Selene Garcia - Embracing Challenges as Opportunities

Founder's Voyage · Nov 02, 2023

Transcript

I'm telling you, you have to decide and you have to change this. So listen, you have to take this as an opportunity. As Nancy said, yeah, I'm sorry for your laid off, Nancy, but like you said, I saw it as an opportunity. You have to see it sometimes as an opportunity. Yeah, you have to cry and then you have to yell and you have to get angry and that is really fair to do it.

But after that, you have to realize what else would you need to do. So our featured speaker today is an MIT bootcamp innovation leadership graduate with experience developing innovative projects within the food and beverage, personal care, produce, health, energy and automotive industries. She recently took a role as a cybersecurity business developer and customer success manager at Proplex helping businesses accelerate digital transformation through customer for cybersecurity and smart data solutions. Selena, it's a great pleasure to have you as our featured guest today. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your journey with us. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here too. So just, you know, starting off getting a little bit of your background, I was wondering if you would tell us a little bit about your experience growing up and maybe some of the early life events or mentors that you feel really influenced you personally and professionally? Oh, well, in this case, it might sound a little cheesy, but my top mentor, if I talk about one of my mentors, it was actually my father. In my early life, of course, he was a very respectful doctor in the town, but primarily to me, he was a perfect father. It was kind of a very special growing up with him because he never treated me, at first he never treated me like a girl, you know, he got two girls, but he never treated me like, you know, when you grow up and you have to be a nice girl, you have to use dresses and you have to be, to go to the gymnastics and go to ballet and then growing up and being a beautiful woman and then, I don't know, get married and stuff. So he wasn't like that. He was like, you're a human being and you're here because you have to grow up and you have to face the real life and you have to do the things that you have to do once you grow up because the world is different from now on. So he started to focus me, focusing me like you have to study, you have to go to college, you have to know what you want to do, you have to work if you want to grow big, you have to work harder if you want to go bigger and you have to fail if you need to fail. So I think for me, was pretty, like growing up, it was pretty neat in that. So my father was one of my mentors and when I was in college, I was actually, when I was trying to focus, to get into focus on getting some decision, I used to call him a lot. He's not right now alive, but for many, many years, he was one of my mentors. It was special. Thank you so much for sharing that.

I'm so sorry to hear your father has passed. One of the things you said that he taught you was to fail if you need to fail. And I think that's especially in high levels of success business or entrepreneurship, that's a very important skill to learn, to learn how to cut something off when you realize that it's not going to work. Do you have any examples from your career path where you've, or your outside work or anything like that, where you've had to pivot or drastically change something based on realizing that it wasn't going to work? Yeah, actually it was something very particular that happened when I was doing the bootcamp, actually. When I started the bootcamp last year in June, I was working on the paper and packaging industry and I was working there for over eight years. I was with them like mostly four years being a customer success manager. Suddenly it was kind of a change in the company and I got laid off. It was two weeks after I was doing the bootcamp and I was like, oh my God, what am I going to do? Am I going to continue doing the bootcamp? Should I change priorities? What should I do? I don't know.

What should I do? And I remember that I talked to my team from the bootcamp and I talked to my coach and she said, oh, it's amazing to know this, that I hope that you keep continuing because this is about the actually this is going to help you to focus and to know what you really want to do. After that, it was kind of the kind of change that I needed. Working for the paper and packaging industry is just manufacturing and it's just like very, it's an industry, very traditional industry. You're never going to, it's very difficult for you to do something new there because it's really only about paper and cardboard and nothing changes. And once when I had the opportunity, I just realized that I didn't want to work for a company anymore. I wanted to start my own projects. I wanted to, I realized that I didn't want to work on a traditional company again and I wanted to go on tech. And I had the opportunity through this, my colleagues from the cyber security from Propelix, they called me and they gave me the opportunity to work for them. And now I'm working remotely and very different in industry and cyber security, something that I've never heard of.

Well, not I've heard of, but I've never realized that I was going to do it. And something about technology, it's completely different from the eight years that I've been working from. So that is actually the last one that, and I had to fail and let's say that that is for a chance. I had to fail. I have to be laid off to realize that I had to pivot, that that wasn't my path. Absolutely. And I really appreciate you kicking off and sharing so deeply. I'm also sad to hear that your father passed, but it's amazing that you really treasure that connection that you had with him. And I just want to let you know that I empathize. Losing my father was difficult.

But I think that you honor his memory by remembering those foundational things that he gave you and putting them to work every day. So I think that's really beautiful. So I was wondering if, I think it's neat that I didn't realize this was your first cyber security job. Could you kind of take us through your typical day at PurpleLux and talk about, I know you haven't been there a really long time, but is there anything that you walked in and it was kind of burning at you like, okay, during my tenure here, I want to make sure that I accomplish blah, blah. Yeah. Well, it's completely different. This is a cyber security consultancy company. It's actually the company's based in San Diego. And one of the different things that I like about is one thing. It's only US clients, which is I can talk to only US clients or at least foreigners.

It's not like Mexican company or Mexican market. So it's quite a different thing for me. The other thing is, is they offer me a remote job. And being from a company, like I told you, traditional company, I was going from eight to six every day from Monday to Friday. Every day I had to go to work eight to six for eight years, more than eight years. And then suddenly just came back to me and I realized that I wanted my life back. I wanted to work on my own. I wanted to do my stuff. So when I had this opportunity at Propelix, for me, it's like, this is amazing. And sometimes you have to sacrifice some things for others, but for me right now, having the time with my family, having the time with my dog, with myself, doing exercise and other activities, and at the same time being at Propelix, it's amazing. So what a normal day now, the normal day that I do is I get up early, I read emails, and then I got my meetings with Propelix with the clients. We talk about the cybersecurity consultancy, we make pen testings, Azure, AWS testing, scoping. We do risk management, a lot of things that we offer on services to many companies. And we are in the kind of small medium companies, we offer this, it's kind of a boutique service.

We are expanding actually, Propelix has four years mostly. And when I go there, I talk to them on meetings, and then I follow up on my clients. And I always take care of them if something is missing. I'm always trying to add value because for being a customer success, actually, that is what it's worked for. Like, you have to add value and you have to help them in everything you need. So we have these customers, I think we have one customer that's really, its function is robotics. So learning about those things, about the robotics and about new things on cybersecurity and also on tech, and also know about your clients is amazing, because I've never had the chance to work on this technology, like so impactful, you know. And I think for me, like, well, like we talked a few minutes ago, I'm on vacation right now, and I'm in a beach in Mexico while I'm working and while I'm doing meetings at the same time. So that's, I don't know, for me, that's the best thing that I've ever done right now. So I feel very grateful for what I'm having right now. And I still want to do some new projects like this and do my own projects as well.

Thank you so much for taking us through that. I feel like cybersecurity is an incredibly complex and scary area to a lot of people, but is very, there's very little understanding of it. I was wondering if, from your perspective, if someone is starting a new company is, you know, first sort of kicking off in internet business of some kind, what do you think are the key things that they need to be aware of in regards to cybersecurity? First of all, the one thing that I would say to cybersecurity is one of the trending things. It's not about the trend in like a fashion. Actually, something that was propelled from the pandemic, thanks to the pandemic, everyone noticed that being remotely, and if you don't get care of your own services and of your own information, going to be like dramatically, your company will be dramatically gone. If you lose all right now is the most expensive thing from every company is your data and your information and selling that data outside is worth million. So this one, this wasn't a fact. This was actually something that it was very good propelled from thanks to the pandemic and working on cybersecurity, I think is one of the most important things that you would care for the company. Now are many CEOs from many companies, important companies, amazing company, like 514 are very well, they got many interviews and they asked to the CEOs what they're more wary about right now after the pandemic and they actually said that they want to invest more on cybersecurity. And I know this because I work on this and I had to investigate and when I started to work on this project, it was great for my colleagues that they gave me the opportunity because they knew that I didn't have the experience on cybersecurity, but they had the to trust on my experience as a customer success manager and they gave me the opportunity to start over and to start in a new company and start a new business and to start knowing from starting from zero. So I had to learn myself on cybersecurity. I'm still learning. Actually, I don't have many times. I don't have much time working for Propelix, but I'm still learning and if I want to give some experience to someone who wants to start this as first, look for people who have this background to if you can join or cooperate with someone who like a co-founder or something that could be I don't know a CISO that has been a CIO or a CISO or know about cybersecurity and info and technology that will be the best thing. And the other thing is that the experience from it is the only thing that you're going to learn. I'm taking courses at Coursera, but the only thing that I've been learning is on every meeting that I have because I meet with the engineers and every time that I listen to them, it's like, oh, this is so amazing, but at the same time, it's so complicated. So you have to do it on your own path and on your own way. And you have to do meetings and you have to be sure that this is going to help you. And you have to be very, also you have to be very, very neat and very specific on your work on cybersecurity, because if you make a mistake to a company, it's your data is going to work for you. So that's the importance. I don't know if I answered the question correctly. Answered it brilliantly. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And I think it's also great that you understand both the learning curve that is ahead of you that you're in right now, and then also the strengths that you bring too, because I can definitely see how your product development experience is going to help you and help that team with messaging too. So I don't know if that's how you see it, but as someone that has worked in a role with engineers before, even if I didn't entirely understand what was going on, I understand like what you're saying, like the need for precision, asking really good questions, not being afraid to say that you don't know something and then helping the whole team work together. So I think they chose the right person from what you're telling us. That was, it was amazing when we had the interview because they say, we don't know anything about customer success, but we know we need one and we know, and we want someone with experience. And I said, okay, I think it's the same thing.

I don't know anything about cybersecurity. So we're both helping each other, you know? That's wonderful. Yeah. So I have a question for you. Since you did attend one of the MIT bootcamp programs, I was wondering if you could tell us what prompted your interest in attending and if you found any of the tools from the discipline to entrepreneurship framework particularly useful? Well, when I was, I was actually looking for, at that time when I was, I was actually working for the paper and packaging companies still. And as I told you before that I was laid off late, as I told you before that I was laid off later, but I was looking, I was feeling stagnant in my, in my job. And I was feeling stagnant like being for eight years in the same company. For many people was, a few people would say like, oh, that's a lot. And another people would say, no, that's so like eight years is so little years, you know, a few years. But for me, it was a lot. And I first feeling stagnant, I would say like, I don't want to do paper and packaging. I don't want to do, I want to do my own business, but I don't know anything from anyone. And I don't know any other things that rather than packaging, and I don't want this. I don't want to sell cardboard.

I don't want to sell boxes and forever. And I want to do something different. So I did before doing my bootcamp, I did a masters that it helped me a lot, but I wasn't, I wasn't feeling completed. But I completed all my journey of learning journey. And he says MIT bootcamp. And one of my colleagues I remember that he went to an MIT bootcamp, but he went personally. And he, he, he came back like really glad and really like he actually pivoted, he sells his comp, he sold his company and start over. So I said, like, I want that I want something that can propelled me to do something else. So I had the opportunity to come here to come to the MIT. And then I got laid off two weeks later. And after that, it was, oh, I think this is the opportunity.

Maybe it sounds really bad news. But I think this is the opportunity to change, you know, when I was working with my team, learning about the entrepreneurship framework, watching all the videos and see like, how you can start with a problem, you find the problem. And once you find the problem, find the solution, and you will actually learn that you will you'll have like more than five solutions for each for that problem. So for me was like, oh, it was like an eye opener, you know, it's like, oh, I didn't know that I wanted to, I wanted that that was easier, you know, because I always want to do many things. I always want to do, oh, I want to embed this, I want to do this, I want to go there, I want to go there. And I said, like, no, focus. And MIT bootcamp helped me focus. And that's when I when I just for me was an eye opener from and that's what I just, I just cried for a night when I was laid off. And the next day, I was like, oh, my god, this is so grateful, you know, and, and I'm feeling I started from zero, like I told you, and I'm feeling really nice. I'm feeling really great. And I, I'm really glad that I took my MIT bootcamp and I I'm surely going to recommend I would recommend it to everyone. And I had a lot of networking, I had a lot of colleagues from there. And I know that they're very interesting colleague, very smart colleagues, knowing them online from India, from Colombia, from US, from Korea is like, wow, it's amazing. So yeah, it was an eye opener for me, the MIT and the entrepreneurship. And that is that is the reason why I want to do my own projects right now. And I'm starting to work on on a few ones. That's so interesting. Thank you so much for sharing that. I definitely understand the feeling of like, getting buffeted back from something you were doing or something you're interested in, and then being like, all right, how do I turn this into an opportunity? And it sounds like you did an amazing job doing so turning a negative situation into a win for you, into like a very interesting new opportunity. I think that's so impressive.

Yeah. Given that one thing I, I wanted to ask you about is how you define now in your eyes, how you define success for yourself personally and professionally. You talked a little bit earlier about working remotely, and you've talked about wanting to change your area of knowledge and everything like that. But what are the characteristics that you define as your success? Well, in my case, as I would measure my success, and I would define my success entirely, I don't know if someone agrees or not, it's just my opinion, is the thing is that you'll always be going up and down. If you don't want to go, if you don't go up and down, you're never going to process your success or you're never going to actually go into to have success in some things. Because success is not doing the same things every day. It's not like, okay, I'm done with this work. Okay, now is success. No, it's not. Success is failing. It's realizing that you failed, and then you have to go up to do the success. So in my case, failing and failing and keep failing and keep failing is, it's the measuring the successes is going up a few fail ones, and then you can go to one success, and then you fail twice, you can go to another success. And it's like that. So going up and down on every path. And when I was and that was the good thing when I pivoted here, because I was afraid of failing. You know, when I was like, when I was in this in this company, I was so afraid of failing. I was so afraid like, no, no, no, I want to stay here because this is safe, you know, being a safe place.

You can't move. So when you can't move there, you're not going to risk yourself from doing something. So I know that everyone is and I can tell and I can tell this to everyone. I know that we all are afraid of failing, but it's not that bad. I thought I thought it was really going to be that bad late being laid off and, and, and no, not knowing what to do. Actually, I after I was laid off, I was without a job for over seven months. And it wasn't that bad. It wasn't like, well, it's not that bad. Well, actually, I'm not earning the same, the same amount that I was earning when I was in the big company, because it's different working for a big company and then going from from to to to a startup.

But it's not that bad. It's like, actually, that is my opportunity to be successful in another in another company in another area. And I think and that made me realize what I wanted to do. So that's that is for me success. And for me, in this case, measuring my success is doing this, the thing that I'm doing right now, failing on on this, failing on this and success in on the working on the work that I'm doing that I want to do. Actually, I want to do success right now. And that's it. That's the how I don't know if everybody thinks about that. But I think that's how I measure it. That's wonderful. I mean, the the beauty of this question to me, honestly, is that we have different ways of measuring success. But I really appreciate your perspective. And I also really appreciate your perspective on getting laid off. Because let me tell you, when I got laid off, I did not feel that way. And I see I feel like you see it as opportunity. Yeah, even if you didn't feel like that 100% of the time, the fact that you did feel like that, I think is, is powerful. And, and and seeing failure as a necessary part of the process, you know, those ebbs and flows in the journey. So I was thinking about something when you were, you know, kind of talking about how you're, I mean, you're leading a team right now, but you're also learning at the same time. I was wondering, how, how do you see that your leadership style has kind of evolved over the course of your career?

Oh, I think it has grown a lot. And now because I have a now have a team from everywhere. And that's something that I actually learned from the MIT bootcamp, having a team that one of my team was in Colombia, one of the other was in Brazil, one of the other was in India, and the other was in Saudi Arabia, and me in Mexico, right? So working with that team, and different timetables, and different schedules, different way of thinking, actually, in different cultures, it was like, Oh, this is an eye opener. So when I when I got the opportunity to work at Propelix, it was the same thing. So they told me, okay, this person, which is the size, so which is the best on on on cybersecurity, he's an expert, he lives in Pakistan. And this person lives in Minnesota, this person, I live in San Diego, and the other live in Houston, and the other live in me who lives in Mexico, and the client works in Pacific time. So and the other client Easter time, so it was like, you know, like this changing understanding of of of that understanding this kind of different team, and the other the culture, because there's the the I don't know, the different culture from every every person, every client. And the other thing that is a good thing, and it's amazing is that I'm the only woman, and the and the team actually, like, on the leadership, because there is the the the director of administration, which is a woman, but she doesn't come, she's not in the meetings, and she's not in the in the she's not in the follow up with the customers. And I do. And I'm always in the on the meetings, I'm the only woman mostly. And I'm always on following up, and they're talking a lot of engineers. And it's like, I'm always like, they're like, Hi, I'm the woman, I'm the customer success manager, I can help you whatever you need. So that's also very amazing for me. So and, well, and as I said, this, this, this has been an amazing path for me to to understand how to lead the leadership has been very different. And with different cultures, and, and let me tell you some cultures are very difficult to understand that that to work with a girl sometimes is not that normal, you know, and mostly when they are engineers, you know, when they are engineers, they are like, Okay, I'm the expert, why should I listen to you? And sometimes it's like that. But it's it has been very, very good and very amazing to work like that. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I now this is a bit of a selfish question. I'm an engineer, robotics engineer, by education and what I do during the day.

Awesome. What I'd like to get your perspective on, because you're also dealing with a very technical field. From an engineer, how do you think engineers can improve in communicating with non technical people, because I find in my current employer, and my current employer, that's one of the biggest issues where we're communicating as an engineer trying to convey complex technical thoughts to people who don't necessarily have the expertise in the field and trying to make that clear without just giving tons of information? What are your recommendations in that scenario? Well, I would recommend to work together. Being a customer success is a bridge. It's a bridge on on a connection to your customers and to the team internal team from the company. So you are the face in as a customer success manager, you are the face from the company. If something goes back, whoever has the fault, you are the face. In my case, if an engineer or some of our internal team has a problem, what I do is I had to communicate to them. So in my case, I'm not the expert, as you said, I'm not the expert on doing this. But when they are open to understand and that to help you understand yourself, it could be pretty easy for you to understand and to help them. So my case, it has to be always to understand that nobody is like you. For me, engineers, and most of all you and technology engineers are like the most intelligent person in the world. And sometimes they have to understand or they have to be open that not everybody have the same technical language or technical knowledge. So working together every time and having a best communication, it will help you be open. For example, I have been working with one of the experts, which is the CISO, which is the Chief Information Security Officer. And he has been very open to me to explaining me things in a very neat language. And that is experience, actually. And when you realize that when you're working together with a team that is not like that technical language understands you that it's different. So he has been very good and he has been very good with the clients because of the same thing. Not all the clients have the technology knowledge that you have. So that's what I would recommend that you have to be at least you have to be first socialize and second to have a team also with not the technical knowledge.

So then you can understand the other side of the coin. So that's what I will recommend in my case. Thank you for that advice. I think that's a great answer to a kind of a big question. And I was thinking about something else too, as you were talking about. I know you've had, you know, experience in a variety of industries. And I was wondering if you see a theme in yourself maybe that's allowed you to work across all of those industries successfully? I wouldn't say successfully, but I have done all of those. Thank you. But you know, what is the good thing about this? And maybe tell you, I don't know, for people who's listening, I think it's a good recommendation for people who's listening. Doing a lot of things from one to another.

Change every time. I would recommend it because you will definitely know what you really want to do. I had to go from sales, from selling, I don't know, selling clothes, being in a computer, a cyber computing office, working for the government and then selling paper and then selling motorcycles. And now in cyber tech, that made me realize what I wanted to do and what I didn't. And I was doing, and I wasn't, and all this time I wasn't a customer success manager. I was doing a lot of things. I was events manager, I was an administration officer, well, office manager, I was a project manager, I was sales in some of them, and I was actually government assistant. And in all of those, for me, it was amazing because I realized what I wanted to do and what I didn't. And I don't want to go back and do those things. I just, I'm so grateful that I did it and I enjoyed it. And a few of them, I had really good success and not all of them, I got the success, but it was a learning process. And now I want to do what I'm doing right now. I really want to do it. I really want to work on tech. I really want to do my own projects. I really want to start something from my own. I really want to keep doing cybersecurity because it's really important for me to understand this business because it's amazing. I don't know if I'm going to do it for a long time, but at least I want to do it right now. And I want to learn from it. And that is what I wanted, that helped me in all the path that I did, that I had to do to know that I'm sure what I'm doing right now. That will be a recommendation for people who are early, I don't know, in their early journeys in the college or maybe don't know what to do if it's going to MIT or go doing an MBA or living abroad.

I don't know. I would definitely tell them to do it. I will definitely tell them to experience it because if they don't experience, if they want to know if they want that or not, but they have to try it. So that would be my recommendation. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I feel like it is so powerful to try a variety of positions and a variety of areas of industry and things like that to really understand what you want to do as an individual. And I think that's very, very powerful advice. Now you've talked about your background so far and a lot of the interesting projects that you have worked on or want to work on. This is more of a theoretical question, but being someone who has quite a variety of interests and talents, is there a problem that you're not working on currently that you'd like to use your knowledge and passion to solve? I don't think I got the question clearly. Like if I have a problem right now that I haven't solved? It's more like if there's any issues or problems that exist in the world that if you weren't focused on what you're doing now, that maybe in the future you'd like to work on. Is there anything that makes you feel fired up or passionate?

Oh yes. Yes, of course. One thing is education. In my case, all the things that I've done, having wanted to do an MBA, doing a master's, going to MIT is because I want to learn. And I always want to keep learning and keep learning. And for me, education is the best thing. And the only thing is that here in Latin America, well mostly in Mexico City, in my case Mexico, the cost of having a higher, very good education is really costly. So not many people have this ability. There are many intelligence, here there are a lot of intelligent people, but they don't have the resources to go to have a very good education. So they go to public schools. And the public schools, they don't have the best education in my case. And that's kind of a critical thing that I would say to in my country. And losing that opportunity for me is like why do I have the chance to learn because of lack of resources? So in my case, yes. If it would be a world problem for me, it would be education that I could bring the best education here to low-income families and to low-income persons and to help them to have the high education and give them a higher education and high knowledge from another world.

For example, South Korea or Finland or education in Europe, something like that, they bring in here and teach them this specific education and not caring that they have this low income or resources. So that's what I would do. I would definitely solve the education in Latin America that I would care about. Thank you for that advice too, because I think it's it can be a complex, well kind of daunting thing to know how to approach if you don't have experience. So I know we kind of asked you how you find purpose for yourself, but I was wondering, clearly you kind of indicated that your work-life balance is pretty good right now. But previously, how did you kind of measure that for yourself? How did you balance work, family, your dog, you said, and everything else that you're passionate about? Well, it was amazing to change in my life. It sounds really bad, but I will thank the pandemic because of that. Because I don't know, many people have thanked the pandemic because they realized that they didn't want to do things that they wanted to do. When I was working from 8 to 6 and from Monday to Friday, I was exhausted every time. So I came back home exhausted, been exhausted. It's like I didn't want to do anything. I didn't have the time to go to the gym or to do some activities and exercises. Didn't want to go out. Didn't want to socialize. And the other thing, and this is most for Mexico, because we have, by law, we don't have many vacations. So when I was working for this company, I didn't have many vacations. So when I want to go to a different country, for example, I wanted to go to Spain, I had to, and this was an experience. I had to accumulate my vacation for over three years for me to go to Spain to have a real good vacation. So for three years, I didn't take vacation. So it was like, when you see it like that, it's like, what? You know, it's like you're working and you don't have vacation and I don't know. So for me, it was, I was feeling exhausted. So when I came, when the pandemic came and when we had to be both, we have to be in our houses, I started to balance my work and I started to do some routines. So in the morning, I have to take my dog out for a walk and then I have to come back. I have to read my emails. I have to do this. And then I have to, well, I'm, while I'm, I have some meetings while I'm doing my breakfast and then I have to cook the meal. And then after that, I will take my dog out again. And after that, I will do activities home.

Right. So I started to do the routine and I realized that it, that it was very helpful to do it. And I, and I started to like it. And I started to feel actually more sad because I was working day to day from Monday to Friday. And after the pandemic, they, they actually came, they actually came back and told me, and you have to go back to the office. So I said, I don't want this. I don't want this. I'm pretty, pretty sad. I don't want this again. I don't want to go back. And when they let me off, I felt very sad, but I felt very grateful because I, it's like, if they didn't, if they, if it wasn't for them, I couldn't resign, you know, so they helped me do it. And now that I'm having this problem, that I'm having this project with Propelix, now I have this routine again. I take my dog out two times, three times a day. I have my breakfast. I have my tea. I sometimes read the emails when I'm having tea. My morning tea, I can go and read a book outside and go to the park and I can travel. And that's a very good thing. And I, I was traveling yesterday. I was on the plane, but at the same time on the plane, I was answering emails. So that's for me was for me, that's my balance right now. And I try to, I'm trying to do more routines right now. I'm trying to add more routines in my day, but that's, that's the balancing work that I have in right now. And it's amazing. I don't know if it's a good room commendation for the people who's listening, but it's amazing. I think it's a very good answer to the question for sure.

Thank you so much. I do find that a lot of people are saying working remotely and working on something that they're passionate about are two things that deeply allow them to be themselves and to live their own life. If I'm currently, I spend three days a week, I go into the office and I spend an hour going to the office and an hour coming back. So I lose two hours a day for those days. And I feel like remote work frees your time up a huge amount. Do you think that this is something that's going to progress more and more? We're going to be going more and more remotely, or do you think from your perspective that people will go back to going to the office regularly? Well, actually, I think it's going to be more and more of that because there is a wave coming. You already know that the big resignation that is going on in the US is also happening in Mexico, in Latin America. Many people, they don't want to work like you.

The traffic in Mexico City is terrible. So I know what you mean, like taking an hour going to your office and taking another hour going back to your office. I used to do that. And sometimes I used to change my car and started to walk to the office because it was quicker. So I know what it is. Many people had the chance during the pandemic to realize about it. And I think it's like people is pressuring the companies to do it. I'm not saying that remotely is going to be the everything that you need, because I do believe that having a hybrid job is best because you have to socialize, not like doing on your own and being on your own and just working on meetings virtually and connect with people virtually is good because making connections will help you to build your character. And it will help you actually to decide and do more focus and do more things in your life. I would say that a hybrid job is the one that is offering, is the thing that is growing more. And it's less expensive for many companies. Having people in their offices sometimes is very expensive. And I think that is going to grow in the well, it's growing right now, but I think that is going to grow more in Latin America because actually their Mexico City is full of digital nomads, people from Europe, people from US. There are a lot of people coming here in Mexico City to live here because they're working remotely. So that is going to happen and it's still happening. I really appreciate you sharing that from your personal experience seeing it in Mexico City because it's definitely something that even in the continental US, we're experiencing that digital nomad culture as people shift to different states where they might not have been able to live and have the same sort of career as before. They can change location, but it's really fascinating to think about how that's working on an international level and how that will change and grow the economy as well. So thank you so much for sharing that. I wanted to just read aloud Claudia's statements just in case you didn't have a chance. So on the questions and discussion text channel, I think I forgot to mention to you, we do allow people to kind of chat during the discussion. So she just said, as someone else from Mexico speaking English and having access to free online opportunities for education is a game changer when money is an issue. And she agrees with you and says there needs to be a culture teaching people how to work remotely, especially mid managers and directors. People need to ask themselves, am I needing people at work for me or for the work? And I mean, that's something we're definitely going through in the US too, but feel free to share your perspective on that.

Okay, Claudia, nice to meet you. Thank you for the question. Yeah, no, I definitely will say no, because when I was a manager, I was having a director who was my boss, my director, and she was micromanaging me. And that is called micromanagement. So when you're having your people in your office, just to see everything that they do is really bad. Because the culture that you are doing that is toxic, first of all, because you're checking everything that they do. That is one thing that is really bad. The other thing you make your custom or your team, you make them to be more dependable of you, because you're going to check out every time. And the other thing is like, they're grownups. They have to like you if you trust them, and if you hire them, and once you interview them, and you know that they know their work, you need to trust them and that they will do it. And I think you don't need them like every day, you need them to do their work. It's just stopping paying for the hours in the office, just pay for the job done. Once you pay for the job done and the mail sent, and the success and the results, I think that's the best and being a director. And I think you're going to be a best director to trust in your team. That is the good thing to be a good leader and a good director, to trust in your team. And believe it or not, once you're managed, when your team does the result, it's going to be good for you. And it's going to be good for them too. So I don't know if I answered the questions. Yeah, I'll jump in. I added that question, especially because I've been CEO for almost a year now.

Awesome. And while I promote a fully remote environment, because we've been working remotely for two years, the work hasn't stopped. But I have a lot of mid managers and directors that do not believe in remote work. And it's really hard for them to let go and to realize that people are going to be like, they are able to go get a coffee, but that doesn't mean that they're going to neglect the work. I mean, there are people that do, and those are separate cases. But I try to question them in this regard to, are you really needing people here because it's indispensable to have them here for work? Or is it just your need to, like you said, micromanage? And I don't want to say that it's a generational issue, but it does present prominently with some of the more elder directors. And we had to reach a hybrid model, a pair of director bases in order for this to work. Because if it were up to me, I would only require people at the office for special events, like town halls or actual mixers, every now and then, and not on a day by day basis. So we had to reach an agreement on a hybrid model. Because otherwise my directors were not feeling comfortable leading the team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And definitely I agree with you.

Doing a hybrid is the best thing you can do. Like I said, and I'm still defending that, is not going virtually all the time. It's because you have to contact yourself with your team and they have to trust you and you have to trust them and you will feel free. And let me tell you, when I was working at the office, I just want to tell you that, I don't know, maybe I missed half percent of the time doing gossip, gossiping, going saying hi people, going taking a coffee, having a breakfast, and they still were paying me for the full time. So what is it worth? Maybe working the four hours, but I'm doing really good work. So that's what I think. Absolutely. My girlfriend says that it used to be when you could do like very occasionally one day from home, but four days from the office, she says that it used to be, you'd have one day where you get nothing done because you're working from home. Nowadays, the reality is you work from home four days and you're in the office one day and you get nothing done during the day that you're in the office because everyone wants to talk and you're like trying to get things done, but you've got interruptions happening all the time whilst you're at home. You can actually seriously concentrate. Yes. Yes. And definitely I will say that. That totally agree with your girlfriend. Now we are at the hour, but I do have one more question. Do you mind if we take just a little bit longer or do you need to go? No, that's okay. I can answer your question.

Thank you so much. We have one question that we'd like to have at the end of all of our conversations with people, which is very much you take the question how makes the most sense to you, but the question is basically what do you think has been the best lesson or takeaway from your journey so far? Slash what words of wisdom you might want to leave us with? Oh, my best lesson, it was the pandemic, I think. I don't know. It's like I'm very committed to my work. When I was, I worked for eight years to the company because I was committed to it. I wanted to show the people that I wanted to be successful at the company that they realized, oh, Salena came from beneath and then he grew up a lot of positions and now she is the CEO. Because I wanted that, actually. I talked to the CEO and I said, I want to be the CEO of this company. And I was very committed, but because of the things to the pandemic, I got this laid off, so I wouldn't dare to resign for my own. That would be my lesson to do the pandemic, to realize that I could fail. I don't know if I answered the question, that would be my lesson for me and that I would recommend. It's not like you have to provoke for failing, no. But if something happens to you, it's because something is yelling at you, the universe that I do believe. The universe is yelling at you, you have to change this. I'm telling you, you have to decide and you have to change this. So listen, you have to take this as an opportunity. As Nancy said, yeah, I'm sorry for your laid off, Nancy, but like you said, I saw it as an opportunity. You have to see it sometimes as an opportunity. Yeah, you have to cry and then you have to yell and you have to get angry. And that is really fair to do it. But after that, you have to realize what else would you need to do. And that is the thing that I, that it helped me. So that would be my lesson. If you don't decide that the situation is going to decide for you and whether the situation comes, that's when that hits on you. That is like the edge when you have to go to the edge and you have to decide. So that would be my lesson.

In my case, that's actually what happens, that I had to go to the edge and they had to lay me off after eight years that I was committed. So that's good. I mean, that's such great and powerful advice, you know, and I appreciate your lived experience, but I also appreciate that. Like you realized that you had ownership over, you know, how you were going to deal with that and that that was going to affect your future. And you realized that quite quickly. Yeah. So, so very wise. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. And thank you so much for making so much time for us today. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It was amazing, that talk. And I wish I could have another hour for you.

It was amazing. Thank you for inviting me and let's keep connecting. And thank you for the people who joined. Absolutely. Yeah. And please, you know, let us know what you're looking for too, because this is a really powerful network. And I don't know if I told you, but Founders Forage, obviously includes bootcamp alumni, but we also have amazing entrepreneurial minded people. So this is an expansion of that group. So let us know who and what you're looking for, and we'll try to help you and connect you to. But thank you so, so much. Yeah, this is thank you. And yeah, let's connect. And the people who's connected, please connect with me. I'm looking for people. Claudia, you're we're from from the same place. So let's connect and one of those people from here and let's grow. All right. Take care, everyone. Thank you. Bye. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. Have a lovely day. Have a lovely day. You've just finished another episode of Founders Forage, the podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. The team at Founders Forage wants to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We hope you enjoyed your time with us. And if so, please share this with someone else who might enjoy this podcast. You can also support us by leaving a review on Apple podcasts and Spotify, and by donating to our Patreon. Outdoor music today is Something For Nothing by Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.