Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:06 Welcome to teaming up conversations, the podcast. I'm your host Simon better. I believe that one of the most satisfying and rewarding moments in life is belonging to a trusted team and achieving something unique together. Thank you for joining our dialogue, how to build lead and be part of an inspired team and community. My guest today is one of my favorite people. I'm grateful for the conversation with my dear friend, Carlos Pollett the first time we met was in January, 2004 during a business coaching meeting in LA JOA, California, since then, Carlos has become a trusted loyal friend. I very much appreciate Carlos's outlook on life and admire him because of what he has experienced, accomplished, and endured in his life. He has lived in different continents, speaks three languages. He's a family man, inspiring father, great friend technology, geek, entertaining, storyteller, and fun to be around his background and expertise is as wide as the topics we cover. We talk about life's defining moments, finding joy after experiencing severe personal loss, important leadership lessons, the use of virtual reality, and much more. Please enjoy the teaming up episode with my good friend, Carlos poll, Carlos. It's uh, wonderful to have you on my podcast. Teaming up. Welcome.
Speaker 2 00:01:54 Thank you, Simon and greetings to you.
Speaker 1 00:01:56 Thanks. I'm gonna start with your description on your LinkedIn profile, which I find, uh, special and unique. You call yourself a nerd with social skills that helps people get results and enjoy their life. The roles you play is executive coach. We are pioneer philanthropist and most important job in the world that we kinda uncover and dive into some of those roles. Starting question. What makes you unique?
Speaker 2 00:02:26 I think the one thing that distinguishes me is if you were to try to connect the dots on my career and my experience, they would make absolutely no sense at all. I've done a little bit of everything from Inca trail guide to scuba diving instructor, to director of operations at American airlines to, well actually, if I think back to even my first job ever, telemarketing, you know, I was a guy that was like, thank you for calling Lafayette carpet cleaners. How can we help you to assist with your upholstery today, but to, uh, executive coach, which is funny, cuz I don't usually call myself an executive coach. I actually descri when people ask me, what do I do? My response is usually what you just said. I help successful people achieve positive success without losing sight of enjoying their lives. I bring a certain, I think gravitas to my experience when I'm working with people and I'm very multicultural oriented.
Speaker 2 00:03:20 I was born in Peru actually, but seldom lived here left Peru when I was four, moved to the Republic, stayed there until I was 12. Then I moved to Brazil until I was 18. Then I did my undergrad in the United States. After that I lived in Haiti for one year. Then I went back to Peru trying to discover myself. And that was sort of the in control period of my life after my dissolution, with my first corporate job there, which I hated. And that's actually a story we can get into later cuz it's a good one. And then I've also lived in Spain for five years, a total of like 10 years in, in the United States or perhaps more done graduate school there as well. And I, I classify myself as a homeless citizen of the world or let's say wherever place is my home
Speaker 1 00:04:02 And now residing in Peru
Speaker 2 00:04:04 And back to Peru, of course,
Speaker 1 00:04:07 When you look back, what are some of the key turning points in your life moments that really defined your trajectory?
Speaker 2 00:04:16 It's so difficult to pick. I mean it's easy to pick one key moment that really changed things for me, I've always been risk open as opposed to risk adverse. So whenever I saw something interesting, I took it because it, I looked at it as an opportunity for growth and I never worried much. I remember my older brother used to say, I lived a charmed life. Things just always worked out things have, you know, I could, I, if I were to classify my life, happiness would be a key term throughout my entire life. However, in 2015 I was built, uh, serious blow my eldest daughter at the time, Catalina who was six years old, was diagnosed with uh, glioblastoma multiform stage four brain tumor, which is extremely, basically almost impossible to cure. And we did everything. We moved to Philadelphia in the United States when this happened, when we got the diagnostic actually within 24 hours of the diagnostic, cuz we were like, we're gotta find the best care possible. And we elected Philadelphia because that's where the children's hospital Philadelphia was, which was considered at the time, the number one place for neurosurgery in the United States, we did everything possible from neurosurgery to everything. It, there was nothing they could do in the end. We stayed her for about seven months and she passed away in June of 2015. And you can say that definitely changed their lives. It changed everything about 'em. It's interesting in the field that we work in, we often talk about resilience
Speaker 1 00:05:43 And I meant when she was four, four and a half, we met in San Diego and I met Catalina and she was such a beautiful, healthy, joyful person. And, and two years later, I think it turned totally differently. How did that impact you and in your family? What was the um,
Speaker 2 00:06:02 Well you learn a lot from those things and that those are, those are some of the things that help me understand sometimes issues that people have in life and difficulties. The first reaction was devastation and that's that's of course is, is normal. No parents should ever wanna live through that. And I learned those lessons. I also learned that even when you go through something so difficult, you eventually find a place where you can experience joy again. And it takes a while. I remember the year 2016, for example was almost a nonexistent year for me. I was mostly in recovery mode. I still did work, but I was more in automatic function because I wasn't really into it. And I was recovering. Fortunately I do have another daughter that was an inspiration to keep going and keep growing. But as time passes, you don't think about it as much. You forget about such things you learn to real experience joy. Again, you learn to enjoy little things in life. You have joys, you have fun. What
Speaker 1 00:07:07 Was the place that gave you that joy? Again,
Speaker 2 00:07:10 It has to be my other daughter. It has to be just, I think part of it has to do with personality. But you know, when you go through these things, you go through a lot of exercises. And I remember one of the things we did upon return to Peru was we joined this group of parental support, where they were all parents that lost a child and they'd meet with a facilitator once a week and they would share and defects of my profession. I couldn't enjoy this. I would actually be sitting there and instead of sharing my grief and I was actually thinking to myself, all right, well, if I was a facilitator, I wouldn't go that way. <laugh> you know, and it was, it was actually kind of funny because I kept on, I didn't do it, but my incline was like to intervene and say, Hey, can I make a suggestion here?
Speaker 2 00:07:54 And like, let's change this dynamic around. And I think we can get more openness this way or the other. But none of that really worked. What worked for me eventually was just watching my other daughter grow up, enjoying travel as much as I could starting to find joy, the good things of life and the supportive family and friends, people like yourself, Simon, who, who were always there too. Then the other thing we found is upon return, my wife and I started a foundation called KA art. And we started small by selling pillowcase at fairs and things like that to help fund us to build lounges or play art lounges in clinics and centers where kids were that had cancer. So we'd have that other vehicle. And we started forming groups of art therapists that would visit children and help children through art therapy to deal with their emotions and the crisis and situations that they were going through with multiple types of cancer.
Speaker 2 00:08:46 This grew to date, we've actually worked with thousands of children. We have built six Ronald McDonald type homes throughout the city of Lima that receive families from outside the city that can't afford care or that have difficulty, where do they, we stay while our child's being attended to. And that giving back was something that lifted spirits, believe it or not. That was something that, that really felt great. Actually in 2018, my wife received the Al here in Peru, which is the equivalent of the us medal of freedom. And that's something that keeps us going. It's something we we're passionate. It's mostly my wife's work. I, I support where I can and I do what I can. I honestly do not visit the centers myself because I, the, I cannot deal with it. In other words, the, the side of children in that state is, would bring back too much for me. Mm. But I support in the background as much as I can through finding financing, funding, the networking or internet aspects of it as well.
Speaker 1 00:09:43 What would be your, your advice to someone who is losing a, a child or a very closed one unexpectedly, what would be your, your tip or your, your ball, um, to the soul
Speaker 2 00:09:59 When you're losing? There's no advice that'll work during the process of losing that child. There's, there's nothing you can do, except just be there and sometimes be silent for that person or give them support once they've lost a child. The one thing I can share is that if you keep your head up, if you keep moving forward, eventually you find joy again. And I can tell you from personal experience at the beginning, that doesn't seem like you could. It's absolutely devastating. I remember the first times I visited her school because my other daughter went to is going to the same school. It was shocking to me. I'd walk into the E auditorium and think about, you know, this is where she used to play or, and I'd, or I'd walk into the school and remember, uh, I'd have a memory of me walking into the school when she was in second grade and her running across the field to gimme a hug.
Speaker 2 00:10:49 And, and you have all these flashbacks and they're very difficult to deal with. And you sort of, for your first, uh, year you're, you're suffering P PTSD. I mean, you're, you're in total post-traumatic stress syndrome and you still get it from time to time, but it does go away and it does get better. And then the one thing I would share is you find joy and it does help believe it or not to talk about it. You wanna talk about it. A lot of people try to pretend nothing's wrong and show up with, you know, be your friend and just be like, Hey, you know, let's just have a drink and talk about the good stuff. No, you probably do wanna, and you need to talk about it. You need to get it out there. You need to get it. You have to mourn and you have to allow yourself to mourn and the healing
Speaker 1 00:11:32 Process.
Speaker 2 00:11:32 Yep. It is part of the healing process. There's no. Oh, you know, like, like Batman, why do we fall? We can learn to get back up again. Yes, that's true. But it takes a while.
Speaker 1 00:11:43 Yeah. Thank you for, uh, sharing the story. Let's go back to the story. You mentioned, you said you, you got back a year to Peru and
Speaker 2 00:11:52 You had a job that yeah, I studied economics, which is interesting, cuz that, that has not been my career for the most of my life. So, so when that, sometimes when I present myself at conferences, I'm like, I used to be an economist. <laugh> now I have successful people. But when I was in Peru and just a little bit of background prior to Peru, coming back to Peru, this was in mid 1990s. I had been almost a year in Haiti and I had been working for non-government urbanization and it was terrible. I mean, that was in my mid twenties or early twenties, I think 22 or around there. And I had gotten to Haiti with that idea of, I can change the world and make it a better place. And I was working with this German company called GTZ that does support development, other things like that.
Speaker 2 00:12:38 And I was in charge of logistics and you know, 60% of the materials that were sent were stolen or contraband away from us before we could get hands on them from the airport to the supply point. And that's the mess that Haiti wasn't that current situation. And it never really gets better if you ever go back to Haiti, you know, we never been back to Haiti in more recent, still bad. I mean, there's this there's one of those countries doesn't seem to politically, you have just people ripping it off left and right. So I left very disillusions, you know, where you you're, you're young and you're like, I can change the world. And then you get a slap of cold reality in your face. So I went back to Peru because while I, I was born there, I didn't grow up there, but we did go once a year.
Speaker 2 00:13:23 My mom's American. So I'd split my, my yearly Christmases and summers in the alternating between Indiana, which is where my grandparents lived for the most part. Then later San Diego and Peru. So I said, let's go to Peru. And I went by myself. My dad had a place where I could stay. And I said, okay, time to get a job. And, uh, my language skills and everything landed me a pretty good job with this franchise consulting company. I won't go into names on anything, but they're in charge of bringing some big brands to the country and managing those. And the president of this company was in the us two weeks, a year. And in Peru two weeks, sorry, two weeks a month. And I was her assistant and she was just an extremely, I mean, extremely difficult boss. So much to the point that her own partners, local partners would tremble whenever she would show up.
Speaker 2 00:14:13 Wow. And, and I'm sure we've all experienced leaders like this before, where you have to walk in the morning and pretty much walk up to the executive assistants and asked. So how is the leader today? Can, can we see him or is this not a good moment? And, and she was pretty much fan of phrases, such as, uh, the beatings will continue until motivation improves. So as you can imagine, this was tough, but I've also been very independent. And as I mentioned before, risk oriented. So one day I had enough, I think I, I lasted less than three months, by the way. It's not like I lasted very long. And I recall walking up to her on this occasion and saying, Mrs. Exon X, no need to get into names. You are a very difficult person and I'm giving you my two week notice. And I remember she looked at me and said, young man, you will leave.
Speaker 2 00:15:01 When I tell you, you can leave to which I replied with a finger. A gentleman should never show a lady and explained to her in very nice terms, what she could do with my final paycheck. And then I walked around and I guess it would, the whole office heard that conversation cuz when I walked out of her office, which she always, she was a door closed type leader too. And I closed the door behind her sort of a slam. And the rest of the office was just stunned, silence looking at me. But within those eyes, I could see that look of, take me with you, send me free. You know, and I remember just walking out and for no particular reason, hearing singing in the rain, playing in my head, I was just walking out the door and I'm like, I'm singing in the rain. I'm sitting in the rain. And that was my first Le lesson. And what is what I call ineffective leadership. Now I happen to know, uh, a few the less than a year later that company did not survive. Their venture did not go well in Peru. And I have very clear image of why not. I mean, leadership is not just about what, you know, it's how you, how you manage others.
Speaker 1 00:16:09 And then you became an income trail guide.
Speaker 2 00:16:12 Well, yeah, I mean, after I left that job and that was not my intent, I called a friend. It just so happened that a friend had quit his job too. And we ended up hitch hiking to Cusco, which was something people didn't do back then. It was sort of crazy in itself and got in some adventures while we were in go school. And since we didn't really have a purpose, I remember after third week he went back, but I just stayed. And since I spoke three languages fluently and I was working on my <inaudible>, which is a native American language's popular here in Peru. I decided, well, Hey, I, I should start doing stuff. And I started giving tours or helping tourists. And that eventually transcended to being contacted by a local agency and saying, Hey, would you be interested in taking people on the trail from, you know, kilometer 88 to, to Machu Pichu and other similar trails?
Speaker 2 00:16:56 Cuz there's a lot more to that region. I know you've been there I think at least twice. So there's a lot more to that region than just Machu, but it was a fantastic opportunity to do all kinds of fun activities. And uh, I called those my hippie years of life and thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. But then after six months I went back to Lima, I took my earrings off, I cut my hair, shaved my beard and then got back to focusing on my career again. And this is interesting how chance opportunities appear I was, uh, reading the newspaper. And this was back in the days when you could still find jobs in the newspaper. Do you remember those times?
Speaker 1 00:17:36 Yes, I, I applied to those jobs too.
Speaker 2 00:17:39 <laugh> exactly. And there was an ad in English that, that, that was, you know, this is improved on newspapers in Spanish and the ad in English said, are you interested in a career with a major American airline must speak fluent English, Spanish and Portuguese background in management, marketing economics preferred. So basically what they were saying is yo Carla show up, we have a job for you. And I did. The company was American airlines and it was a company that fit me like a club. I mean they had a great culture, very supportive, very friendly, the way things worked management worked. And my first job with them was managing flight attendants, which meant that I had to train as a flight attendant. I got to Dallas and I trained for, I think it was eight weeks at their learning center. I worked flights during my first year and then managed their, the crew.
Speaker 2 00:18:31 And then I became the, the flight service manager for Peru with, by the end of the first year. And by the end of the second year, I was already flight service coordinator for Latin America. So I moved back to Miami. Well I moved to Miami and I was living there. And then by the third year I was operations director let, which was a very, very, very fast scent within the company. Great experiences. There were very little stress. I mean, because this was, uh, I mean I only managed 112 flights a day. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with that? Right. So as you can imagine, that was a high stress situation in reality. And if I ever got to the customer it's because things had really gone bad and required my intervention. So that was one of those experiences that taught me a lot about customer service, about managing people, about working with others.
Speaker 2 00:19:19 And it's also where I first heard about executive coaching and I learned about executive coaching as the victim of a coaching process. And when I say victim, I mean that in a very kind way, I had a coach extremely helpful guided me on managing my relationships with peers. I was in my late twenties, my peers for the most part, forties and fifties. So they were looking at me like what's this darn kid doing here and really helpful in managing those relationships. And then in 97 we had, uh, playing 7 57 that crashed into mountain and Kelly Columbia. And I spent the rest of that year with the support of, of, uh, legal, of course, but I decided it was as a head of the region. It was my responsibility to also reach out to the families. And I visited as many as I could and tried to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 00:20:09 Then after that I took a sabbatical and decided it was time to go back to graduate school, which I did. And I studied, this is very interesting international commerce, but with a specialty in African American politics. And the reason behind that was there was this professor, uh, called Floyd Hayes II. And this is a Purdue university and he was awesome. He was the type of professor that would preach in class. He would say things like, you gotta think fast or you don't last. And you know, just, just give you, it was such a wonderful class that I signed up for every single one of his classes. And then to start taking alternative classes, cuz people sometimes look at me and go, all right, why are you studying African American politics? And I'm like, cause that was interesting. A and the struggle was from, from slavery to the civil rights movement to United States is truly tragic and fascinating at the same time. So it was, it was just something I really wanted to know about and learn about and taught certain factors about the human experience. So actually back to your uniqueness question from the beginning, I would say it's, my uniqueness comes from living a very rounded life. That's been all about following my interests and passions without necessarily a plan.
Speaker 1 00:21:24 And it gives you a perspective and experience that they will last for a lifetime. A question about cultural differences. You worked at the air international airline, you lived in different countries. Now you work with a lot of different, um, people from different countries and ethnical and cultural backgrounds. What have you learned from working with a diversity of cultural backgrounds?
Speaker 2 00:21:52 It's interesting when most PE when people ask about different cultural backgrounds, they're usually asking about what the differences are. And usually those differences Mount down to etiquette. I mean, they're not a big deal. You can find a book <laugh> that can guide you through those interests. What's what I've always found most interesting is that for the most part people's wants basic needs and desires are very much aligned throughout the world. And, and that's one of those most interesting things. Now there's different habits, behaviors and things that you will find when it comes to equality, you know, gender, things like that. There are differences between certain cultures and others, and there are sometimes hard to navigate. I mean, even when moving back to Latin America, I had to deal or confront situations where I thought people were being chauvinistic or you know, which I wasn't used to, especially coming from a culture like American airlines, where you actually have a large percentage of, you know, of everything, you know, from LGTV to, to lots of female leaders to. So, so it was, it was, it was quite a shock, but what is interesting is their priorities. And those usually are the same people wanna be happy. They wanna be successful and they wanna do right by their families.
Speaker 1 00:23:05 I was, uh, on a program that Betty Winfield got me on and it was organized by the N AIS national association for independent schools. And I was, we had a affinity groups and I was, um, facilitating a group, non us citizens, people who work in the school system who come from different countries. So I had about 60 adults. And when I did the round, where you from how many languages you speak, we were from 45 different countries and probably spoke over a hundred languages with those 60 people. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And we talked about experience, um, for leadership in schools and what I found, I talked to people from Sair and, and China and Venezuela and Denmark, they all had, as you said, they all have the same needs. They wanna have a good job. They wanna feel safe. They wanna have a roof on the, on, over their head. Then they wanna have an income that supports their lifestyle and they wanna be with people. They can enjoy. That's my experience I had.
Speaker 2 00:24:13 Yeah. And, and it's very the same. I like, I haven't actually found a lot of difficulty working with people from different parts of the world. Sometimes there have been language barriers, or there're difficult to understand some people, but when it comes to the basic needs, especially when you get into those deep coaching conversations where they tell you about what it is, that's keeping them up at night. There's a lot in common, everywhere in the planet.
Speaker 1 00:24:36 Yeah. And I think one thing I learned and you probably can support that. The most important thing is coaching is to really listen and, and understand where the other person is coming from.
Speaker 2 00:24:49 Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, I've said more than once it's not the coaches have a magic wand or anything. And I sometimes have helped people more by doing absolutely nothing. And just being the sounding board where they, they start talking about, uh, what's going on and they start all of a sudden start sounding off ideas with you. And then they come to conclusion that really helps them. And you realize that, Hey, I actually didn't do anything, you know, but they're very happy with the session.
Speaker 1 00:25:21 Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about a hobby that you have mm-hmm <affirmative> gaming. Okay. What's so fascinating for you about gaming and you call yourself a VR, virtual reality. Pioneer, can you elaborate on, on that experience?
Speaker 2 00:25:42 I would love to cuz that's something I've been having a lot of fun with and it has really grown over the last years, especially with this pandemic and people being stuck at home, the use of technology has become more important than an everyday as means of communication. Now I've started gaming like many kids in my generation with an Atari and <laugh> very basic, you know, block graphics, you know, hitting one, one pong to another. I've always enjoyed it. My father, he is, um, engineer, agricultural engineer with a PhD in water and soil, but he was always tech oriented, which meant that I had my first computer back in 1978 at home, which was, I remember a TRS 80 system. And it was very powerful. I think it had 16 K memory. So it was, uh, amazing at the time. And that was something that always kept being upgraded.
Speaker 2 00:26:32 It wasn't, you know, I, I got into more like PC gaming and more simulations I would say than gaming. Like I, I remember I flew the first Chuck eager flight simulator and then the first Microsoft flight simulators and the racing games like, and they were very unrealistic at the time cuz terrible graphics and technology evolved to a point where you can get you're really there. Like I got one of the first home VR equipments that you could afford back in 2016 or beginning and really started getting into it. But always with that thought of, okay, this is cool. I feel like I am in an airplane in real life and I'm flying it around or I am interacting or shooting people or doing whatever it is you do in these first person shooter games. But what if I could take this to the work field? And then I got an opportunity. I, I saw posts somewhere. I got a message. I don't remember how it came. Exactly. But people inquiring about people in executive development that were comfortable working in VR.
Speaker 2 00:27:29 And of course I submitted and they loved my profile. They loved that it was a gaming company. I'll give you this from the beginning. And I, and they loved that. I already knew a lot of their games and was experienced in them and everything else. And we started doing coaching in VR and it was fascinating because I would meet my coachee in a boardroom or a meeting room except you look out the window and you're on the surface of Mars. And then you could pull up a whiteboard and take notes while you're working on that. And you know, simulate, you know, it was much better than a zoom call in a lot of ways, although it lacked the emotion of the facial expressions and things like that. But you did have the body language, the movement of the arms and the movement of the body.
Speaker 2 00:28:11 So it's not perfect. And that's even getting gotten better. I mean, in the last couple of years, I've given conferences to over 200 people in VR where I'm inside an auditorium and there's 200 people sitting there from different parts of the world. There could be 30 different countries represented. And with 3d spatial surround, I can actually hear what's coming from each part of the room. And, and I kept on experimenting with it. And one of my favorite activities that I did with this one group, it was a large corporation from Canada. And I did some work with the board of directors and I got the whole board to get in Oculus quest headset, which is, or I guess I should say, it's a meta headset nowadays, but it's, it's owned by meta who, who on Facebook? Of course. And this is a headset that has very good quality graphics it's standalone.
Speaker 2 00:29:03 So you don't need to have a huge gaming rig to run with it. Unlike my, I used a valve index for my simulation, for those that are technically interested, but that one requires a high end gaming computer, but the Oculus quest works by itself. So it was very simple. They just got one for each one of the board members. And then we built this experience where we got into like the Dungeons and dragons type of world. Each one of the members of the board was either a healer or a, you know, a ma with DPS, you know, powers to hit many multiple targets at once, couple of robes, which would do a damage and a couple of tanks, people that had to hold back the big bad guys so that the others could do their job. And the interesting thing about it is it real, everyone was in there with swords or bows and arrows and had to move around in their own spaces.
Speaker 2 00:29:46 But we felt like we were really inside these Dungeons together. And there was a sense of danger. The graphics were really good. You had skeletons with armor coming towards you and dragons and ORs. And they started airing their dirty laundry. You'd hear people say something like, dammit, Joe, you're moving on and leaving us behind just like you do at work <laugh>. And they, they really, and it was such a fantastic team building experience without any real danger, but simulating it where they came together a lot closer as a team than they probably would in other circumstances. And as a matter of fact, they still play from time to time and get an invitation from time to time if I wanna join them, which is actually fun, cuz that project's been over for like six months. But those are just some of the things that we're starting to do in that.
Speaker 2 00:30:31 But just the simple fact, you know, in this virtual world that we're living in. Now the fact that with AR aptitude, you can have someone working in a factory in Shanghai and call their director of Vancouver and be like, I'm having a problem with this machine. He can put on a VR headset and actually see the machine, the person's working as if they were standing in the room and then tell them, all right, fix this part, fix this part. And they actually feel like they have the hologram of that person looking and pointing at the parts and they can fix equipment or do whatever. So it's like advances in there are just fascinated and applications are almost endless, especially in training and development and pretty much everything else.
Speaker 1 00:31:08 Yeah. There's so much more coming.
Speaker 2 00:31:11 Mm-hmm <affirmative> have you got your Oculus quest headset set yet?
Speaker 1 00:31:16 I'm afraid to say not yet. All right. I got a task.
Speaker 2 00:31:21 Yes you do. I'm waiting for you to get one so you can join me and we can go kick some butt
Speaker 1 00:31:25 Talking about gaming. What were some of the skills that you learned from gaming that you can transfer to other parts of your life
Speaker 2 00:31:36 Gaming by itself? One that's a very gray area. Uh, and I'll say, well, you have to be mature enough to game that. That's one of my first beliefs. There are certain experiences that children are touching nowadays, which are unhealthy for children. And I seriously believe that I know some of the games I play, especially first person shooters and stuff, no child should be allowed in because you literally are grabbing weapons. And, and, and this just gives the idea that it's easy and not an issue or are not difficult. Some games are, uh, teach you wonderful logic, puzzle solving mathematical skills, where you really have to use your brain to decipher challenges to get past or move to the next level. And for example, I'm, I'm a fan of certain experiences such as Minecraft, which I don't play, but I understand that it's really about finding resources, building, building stuff, creating Roblox is the same where kids are incentivized to build their own games.
Speaker 2 00:32:31 But even to a certain level, I say with a limit, like in my case, I have a 10 year old daughter. She's obviously heavily into roadblocks and Blacksburg and these types of experiences. But since I control her accounts on her laptop, on her iPad and other tools, I have limits, you can only go into that for 45 minutes a day here, or as of eight o'clock at night done, you know, you know, Sarah access now for me. And it's really, you develop teamwork skills. You learn to communicate and work effectively and I'll give you, I'll give you an example. Recently, the, the gay mom into it's called a star wars quadrants. It's a VR based game where I fly a star wars spaceship in virtual reality. And it, and as a star wars fan, it's amazing cuz you really feel like you're there. And pretty much every night that I can, when I'm done with work and everyone's got in bed, I will log in for almost an hour with my friends and I have a squad four God, four other guys, and we're always us together.
Speaker 2 00:33:31 And we've been flying together for like six months, which means we actually understand how each one of us thinks we communicate, cuz this is not like you're just flying there in silence. You're actually sitting in your ship and you look over and there's your friend, Mike who's, uh, jabbering at you. And you know, you have open audio and you're listening to each other and you're coordinating. And all of a sudden it's like, all right, I'm gonna form up on their support ship and take him out. You wash my back, let's do this. And you build these wonderful com quick communication, teamwork abilities, which are nice. I'm not sure how applicable being an ACE fighter pilot in star wars is to my real world. But it's one, it's fun. Second. We all need an escape like this. These last two years have been difficult for a lot of people closed in, not so much for gamers. They've been like, oh yay. <laugh> I have more time, you know, to, to enjoy my PA times and do other things. So it, so it helps. I think, I think it does add problems, building skills, you know, solving skills. It adds teamwork. Other than that, it's mostly entertainment value.
Speaker 1 00:34:31 And as long as we set some boundaries and, and have some disciplines, so we're not getting too addicted to
Speaker 2 00:34:36 It. Exactly. And nowadays I have a preference other than that game that I just mentioned, if I do any kind of game during the day, it's usually in VR, it's more on the standalone equipment that has no cables are wired and it's more for health. It's more like I'll play a VR tennis game that actually has me running left and right inside my room or boxing match or something like that, where I'll be pan team by the third round. But at least I'll get to take on Rocky Balboa in, in VR, you know? And uh, so, and those are actually just great ways. If you know, here in Peru, we had very, very strong restrictions for longest time. And you could basically not leave your house, go to the gym or anything like that. Yeah. So that was the alternative. But like anything else, if you take it too far, it becomes not good for you.
Speaker 1 00:35:18 So you got a good, uh, workout without the blue eye from boxing.
Speaker 2 00:35:23 Exactly. <laugh> exactly. Although your character does get it in the game. <laugh> you look in the mirror, you look pretty bent up,
Speaker 1 00:35:33 Moving back to, to your current role. You work with a lot of teams and, and you help teams and organizations create positive change. What have you found most effective in helping people to transform and become better?
Speaker 2 00:35:49 Well, my favorite and my go-to tool for discovering what people want or need is, has always been. And then this is, this hasn't changed pretty much in 20 years is getting feedback from others. So, so I usually start with that, whether we're talking about the coach interviewing stakeholders or using some form of, uh, 360 assessment tool, getting that information, how am I perceived by others is much more valuable than what you think of yourself as far as coaching is concerned or my own personal opinion about that executive. So I always like to start out with that with identifying key strengths, some key opportunities, and then trying to help people figure out, you know, working with strengths is highly important and there's something a lot of people don't understand about strengths. The fact that something is a strength of yours, doesn't always mean you like to use it. And that's where you start fine tuning when you're getting okay. Yes, you're good at that. But do you like doing that? <laugh> and really it's about helping people enjoy what they do, focusing on the strengths that they really wanna focus on and not just those that stand out as their, as their top strengths. And then, you know, I always say that the really good people, they need to be aware of their opportunities. I don't like the word weaknesses by the way, but they have to be aware of their opportunities,
Speaker 1 00:37:11 The development areas, I call them
Speaker 2 00:37:13 Mm-hmm <affirmative> yep. There you go. But they usually double down on their strengths and that's, that's one of the approaches I've always discovered, you know, it's, it's funny when people always talk about, you know, well, I'm gonna develop a smart action plan to become a better leader and they start going with the, you know, the, the classic specific, measurable, achievable, you know, I always say that a you've gotta change that to attractive because if it's not attractive to you, the chances that you actually follow through on this plan are little to none. Unless if someone's holding a weapon to your head and say, you gotta do it, but you know, your motivation level is, is not gonna be the same. So I spend a lot of key, um, time focused on, all right, what is it that you really want? And it's the same thing.
Speaker 2 00:37:58 When I'm working with a team, I spend a lot of time at the beginning and I'll have anxiety parties where people share what makes them anxious. We'll have a lot of discussions about strengths and opportunities. We'll have, I'll have 'em driving and, and designing. Mandola even like where they're talking about their vision of the future. What are things I'm proud of in the past? And a lot of it is focusing, okay, you have a new problem. What have you done really well in the past? What can you learn from that experience that can help you take or leverage towards the future? A and that's sort of the flow with it. I tend to think that human beings overcomplicate things sometimes when they don't need to be. So I think some of the added value we can do as coaches is to help a help people go through all that clutter and get down to the basics of what they need and how to do it.
Speaker 1 00:38:46 One of my favorite opening coaching questions is what's going well.
Speaker 2 00:38:50 Mm-hmm <affirmative> I love that question.
Speaker 1 00:38:53 And then they talk about a few things and suddenly they go to the things they don't go well. And then you talk about the challenges. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> the other thing you mentioned about development area. Sometimes I coach people on commitment first
Speaker 2 00:39:10 Mm-hmm
Speaker 1 00:39:10 <affirmative> make sure they really want to improve and then find an area that is attractive enough for them to take action instead of going into actionable steps too early mm-hmm <affirmative> so that willingness to get people to change is I think sowing. I it's, I think so important.
Speaker 2 00:39:34 Well, number one rule I have for coaching is if the coach, if the coachee doesn't want to improve, if they're not willing to be committed to the process, they're gonna waste your time as a coach. Yeah. And you're not gonna get anything done. This, this reminds me of a, of a story. I had this executive I worked with few years ago and this person was brilliant, literally brilliant. I mean, without exaggerating, I would say I IQ over HUD 80, I mean easily. He was like a beautiful mind without a support of Jennifer Conley, but he, this person had climbed the corporate ladder and this was an investment banking firm, like a lightning bolt. I mean, straight up to the board of directors. And during this lightning bolt that he left climbing the corporate ladder. He left a lot of people, damaged, lots of high levels of turnover, lots of people going, I hate this company.
Speaker 2 00:40:30 I mean, it was because he was a specialist at deconstructing and humiliating others. And what this means is you're in a team meeting with him and you share an idea. I mean, there is no psychological safety here at all. I mean, this guy turned around and would go like, all right, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. And he was so brilliant. He'd give you a thousand reasons why it was stupid to just make you feel smaller. And now, so, so this person gets to the board of direct the board of directors, you know, CEO is giving a presentation and he interrupts the CEO and says, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life because this guy really didn't care. And you know, then after that, the CEO probably is meeting with the CFO and the HR director or whoever, you know, and they're like, we need to hire this person, a coach, somehow this lands on me.
Speaker 2 00:41:17 And I came in armed with, with the worst, uh, weapon, a coach could have my ego. I had been coaching lots of successful people for some time and getting great results. I thought I was bomb. And I remember saying something to the fact of, don't worry, you know, in six to nine months, we're gonna have him changing some behaviors and you'll see that you'll be a mix with Gandhi, with mother Theresa. We know from experience. It doesn't work that way nowadays. But I recall we are going through our first feedback session. Uh, and here I took a, a page from something I heard from another great consultant. We we've both worked with from time to time. Marshall and I was, I was looking at the feedback report and he basically asked me, what do you think? And I looked at him and said, well, basically it says here you're an asshole. And the interesting thing is, he said, yes, I am.
Speaker 2 00:42:16 And nothing I could do could change his mind. I mean, he was like, I produce wonderful results and this is the way I am instead of in spite of the way I am. And, and, and it's interesting because I was about to give up. I mean, I remember I asked this person, Hey, if you die tomorrow, who's gonna come to your funeral. And he said, I'm sure my lawyer will. I mean, this was not, you know? And so I was about to do the right thing and contact HR and say, this is a waste of my time. You know, he's uncoachable. There's nothing, you know, I can do when he finally called me. And this is very interesting, cuz it's not the first time I've heard this happen, just like that. But he's he had a party, his son, he was for his son. He started observing his son's behavior, noticed his son was starting to behave like him. And he turned to me and he said, you know what? I'm willing to commit because I don't want my son to grow up to be a miserable bastard like me. And that was an eye-opening experience. And that's also where I learned, I it's not me. It's not about me. It's not about the coach. It's about the commitment to the coach. He, all we do is we guide we're there. I do give some advice. I, I break the rules. I'm sorry, but I do give some advice, but I also ask questions to help 'em move forward. And it works.
Speaker 1 00:43:42 I know I have been in similar situations with this. You gotta have the willingness into wanting from the person. Otherwise you' running into a wall.
Speaker 2 00:43:52 Mm-hmm <affirmative>
Speaker 1 00:43:54 You have had a lot of experience when you give your 20 year old Carlos advice, what would that be?
Speaker 2 00:44:06 Pretty on dude, but in all seriousness though, make more mistakes. That would be my, my advice. Don't be so cautious and I wasn't that cautious, but dare to make more. So take,
Speaker 1 00:44:22 Make mistakes is okay and learn from it.
Speaker 2 00:44:24 Yeah. And if you want something, go for it.
Speaker 1 00:44:26 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:44:28 The positive path.
Speaker 1 00:44:31 If there is a, a message that you could have everybody on their screen as a screensaver, what would that message say?
Speaker 2 00:44:42 Know something I always love to say is that when you write your own story and if your life is your own story, you are the hero of that story. You can also be the villain. Don't let the dark side win.
Speaker 1 00:44:57 Say it again. So what, and, and the conclusion is,
Speaker 2 00:45:02 And the conclusion is that you're the hero of your own story, but if you're not careful, you can also be the villain.
Speaker 1 00:45:07 Okay, good. Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:45:10 No, thank you. My pleasure as always,
Speaker 1 00:45:12 How do we find out more about you and your wisdom and your experience?
Speaker 2 00:45:19 Well, you can always look me up on LinkedIn, Carlos Paulette. I'm very easy to find and happy to share with, uh, your audience, my email, and, uh, other contact information.
Speaker 1 00:45:30 Excellent. Thank you so much, Carlos. It's been a great pleasure. Lot of fun. Learning about stories. I didn't know many. I, I knew thank you for being part of this podcast and continuously have fun and keep parting.
Speaker 2 00:45:45 Would I be the assignment? It's always a pleasure and a privilege to see you
Speaker 1 00:45:49 Vida
Speaker 3 00:45:52 I'm Simon letter, and you have been listening to teaming up to never miss an episode. You can subscribe on apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Also, please refer, teaming up to your friends, colleagues, and coworkers. It will make me happy when more people can benefit from valuable content. Thank you for listening.
