? There's not enough money. There is there is plenty of what happened is that you don't have the information and you don't have the right platform that can take you there. So a guy that is 18, he just finished his university. I live outside of Warsaw. I want to continue dancing. I have skills, I have people who are telling me, look, you're good. I won a couple of competitions already. Um, and I hear that there is a guy in Warsaw, and I see him doing a lot of a lot of things in in Warsaw. I'm gonna go. So he steps in, then he made an evaluation, and I'm gonna allocate him either in the amateur team, either in the semi-pro team, or either in the pro team.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:02

So when you say amateur, semi and pro, this is what you mean when you say you created teams.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:06

There you go. Exactly. Okay, okay. Exactly. So I will allocate the person according to their level into one of these three teams for them to learn the specific skills that you have to learn no matter what you are. You're gonna make it only to the semi, only to the pro team if you want to become a professional dancer. Otherwise, you're gonna stay back, but that doesn't mean that you're not gonna learn anything. You're always gonna become good at the three main skills, which is well, if you want to be a professional dancer, you're not gonna teach. But it's social dancing, performing, and teaching. If you want to work in this thing, you need to be exceptional at those three, and you need a system and a platform that can help you to develop to develop those three skills from level amateur to pro level. So that's what the system is about. Now, also, you need a guy who is leading this type of projects the same way I'm doing it, so you can get more exposure. Because now that I have eyes on me and that people is watching me, now they're also gonna watch you and just give you more exposure. Now you start existing into the world because there is a platform that is promoting you and that is pushing you into different kinds of projects. So that kind of system is the one that I am developing here for the dancers to be seen, basically.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:30

Okay, here quickly to interrupt you, you you you froze. I still hear you perfectly, but your picture froze. Do you know why?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:37

Yeah, I see, and I froze with a very weird image there.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:40

Yeah, you got because you were talking about your three, huh? You're talking about the semi-pro pro and uh amateur.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:46

I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:49

I mean, we can keep going, it's not a problem. Because I mean, I think uh I think m for the most part, I I I I would imagine people are gonna probably be listening to this the most, but uh Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:01

Let's hear really quick. We also have a lot already.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:04

I think that I have to brother, I have no idea. Oh, good. We just keep going with the um the US webcam utility. That image looks like it's from like 1980.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:23

Right, they haven't changed it. I thought of the same thing. It has the USB thing with the X.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:29

Yo, and also just that font.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:33

How something can look old just with that, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:38

So old, and also even the even the even the like the pixel the the pixels of that image, it looks terrible.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:46

It looks terrible, yeah. Okay, I'm gonna try this the last time.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:50

Oh, I think we're back. You're not frozen there anymore. There you go. So yeah, so okay, so I'm gonna because I'm actually really curious with this. And if you got a balance after this, then we can leave. But I just find this really interesting because I because I worked with um uh Narea back in the day, and I know Jose, and I always was just curious like how that worked. And we have a very, very good dancer that was very famous when he was in Africa, Mom Sean Mambo, uh, here. Uh Novizi is his school. And I've always wanted to ask him how this whole process works. So I'm gonna take advantage of you and I'm really gonna learn like live as we're talking here. So you said a guy from uh from like outside Warsaw, but is this also happening if someone is from, I don't know, let's say, let's say someone is from Italy and they're like, okay, yeah, I could go to Sosaw, that's fine. But I really like what Javier is doing. I want to go there. So then is it also, is that what they do? They go to Warsaw, they find either roommates, a place to rent, they can get a job, because I mean, at the end of the day, it's still it's still the EU, so they can work there. And then they just then come to you, sign a contract, start dancing, and basically do what you did uh when you were in New York.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:01

Yeah, of course. And actually, I already have two guys that they're gonna be doing exactly the same thing as you as you described. You know, that's the cool thing being part of the uh European Union that you can move freely in terms of a lot of legal issues, right? As long as the city where you're going, either you speak their language or you speak English, and that city they speak English, like Warsaw is one of those cases. For example, you can make it possible, and there's not too many legal um consequences, it's just process that you need to complete and you're good to go. So, yeah, I have actually uh one guy from Italy that with the same plan. And my job is to have a system that you can they can come to and I can tell them, okay, this is what you have to complete, this is what you need to go through in order to develop those skills that you are looking for. And I have that system for you, which I think is what matters at the end. That you can learn a lot, but if you want to become a professional dancer, then you need to be in a place that actually has a system and that is well spoken, and that the rules are defined on what you have to follow in order to reach your point. But this moment is when most of the people they get lost because there is no system.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:15

What you understand is oh, he's traveling all the world because he looks good when he dances, he's just telling what he has has him there. Not at all, not at all. There, of course, you need to reach this filter. I I would say that from one to ten, you need to be good at dancing like at nine. You need to pass that filter, right? You need you have to, but it's only that. If you want to stay working and and and have different opportunities and be here and be there, you also need to offer to the community different types of skills. It's not just the way you dance, it's also the way you drive yourself, the way you well.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:53

I think a lot of people just think it's like, okay, I I get good at dancing, I get my first opportunity, I take the opportunity, and then I just like whore myself out, sometimes for free, and just get as many opportunities until it works. And I think now it's starting to like, yeah, people are starting to create systems where I guess that way would work too, but there's probably more efficient, faster ways that from a data analyst are gonna have you know a higher chance of success.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:20

Exactly. And out of the three skills that I mentioned before, the most important one I would say is teaching and then social dancing. So, what we think at the beginning is my performance, is the way I dance, right? Is I need to be a beast when I go to the stage, and that's true. I'm not saying no, we need to respect the stage and give what is what we have to offer to the people, but teaching and social dancing are the most important skills. Social dancing because that's the culture. Like I said, you can come to the community for different reasons. The main one is that you break up with your with your girlfriend, and that's why you show up to Sansa classes, but you stay because of social dancing. Social dancing is what it matters, social dancing is. What it communicates to culture. So if you want to be on the scene and for a good time, you also need to learn how to social dance and how to teach people how to social dance. Because that's the more valuable skill and action that we have in our community. So we have to become good at it. And all the time talking about systems, working on refine our system on how to teach you to social dance. So I can take, for example, to give an example, right now my system, I can take one person to social dance into three months. I need to find a way to short that theory so we can deliver results faster. Now this person has the experience that they came looking for, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:42

And also within that system, you can find out if it's what social dance, performance, and teaching. You could very easily, like the algebra example, find out if it's math, addition, or subtraction that they're weak at. Yeah, or that needs to be improved. Yeah. Yeah. So what I've seen is me coming from a pro sports background. And you know, when I interviewed, I interviewed with Sergio Soleil uh four or five different times. I was gonna go for them in Vegas, New York, Macau, China, in St. Petersburg, Russia. And I always was doing something else. The first time I just didn't get it. I was 22 years old and I beat out 5,000 resumes to come to the final three, or final two, actually. And then they just took a guy that was like twice my age with like twice my experience. So obviously, but I got to know the hiring director then. And the same thing happened with the Harlem Globetrotters, if you remember them, that like funny basketball team that does all the cool shit. And um, and it was the same thing. There always is a sports medicine department, that's where I would have been, a strength and conditioning department, that's where the strength coaches are, and then you have the the the dance department. So in Serge du Soleil, I do the rehab. There's a strength coach that does the strength and conditioning. We work together and we communicate with the dance coach. And that is why, or the acrobatic coach for something like that. They have multiple teachers. And when I was with the Stuttgart Ballet for like three weeks, they were looking to hire somebody. I went in and they had nothing like that. Nothing. And with this, you should have a team of doctors, you should have the hand surgeons, the elbow surgeons, the shoulder surgeons, the knee guys, the foot guys, everything. They had nothing. They had one guy they wanted to hire that would do the fitness, help with the nutrition, do this, do that. And I'm like, okay, like this is this is a joke. Like, and I explained the system from Serge du Soleil, and their fucking head exploded. And this is one of the best, the best ballets in the world. Okay, I would argue that it used to be one, and no offense to the dancers. The dancers are amazing and they're great people. The lack of the system is not their fault. But what I'm starting to see, at least in dancing on this end, is the systems are starting to slowly come in. We're getting dancers like you that are saying, okay, it's performance, it's teaching, and it's social dance. You're getting guys like me saying, okay, it's strength and conditioning, it's flexibility, it's mobility, it's nutrition, it's sleep, it's understanding your body. And I think when we start with the younger kids and they start realizing and start thinking like a professional athlete, because at the end of the day, that's what they are. A professional dancer is a professional athlete, then we're gonna start seeing, I think, the dancing community hit, which we already are, a completely different level.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:23

Correct. I totally agree with that. There you go. Exactly. When you realize uh the amount of effort that your body needs to put into it, then you realize the next concept, which is my body is not ready for what I need to deliver. So I need to strengthen my body. So then you prioritize to get ready with your body for you to deliver what you have to deliver. I want to practice for three hours, but you you can't, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:50

Well, I think that's why we see a lot of injury at the moment right now. I we see a lot of people with chronic injury. I mean, look how many of the dancers I'm working on. You know what I'm saying? I mean, the thing is, is like if if if if athletes didn't have issues, then the system I just explained with Pro Sports, a sports medicine department, a team of doctors, strength coaches wouldn't exist. So pain is inevitable. That's fine. We're pushing our bodies to the limit. However, always being bandaged, bruised, and broken, trying to do your career, that's just gonna end it early. And that's gonna limit you from doing what you're able to do. And I think this is what people are finally starting to understand is that going to the gym and just pushing some bench press and staying there for 45 minutes or an hour is not the same thing as going there with a with a plan, with a concept of what they need to do and executing it. I mean, it's the same thing what you're bringing to dance, exactly, with the system that you can.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:44

This is when the the the so famous, and and with this one I think that we're gonna start finishing, but this is when the so famous believe in the process comes. That's the process, the system. That even though it doesn't look like this type of practice, it's gonna give me something because maybe it's a weird exercise, maybe it seems uh waste of time, but it's actually making you more strong. So that's when to me the phrase of believe in the process kicks in. It doesn't look at it right now, it doesn't look oh, but I'm making such slow repetitions with the music, and when I dance with the music, I dance fast. Yeah, but you're building muscle memory. Or in your case, in your system, you're working on a strength. It doesn't look like right now, it doesn't look like you are benching, like you said, three plates, and it doesn't look like that. But believe on the process because this will pay high dividends in the future, you know. In a few months, you're gonna start seeing the results, and especially if you see others that they don't go through that process, you're gonna see how you're gonna start moving faster little by little by little by little. But it's because we have to believe in that process. The process exists, but we don't see the benefits, and I'm gonna blink social media with this one that we like um to get satisfaction very fast. That's why when we are scrolling with our thumb, every three seconds we get a a drop of satisfaction in our brain. It's like something new, something new, something new. And when it comes about discipline, you don't get that satisfaction immediately. You practice today, and that unit of effort that you practice today, maybe you're gonna see it in six months.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:20

And that's what I'm saying. A, say it's all about the fundamentals, always, yeah. I mean, and number two, I always tell parents, yo, go watch, like in America, uh I mean anywhere, but I think about Florida. Yeah, you would go and you'd say, yo, you can watch the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the American football team, like the pro football team. You can watch them practice outside for free. Like you go and they have an outdoor area where they just, you know, that's where their practice is, and it's it's boring. And everyone's like, well, I'm always like, what did you expect? Them to fucking crush each other and sprint so much they're gonna throw up and train like you think they do in Hollywood movies? No, they've already done that. I said, so what you're seeing right now is they are putting the, they're they're dotting the I's and crossing the T's, and they're mentally running through the plays so they know where they are and what they need to do when the game time comes. What do you want them to hit the quarterback as hard as they fucking can? It's their own quarterback. Yeah, no, and so many times the kids would be like, oh, I did it one time and I found it really boring. Yes, because the process is fucking boring. That's that is what champions understand, and regular people don't. The process is fucking boring.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:36

Thank you, man. Thank you, man. That that's a good one, and I and I I know that we have to I have to finish soon, but no, it's all good. That's a good one. Okay, I want to say it out loud again. The process is fucking boring. There is no magic potion, there is no magic solutions, fun solution. No, man, it's so boring to do the process. I'm not afraid to say it out loud. It's boring to me, it's boring, but once you understand that you have to do it and you say the benefits in the future, and me that I am a data analyst, and we used to have this type of information in the office, which is if I invest one million dollars in the company, when am I gonna start seeing the revenue? Usually you know how to calculate that, right? You have a like a forecast, and you say, okay, this investment will reflect into this uh amount of months. In dancing, it doesn't happen that way. We cannot measure it. And I tell the dancer, look, the unit of effort that you're putting today, you don't see it tomorrow because your body takes time to absorb and understand what you're doing. Otherwise, if it wasn't like that, I practice today, I am the best dancer in the world tomorrow, right? But it doesn't happen that way. This is moving slow. How many months? I don't know. And that kills me because I am a data address. I would like to understand to say, okay, the practice that I do today, I start seeing the revenue in three months and a half. No, we don't have that information. You just have to believe in the process.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:59

Well, and you also have to know that the process sucks. Like, sorry to interrupt you, but you know, if when I go to salsa class, this sounds terrible. I don't go to salsa class to have fun. I go to salsa class to get better so at the social I can have more fun. Because you know what sucks even more than not having fun at salsa class? Going to the dance floor, standing there like a little, you know, pipsqueak in the corner, too afraid to ask anyone to dance, or no girl wanting to ask you for a second dance. So I always say, you know, I do a lot of private lessons, and people are like, oh, that's so expensive. And I'm like, Do you know what is also expensive? They're like, What? I said, to suck is also expensive, man. Yeah. So I'd rather give my fucking money for time.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:44

There you go. Me, I I took a uh weekly class every Thursday. I took it yesterday. It's a social dancing class. And one day that the instructor is like, hey, sorry that I cannot do you know difficult stuff because he saw me there. And I'm like, look, I'm not here for the difficult stuff. I am here because I believe in the process. I know that if I practice my right turn, I'm gonna get better. That's that's me believing the process. It's the way that it works. I'm not here to do crazy things. I am here to work on my process, which is the right turn, the left turn. Yeah, that the same right turn that you do is the same one that I'm doing every Thursday in that class at 9 p.m. And I'm having fun with that. You know, I know I believe on that process. I know that I'm gonna get better. And I don't know exactly when, but I'm gonna see the benefits of those classes soon. I don't know when I'm gonna see them, and I believe on that process. And as you said, once you believe on the process, then you start delivering different results, which I said at the very beginning of this meeting, their results at the end is what it matters if you're capable to deliver or not.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:45

And speaking of results, I'll end it with this, and then I'll end it with this, but don't hang up, I'll explain in a second. However, I will end it with the fact that speaking of like uh I just lost myself in that thought, so I'll say it. When I did when I started this podcast, I wasn't sure what I was gonna do with this podcast. I wasn't sure if I wanted to use it to like kind of promote my product or it what whatever. I wasn't sure. And I just realized now with our conversation, when you were talking, when we were talking about the process and you know, just everything we were just speaking about, it fucking hit me, man. Your conversation, my conversation with Alexi, it's always coming to the fact that high performers are always thinking alike. It doesn't matter if uh Alexi was in martial arts doing stuff with like the katana blade, you're a data analyst, I'm sports medicine. At the end of the day, and I've worked with multiple different professional athletes from you know, we all have the same mentality of the process fucking sucks, but we're in love and we're passionate about it. And it doesn't matter if you want to be a great analyst or if you want to be a great dancer or if you want to be a pro soccer player, we all think alike. And this podcast, when I interview with people like yourself, I'm gonna use this to bring that concept uh to the people that don't understand that. I want them to hear this until they're they're gonna throw up. Like, okay, you know what? It's fun. Of course, practice shouldn't suck. Of course, the process doesn't really truly suck, but it does. But it's a suck we enjoy because we love the process.

unknown 1:40:19

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:22

So boom. So I will do you have anything else you want to say before we end this one? Anything at all? You can give yourself a shout-out with what you're doing in Poland. Anything else?

SPEAKER_03 1:40:30

Yeah, definitely. That exactly. I wanted to say something like that. That I am very happy in this city, game very visiting. I'm creating systems, events. I have an event on June 20th. I have an international artist myself and another local artist. Having local artists for me is very important because I want to promote the local talent that we have here in Warsaw. So yeah, I'm doing uh I have an internal competition coming on April 15th. And to the winner, I'm gonna pay them the full pass to any Congress that they want to go. So I'm gonna make them compete and their best follow and the best lead, they get a full pass. I'm gonna pay it with my school, promote them because I want to promote dance and I want to promote hard workers and not the way I do it. So I'm running different projects here in Warsaw. Very happy and yeah, for whatever the future wants to bring.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:22

Perfect, man. Well then, Javier, you stay on. I'm just gonna stop the recording for everyone else. If you haven't subscribed to the Unbreakable Dancer, then I don't know how you'd be listening to this. So just subscribe. It's not that hard. Uh, let me know who you want to speak with, talk to, hear from, what you want. I don't know. Let me know anything because this bad boy is done now, and I look forward to hearing from you all later.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:43

Great.