Diego Rago Vega is a chef, a writer, a philosopher, and a permanent resident here on political asylum - but he came to America long before it was trendy. He and his family operated an import/export business in Venezuela, and as the nation’s economic fortunes crumbled under first Chavez and then Moralez, the enterprise became unsustainable - in part because the family wasn’t aligned with the government, or willing to be compromised.
Diego’s business is Obsidian Atlas, and he provides strategic marketing consulting and full-spectrum marketing activities - mostly for B2B small businesses. He was a top producing marketer for Madwire and other agencies in previous chapters, but branched out to start his own firm so that he could give individualized attention to his clients. Diego’s business is early stage in America, but his philosophies and experience run deep, and the journey he shares in our conversation - along with about a third of a bottle of bourbon between us - will please and inspire the hearts and minds of our long-form conversational podcast listeners. And - this is a long one, but full of the good stuff - so please enjoy - as I did - my conversation with Diego Rago Vega.
The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/
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Music By: A Brother's Fountain
Diego Rago Vega is a chef, a writer, a philosopher, and a permanent resident here on political asylum - but he came to America long before it was trendy. He and his family operated an import/export business in Venezuela, and as the nation’s economic fortunes crumbled under first Chavez and then Moralez, the enterprise became unsustainable - in part because the family wasn’t aligned with the government, or willing to be compromised.
Diego’s business is Obsidian Atlas, and he provides strategic marketing consulting and full-spectrum marketing activities - mostly for B2B small businesses. He was a top producing marketer for Madwire and other agencies in previous chapters, but branched out to start his own firm so that he could give individualized attention to his clients. Diego’s business is early stage in America, but his philosophies and experience run deep, and the journey he shares in our conversation - along with about a third of a bottle of bourbon between us - will please and inspire the hearts and minds of our long-form conversational podcast listeners. And - this is a long one, but full of the good stuff - so please enjoy - as I did - my conversation with Diego Rago Vega.
The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/
Follow us to see what we're up to:
Facebook
Music By: A Brother's Fountain
Diego Raquel Vega is a chef, a writer, a philosopher, and a permanent resident here on Political Asylum, but he came to America long before it was trendy. He and his family operated an import export business in Venezuela, and as the nation's economic fortunes crumbled under first Chavez and then Morales, the enterprise became unsustainable. In part because the family wasn't aligned with the government or willing to be compromised. Diego's business is Obsidian Atlas, and he provides strategic marketing, consulting, and full spectrum marketing activities, mostly for B2B small businesses. He was a top producing marketer for Madwire and other agencies in previous chapters, but branched out to start his own firm, So that he could give individualized attention to his clients. Diego's business is early stage in America, but his philosophies and experience run deep and the journey he shares in our conversation along with about a third of a bottle of bourbon between us will please and inspire the hearts and minds of our long form conversational podcast listeners. And this is a long one, but full of the good stuff. So please enjoy as I did my conversation with Diego Rago Vega. Welcome back to the Loco Experience. My guest today is Diego Rago Vega. And Diego is the founder, owner, CEO of Obsidian Atlas. Diego, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. This is actually something I've been wanting to do for a long time. So it's really fun to be here. Like a podcast in general or a podcast with me? And that too, both. So the podcast in general, cause I feel like this is a great, uh, like piece to like converse with somebody and then put it out there and see if somebody can be helped by it or entertained by it. So a long coffee, uh, but. Yeah, exactly. With a bunch of eavesdroppers. Yeah, there you go. And bourbon instead of coffee. Yeah, there we go. So, why don't we, uh, why don't we start with, uh, tell, tell our listeners about Obsidian Atlas. What is it that you do? Such a strange, mysterious name. Yeah, yeah. Um, so Obsidian Atlas, uh, it's a digital marketing agency and we do, like, it's like 90 percent of whatever you might do for your business to show up online, to, Get people website social media email campaigns. Yes, and like branding branding. It's a big Oh, you do design and branding and stuff, too So everything that will get you from I don't like people don't know me to now. I'm a online sensation That's kind of like what? Well, I want to be that how much to turn me into an online sensation. Yeah, that's it's A lot of the times it's just like that hard work that it's, it's like the constant, like putting a grain of sand every single day and, and making sure that you're making the right moves. And I actually posted something recently that like for movement, like you want movement, it doesn't matter if it's up or down, it's like a constant movement. You want it, you want it to happen for your company because when you're going up, it means that you're doing something good. Keep playing that game. If you're going down. Then you know what to switch. You got a pivot. You have that information. You have that data. You have that something that gives you incentive to try new things. Well, and it's, it's, it's If you, if you never have a feedback as a company, you probably are out of business in three months. True. So do you have a, uh, a niche of client types that you favor? Is it for online businesses that you're, or it's for anybody? Yeah. Whether you're doing carpet cleanings or whatever, you can have a brick and mortar, you can have just an online shop, you can have anything that requires marketing and we can help you out with that. So the whole idea of the, like the, the whole. Kind of like premise of the business for me, and I don't, I don't work with industries. There are certain industries that might be too complicated. Like if you're like a, a biologist who's coming up with this like brand new theory or product or whatever, or a medical industry, like professional that is coming up with this very niche thing. I would probably try to recommend somebody else. A specialty marketing agency. Yeah, or, or maybe get you like the really basic things that you might need and then point you in the right direction to find that somebody. I don't want to take the time to learn enough to really be good at marketing this complicated thing. Yeah, and it's a lot of the times it's to like the legal side of things. Oh, right. It could, it could entail that. Insurance or law. Yeah, so I don't, I don't want to get you in trouble and I don't want to get me in trouble because like it's not, Complicated when it's that like very specific of topics to get into trouble because everything that you're putting out There is a legal binding document per se. So what's your what's your manner of engagement? Are you acting kind of like the full? marketing department for Small businesses that don't otherwise have one. Are you in the strategy space for yeah So a little larger so I like to kind of like sell the business in a couple different ways One of them is gonna be The full on, if you bring me in, if you bring Upstate and Atlas in, you got, you have a team of marketing on your side without having to pay the cost. Three five like salaries a year, right? Right, which is kind of like you usually need between two and maybe four people to run Everything that has to do with marketing your company, right? And we like to do that for you with like just a monthly Kind of like a monthly traditional agency kind of thing, but we're we've got a social media specialist We've got a website developer. We've got a graphic designer, right? And so you contract most of those functions for your clients? So as a good small business, I do a lot of the work as well. I do have my specialists, but I am. I am like the good, you're 30, 50 percent like initial stuff. And once things get complicated or get too overwhelming or something like you have those hands that pop in every now and again and be like, okay, I need to do this website, but this is going to have like this very complicated technical piece. I'll bring that developer in that developer. And then we're all like, Kind of like in the same realm. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody has that like opportunity to, Hey, come in. So you're like pretty good at all those things. Yeah. I, I, I wouldn't say like pretty good, but like a seven and a half at everything and you can hire the expertise above that. Exactly. So I, I'm, I'm a hundred percent on like all your basics. And then if you come to me and be like, Hey, I want to do this, like very, Over the top things like I got I we still got or I want 30 social media posts a month as part of my package You're like, okay, I'm gonna have to yeah some of that cuz exactly I have the Jago don't got that much time Yeah, exactly. I have the expertise to because like being a perfectionist I have that kind of like mentality of being like this everything has to come out 120 percent every single time, but then it comes down to, do you have the time? So that's kind of like the, it's kind of like a fun trade off every now and again. Who would you say, um, is your ideal client? So I've been learning a lot this last year and my ideal client is definitely the person that actually wants to get things done. Okay, because it's very complicated sometimes when you when you go into like a company and they're like very excited to get things done Very excited to oh, this is where I want to be in the next six months Yeah, and then you're like you put all these plants together you put every like we can do this It's only gonna cost this much. Yeah, and they're like, oh I don't want to do it. And you're like, it's like, I cannot help somebody that doesn't want to help themselves. And lately in this last like few months, uh, we've been rolling out with some planning for, especially for small businesses to offer you a plan of payment. So you can get that ball rolling because if you don't move, you're like, nothing is going to move for you. Oh, so you'll like build them a website, help them with some brand stuff and things. Probably going almost into the hole, but with a contract for them to carry you through the first year or something like that. Yeah. And then to me, like the way that I see it is like, I I'm very kind of like sure of what we're doing. I'm, I'm very trustful, confident, confident and all that, of the things that we're doing for clients that I'm willing to invest first in your company. Before you invest with me. So it's kind like it, it's, it can be a double-edged sword for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the same time, it's like some, like some, well, so it's mutual trust, like Yeah. You have a business that does things that I believe in and I think we can help you get there. Yeah, exactly. If, if it's somebody that's doing something because, uh, you, you definitely come across, uh, businesses that want to do, it's like, I want to create the new Amazon. And it's just like, yeah, I don't know about that one. How much capital do you have? Yeah, exactly. Do you have like 20 billion to start competing? You want to go head to head with Amazon? Yeah, exactly. So every now and again, you'll come across some people that, and I've heard this before too, from people that do apps. Yeah, I have development that people come in. It's like, yeah, I want to mix like Uber with like Uber eats and then all this and this and this and this and that. And it's like, and I have like 5, 000 and the guy's just like, yeah, this is, uh, you're going to need like 5 million. Yeah. And it's the whole idea of like having it. I'm, I'm a dreamer. I'm a hundred percent. I'm that type of person that it's just like, the bigger I can dream, the better I feel. But it's like, sometimes you have to come down And put your feet on the ground and actually put things together. True. Because otherwise it's just not going to happen. You're always going to have that dream. How, uh, how long have you been operating your firm, Diego? Uh, we're close to two years now. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, and, and, well there's two reasons really that I invited you on the show. Uh, one is you just kind of charm me. You seem like a really smart guy and you're part of, If I'm being honest, a bit of a dying breed. There aren't that many solo agency owners that yes, you have contractors and things, but you do a bunch of stuff. It's, that's a shrinking demographic. I see less and fewer and fewer of the real small offices, which I'm sure you're trying to grow bigger too. And they got to start somewhere. Um, but then also because of your, your journey, I mean, Uh, as a Venezuelan by birth and most of your upbringing, I'd love to, like, hear about that and, and story. Were you an entrepreneur? Were you a business operator in Venezuela? Yes, to a, to an extent. So we had a kind of like a family business that operated for, I would say, shorter of a decade. Uh, we were like an import export company and this was far, like, after we kind of like start establishing ourselves in the. Like, crawling back into the middle class, at least from, like, back home. Okay. Um, so that was kind of like the family business. We operated with some, like, some close friends of the family. So it was kind of like a, a, a, a partnership with people that we cared about and that were family, basically. Yeah. Um, but I always had that mind. Like for just starting businesses from like the age of 14, 15. I was always coming to my dad and be like, Hey, I have this wonderful idea. And one of the things that he actually taught me that I really appreciate to this day is that the first thing that he always said, it's like, have you thrown numbers down, how do you put things together? Have you done your research? Have you, did you push a pencil to it? Is the way my father said that. Yeah. So it's like, do you, do you know what it entails to go out and do this? Yeah. Yeah. So that that's kind of like how there was always something there was a big curious piece of my brain that was always like, okay What if we this is an idea? This is something that could solve this problem And this is how we can approach it. Let's see if it actually, how much can we charge, et cetera. So, and I've, I've done this for, I don't know, at this point, maybe 30 businesses. So you're using that lens with your clients and your customers and stuff too, is what you're saying. Yeah. So you won't just do that, you know, get a website now, pay for part of it later thing with just everybody. They got to have some real opportunity to succeed. Yeah. And I, and I feel like to the open, the open mind of, you know, Understanding that somebody from the outside can also have good ideas for your business. Uh. I am not very. Like, I don't connect well with people that have that mindset that if I didn't think about it, it wasn't a good idea. I never heard a good idea. That wasn't his Yeah, exactly. It was something I heard of a former boss of mine. Yeah, and and, and it's yeah. It's very real. Cause I've, I've encountered so many of those types and it's, Hey, you do you. And then that's all right, but I don't need to tell you nothing. Yeah, exactly. So, and that's the other piece of the business too. I can come in as like to consult and I love doing that. Cause sometimes I'm like, it's like 1am and I'm working and then I'm just working for like local think tank. And then it's just like, Oh crap, this idea. And then I'm like, like type up an email and then just send it your way. It's like, Hey, I thought about this. And it's like, I don't know if you guys have explored it or not, but this is an idea. And it's to me, it's just that this is an exciting thing for me, like coming up with new avenues, coming up with new things for businesses or for somebody who wants to like, Hey, I want to sell my. My craftsmanship. Yeah. But I don't know how to approach it because it's a very unique thing. I build custom chairs. Yeah, exactly. Something like that. For gaming. Yeah. So it's one of those things that you're like, okay. There are ways to put things together. There are ways to marketing can be a very exact science, but at the same time, you can break it so many ways in a good way, like you can just like, okay, this is like usually the box that you get, but let's get out. Let's put some different pieces. Let's well, and depending on what you're selling, different avenues are totally more or less appropriate. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So there's, there's always ideas that come in and. What's working in the marketing world right now? I feel like we're getting back to the being very personable. In the sense of like, come, come at people as a smaller company, don't try to sell yourself as, you know, Oh, I'm like this amazon 2. 0 because I feel like a lot of people have been burned by the really big companies Uh, so they start it's like i'd rather pay an extra 10 20 for the same product But I know that i'm helping out a local i'm not I know especially Here in the area that we're at like a lot of people. Yeah about that local piece I was telling somebody the other day about like if you can have a company that has almost like an avatar Where the company has its own personality and people Like it's personality on its Instagram page or whatever. That's kind of more real any more than like this, the, the big personality founder that founded that company. Yeah. And that's something, that's something actually that we do for our branding. We create that concept of creating that persona for your business when it comes to brand. It's funny enough, our company came out as, uh, uh, what's his name? The guy from, uh, Nio. Virachuk? No. Oh, uh, Nio. You mean, uh. Oh my matrix. Yeah. Yeah. That I completely blanked on the name, but like the personality of Keanu Reeves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like his personality. Came into what the persona of the company is. It's like kind of like you see him as carrying himself Very like humble, but he also has the potential of being like he owns a very successful motorcycle company Uh, he is a very like well known actor in the world But at the same time is it's on the beginnings of yeah helping people out making sure that everybody's taken care of so it's kind of like there's there's a trade off in there that It's just like, you're a higher end personality, but at the same time, it's like, we, we go all out. Like, it doesn't matter where you at, you're in the middle of nowhere, in a, in a swamp, and we're gonna have fun, we're gonna do this, we're gonna like, get ourselves dirty, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, he's not above that. Yeah. You know, um, so that's where I want to linger there on is that's where the name obsidian atlas came from. No, no, no. That's just how you kind of that's your brand persona for you. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of like, for us, it's a huge questionnaire. And it's almost a bit invasive sometimes in the sense of like, you feel attacked a little bit. Yeah, just because it's like, we need to get this information out. It's it's kind of like your cycle, your psyche has some you. Some ideal of what you want this company. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and then we take that out avatar A bit or whatever like your best self. Yeah as a company. Yeah, so it and then it shows out in the visual So like depending on like how the visual comes out, it's there It tries to tie into that personality. So, um, let's talk some customer journey. Like, I don't think I'm interviewing you to be my new marketing agency, but maybe I am, uh, I think you've, you've enjoyed loco think tank. I think you've thought it was a pretty interesting thing, uh, since we first talked and stuff, so I suspect at least I'd be on your eligible for my services list. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, and so tell me like what, where you would start. Um, in terms of like that info gather and like. How do you decide what a company should be doing? So first of all, what we like to do a lot of background research. So we go into kind of like what's happening in your area, not only industrial, like in my industry, but also like locally, there might be other podcasts around town, or there might be other people that are talking business in this, in this sense. And then we look to see what they're doing. And then we start targeting the things that they're not. On top of the things that they are like, to me, it's a very big thing. It's like if somebody already did the R and D, why are you going to invest money in our? Yeah. So and it's not necessarily that that's like their solution is the only solution, but it's like, okay, we can, we can build on this, but we can also build on the newer things that maybe people are not testing. And that's the whole idea of the data gathering. And comes back to what I said earlier, like ups and downs. Hey, if this starts going down this path, then we pivot right away. Right. Then. That's, that's the thing.'cause marketing unfortunately, but fortunately is not a Sure fireware to Right. Fortunately for you and other marketing agencies. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I feel like it's, it's very. It's you have to go through that process because nobody gets it the right like right the first time so analytics is really Foundational is something that I'm hearing understanding what you've been doing what you should be doing and by the way, I Yes, the loco experience podcast is something I do but the loco think tank is really the business that Sponsors this podcast and powers the whole thing but So that's what I'm hearing from you. There is like the, it starts with understanding what's being done, what's been done, what's done in this industry. What are the competitors doing? Yeah. And to me, one of the biggest ones too, is going to the person that owns the company, going to the people that work in the company and learning about what they do, learning about how they approach the business, learning about what their other passions, why they created this. I cannot, I cannot promote your business with as much passion as you do. I just know how to put it together so I can put it out. So if you tell me that it's like, okay, we do ABC because C W. And then you're like, okay, perfect. Now I can grab your words and put them into a marketable campaign and then put it out there. So the whole idea is I will be an offshoot of your company. You hire me to be inside of your company, to be that part of your company. Okay. One of the interesting things that we were, we just had a sales process, I guess, conversation with, with a couple of folks and myself. And one of the interesting things about, so we do these peer advisory groups, right? So we've got a, uh, a board and support group like experience. And we want everybody to be in it. But not everybody. Like, maybe not you. Like, if you don't bring, uh, some upward mobility, kind of openness to change, uh, kindness, authenticity, generosity of spirit, you can't be in it. Yeah. And so, but, But a lot of people should, and so it's an awkward kind of, from a marketing perspective especially, it's like, you should be in Loco Think Tank, but not you, and not you. And like, trying to be an open to everybody kind of an organization that's not really open to everybody. Yeah. Uh, that's something that we struggle with. Uh, any, any thoughts, any insights? Um, I, so, to me, I feel like the biggest thing, especially for something like that, cause you're advising people to make moves in their company, you're advising for people to, like, get things, maybe, like, Yes, but I'm not. I'm putting them in groups. Where their peers are advising them to do things and not do things. Yeah, but it's kind of like that concept where it's like you're going to hear the outside perspective. You're going to hear a perspective from somebody that has nothing to do with your company. And then it's just like, okay, you either take it or you don't. And then it's as much as the person who's receiving the advice of being that open minded and be like, Hey, I, okay, let's try this out or let's figure something out. Yeah. And as much as the people from the outside looking in, It's like you have to be very delicate and careful about the things that you say and how you approach it because you're talking about somebody's baby, right? so Totally, but you have to also have that tough love. Yeah where you're like, hey, man You've been investing a hundred thousand dollars for the last two years on this campaign and it hasn't gotten you anywhere right move Right. Get out of that money. Go put it somewhere else because this is just a, Hey, you might have the a hundred K to do it. Fantastic. That's great. If you have a hundred K to just throw away every time they want it, but it's that idea is like, if it's not providing you anything, if it's not giving you any returns, why? Yeah. So there is a, like an openness, tough love kind of like relationship in that end. So I feel like that, that could be, To me, it's and I need to hear that kind of striking. Yeah, I need to hear it too. And I've had it with the biggest thing that I that I found at the beginning that I wish I had somebody to like, get this tough love on me. Yeah, it was. I wanted to get my website done at the beginning, just like this massive, really like robust and then just like that you would go in and then just like drool from like, just looking at it. Right. And then it was just like, no, dude, you have to, you have to get, A landing page, where people can go in, contact you, and then from there, you start adding to it, or once you, once you're on a stable, which is what I did, once I was on a, a more stable thing, then I flipped, and I'm like, okay, we're making something a little bit better, a little prettier, and it might change in a year. To something that is going to be like, Hey, whatever's the trend at the moment or whatever, like we feel that company's moving towards, then we can move in those directions. But it was just like, Hey, it's better to do the a hundred percent in 20 percent increments. Cause if you mess up in the 20%, then you know that you don't, you don't have to wait six months to tear a bunch down to redo it because you screwed it up. Yeah, it's like, Oh, I don't like how the shingles look. Well, you just build the entire house already. So it's not going to match now. The whole architecture is just not going to match what you thought it was. So you're going to have to change some foundational stuff. So fair enough. Um, If you like, you've mostly been kind of a small businesses, you know, maybe probably the, what, maybe 50, 000 to 5 million, you know, probably 100, 000 to 2 million captures most of your clients in terms of revenues. So from real small up to established, but you know, once they get over 2 million, then they have their own inside marketing agency. Usually, what would you say that? Business owners do the worst as you've done some of these audits and looking through what they're currently doing. Like, what are some of the consistent, can't believe people are still doing this or not doing this? This has happened a few times already and it's interesting how you tell people, it's like, hey, Online is the new world. Unfortunately, if you don't, if you hate it, the whole world is online. Yeah. So if you don't have a website, that's a big problem. If you don't have social media, that's another big problem. And then I have people were like, yeah, I don't have the money to do this, blah, blah. And then they go spend 5, 000 on a, like a, a magazine that it's going to be used as like Paperweight somewhere else or like to like wrap gifts or something like so you you just lost that money because that Your market is not in that magazine. You're Your potential customers are not reading that stuff. So it's one well and if they find you in that magazine and they go to your website and your website looks like it was made 14 years ago by your eighth grader Like they're not gonna buy from you. I'm sorry and I I'm very vain when it comes to the visuals of a website just because I'm probably biased on this on this subject but if I You could have a great solution for the problems that I have. If I go into your website and it looks like it was done in pain in 1997, I will probably back out and go somewhere else. Cause to me, it's like you're not investing in your business. That tells me what are you going to be investing in me? Like as your potential client and why do, why should I give you the money if you're not willing to invest in yourself? That's kind of like the way that I see it a lot of times. So would you agree with the statement that the, your website is kind of the cornerstone of your, Marketing, no matter who you are as a digital for sure, and there's the we've we've been transitioning into a world of like videos are really big now, especially if you show up. Like good quality video on like certain social medias like TikTok or Instagram. They can, of course, if you actually put fun stuff out there that lots of people wanna forward and like and stuff. Yeah. If you see like Geico, uh, the one example that I would put is them, it's like they have fun advertisement a lot of the times. Mm-Hmm. So it's one of those things that it's like you, you get a laugh. Yeah. And they offer you something that you might be, so you, if you think in the future about insurance, then you might think of them. Sure. So it's that like. I feel like I would say almost nobody wouldn't think of Geico. Yeah. At this point, at this point, right. But I feel like they, they, before, before they started doing the, their 3d like Geico advertisements, I never heard of the company. And then they started doing that. like, Oh, this is fun. And they have like, really like catchy. It's like, okay, now I, Hey, I, my, but my insurance is Geico. So it's one of those things that is like, okay, I, this is kind of like what I use. So, but in. It's really interesting to come into a world of that where like, there's somebody doing the fun things and Attracting people the fun way and then you have you want to come in. It's like well, but our business is still serious I can guarantee you Geico but multi billion dollar company is very serious, right, but they knew how to attract people So if you know how to attract the people and that to me comes down to like your website It's like if you're gonna come in it's gonna be just like a black like slate that it just has nothing interesting to it Yeah, it's just like very Kind of like dull. Yeah, then hey you You're not you're not bringing your passion into what it is, and it might be like your formal Well, where or something then there are ways to do visuals that are still professional That are still sharp, that are, will be attractive, and that look modern, and that look like something that you want to approach. So it, there are, that's the, that's the beauty of marketing is that there are a million ways to do things all the time. Yeah. You don't have to be stuck 30 years ago. I, I feel like I should have a, like I've kind of wanted an avatar of some sort for Loco Think Tank for a while. Like, Cause it's a complicated thing to sell. We've got this peer advisory membership experience that you can't even look at until you've been vetted by two different people and come and visit and stuff. And so it's not very on display or anything, but, but the, my, my avatar could be like, You know, a grumpy old fox that finally decided that he should listen to other people's opinions and perspectives before making his own decisions. And then all of a sudden, after that, everything started to go right for him, you know, and then he found a girl and he made his business work better. And he got along better with his kids from his first marriage. It didn't work. I don't know. Anyway, no, but I think that because it also gets you thinking out again, outside of your head. And think in the business as that other person. It's like, like, Business is business. Love is love. Friendship is friendship. You have different persona. Like you already do that. You're not, you don't treat your friend like there is love with your friends, but you won't trade them exactly. If I told my wife, this is just business, baby. Yeah. I do would be in big trouble. So I feel like you do have those. personifications of, of interactions with people. And that's the same way that you have to treat your business. If you're that person that it's going to treat business as friendly, then you're might get screwed over by a bunch of people. That should show up in the right way and be friendly when people get there. Yeah, exactly. So it can't be inauthentic either. Yeah. So I think that you like taking that out. When you're doing branding and understanding like this is kind of like that person is gonna feel like talking to them Yeah, then you can you can play your business that way and then you're actually that authentic is like this business is gonna feel this way Yeah, this business is gonna run this way. We're gonna talk this manner. We're gonna help people this way Yeah, well if I'm like Geico like I think part of what they probably succeeded is And is yes, insurance is serious, you know, it's important things and like, you don't have to be so serious about it. Like you can have this little smart gecko running around here kind of thing. That's fine. Yeah. And there, there, and there are definitely that like perspectives of attractiveness versus like, we do business this way. So you, you can, you, it's. You see businesses out there that they're very flashy and once you come in, they're like, okay, this is very structured. This is, there's no chaos about it. It was just like, the way we advertise is for, to be, you know, For you to come in once you're in, this is how we do things. So it's, it can be, you can break things up in a lot of different ways too. So as you look around, um, Fort Collins in Northern Colorado, you've been here a couple of years and in business now, who do you think as far as marketing agencies, who's. Doing it best other than you. No, no, I'm just kidding. Um, so there are, I'm pretty sure you've heard of Matt wire. I feel like they have a really solid approach towards like small businesses. Okay. Um, Honestly, I feel like they're becoming more of a SaaS company. Like, uh, try to become, yeah, yeah. And that's what they're pushing. So they, the, what I feel like what they started with, which was the very close knit approach that you are, you and I are partners in your business and whatnot, they might be losing a little bit of that. But Hey, I think that's where they're growing towards. And that's probably their future plan. It's just, Hey, this is going to be a suffer for you. And then if you want a little extra help, you can pay a little more and whatnot, but you have everything here. So I think it's a solid pivot for them to do that. It's a solid kind of like approach on that end. But that's kind of like why I wanted to start what I'm doing, because I like that personal connection. Yeah. And at the end of the day, I want to fix your problems specifically for you. Yeah. I don't want to fix your problem because, Oh, this is the box that I gave the other company and it worked for them. So it might work for you. It's like, no, I want to put the same bandaid on your solution. Yeah, exactly. So I call it like painting everything in the different shades of gray, where you're not going to shine, you're not going to come out of the crowd and stand out. Yeah. So I want to paint you the right color so you can actually come out and be like, and shine above everything else. Fair enough. Um, yeah. What are some of the other, what are some of your pet peeves in the marketing industry? Like things that people spend money on that just doesn't ever work. Do you have any of those or otherwise? I've heard a couple times and I've seen it a couple times too where people invest in this like huge name Of a person that's going to come in and solve all your issues and they're just like, like a consultant or like, almost like a consultant and these people charge 100, 150, 000 for like a four to six month period and then they just do nothing. Right. Like I've one of the ones that I recently heard they got this guy comes into a like a multi million dollar company that sells a bunch of products that were like really in the up and up they started getting a little stagnant. Yeah. They needed to change so many things because they were like hammering money in things that they didn't need to put money into and then they bring this guy and I think the guy was charging like 30k a month, something like that. Right. It's insane. The first thing that the guy says is like, we have to start buying domains for, for promoting things. Uh, no, no, no, man. Like, and then it's like, Oh, we need to start giving people merchandise. For their purchases. Like, can we get like an actual solution instead of like a 2002 solution. He has some ideas that have worked before. Yeah in your world, but yeah I think the guy was just like he there's a saying in Venezuela that it's like every day a moron goes out on the street. It's like whoever finds it is theirs So it's, it's one of those things that you're like, you, somebody will, will go out and be on this like snake oil path and then it's like, if I find you and you want to buy snake oil, please take all my supply. In my, in America, we have a phrase that goes back to the, probably the forties or fifties. Uh, there's a sucker born every day. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. It's like, if you find it on the street with a bunch of money in their hands and they're just willing to hand it out for basically nothing in return, then you're like, you know what, maybe, but if that's your business model, there might be some seasons of drought between customers. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But Hey, if you make 300, 000 in one year, you might be able to survive a couple of years on that. Um, so I feel like. Um, you know, from a business standpoint, there's not any, you don't have any special software is really more an intuition and awareness around kind of the holistic suite around digital marketing. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Yeah. And the, the, and the whole idea is to, I, I want to create those smaller boxes at first so we can start advancing every single one. And that's one of the things that I tell people say, Hey, it's not only your website, it's also like, let's start attacking your social media. Let's start attacking your SEO piece. Let's start seeing where are other areas that you can promote yourself, that you can get out. So there is a, some, somewhat a like non online approach to the marketing as well, because it's like, it's recommendations. It's like, Hey, if you, if you, if you have a thousand dollars, don't put a thousand dollars into social media. Let's do 300 here, 300 there, 200 here, 200 here. Right. If this one, like the number one, starts moving forward. No response to this one. Yeah, but this one is dying out, then you take that money out and then distribute it somewhere else. Yeah. So it's like not putting all your eggs in one basket, but at the same time it's like if you see that one of the baskets is like rotting out, then just like get rid of that basket and keep putting it where it actually matters. So you're very analytics driven it sounds like. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of the times too is. I tell myself sometimes, and I don't know if this is the right thing to think, but it's just, I think that I have a good old school brain with the new, like, school brain, like, mixed together. You understand the technology plus the actual, the psychology around it. Yeah, and, and, so I understand when, like, an older business owner comes in and is like, well, I want to do, like, like, news advertisement. Like I get where they're coming from and I try to translate that into like, Hey, let's modernize this approach and let's put it somewhere where it's, you're going to feel kind of like the same thing and it's actually going to bring something in. So it's that like, I, it's not only that, Oh, if you don't have TikTok, you're dead. No, I don't want to approach it that way. I want to approach it and say, so it's like, Hey, you hate tick tock. Hey, what about if we do like Facebook and instagram? Or what about if we do some other approach that could be? It's not maybe going to be as popular, but it could have some potential of like starting that snowball effect that you want. Right, right. Well, and I guess that's one question is In the demographic that you're working, it really relies on that founder or at least some of the core team members to help create content and stuff, right? Like, like for local think tank, I would probably have to be in some of the videos that were on my tick tock channel, for example, because I'm, I'm the face of local think tank. Nobody else can wear that mask, right? So like, is that kind of the part of the partnership is just agreeing together how much of the content that you create. Like has some contribution from them and stuff like that along the way. Yeah. So, and this is one of the things that I, that I almost harp on my clients a lot is I will get the commercial side of social media for you. So I will, I, I know that what clicks marketing wise, when it comes to a social media, I know what maybe might have people look at it twice, stuff like that. But again, going back to the whole thing, it's like, you are the passion behind your business, the heart of your business. So if you were posting before, keep doing that. We're just attacking the same problem from multiple perspectives. So I might get the. People that are just looking for business as business and you get the people that are looking for your business because it's like, Oh, oh, this is a really good. Yeah. It's like, oh, they had a really amazing video explaining this problem. And now I want to work with them. Yeah, so you have to have that multiple approach and that's where marketing can get a little crazy But it's to me. It's fun to me is that puzzle where you're like, okay Let's just put stuff together and then we'll test out things and then we keep adding like getting our data And then from there we keep pivoting and pivoting Until you become that monster in your industry and you're, you're that Titan. Then you get to that point where you're like, okay, now we can, now we can start really getting into the weird stuff and not once you, once you have like a really solid. Approach where all you get people come in and then you're, you're growing the same way with some experimentation because then now maybe you thought of this idea five years ago that you wanted to promote your business this way, but it, it could be a very risky thing. Now you're making X amount of money that you're like, okay, this is so much extra than I thought it was going to be. Now I can experiment on this. So it gives you a little bit that too, of like, you still have the reins on your, on your business. With that, like, voice from the outside telling you. So I can create my, uh, my animated cartoon series with all the different avatars of loco members. Like the crazy old fox, and the spring chicken, and the rabbit that is always a little bit scared of taking the next step. I could totally have, like, a child friendly animated cartoon. Children's show sponsored by Loco Think Tank, reflecting all these fears and challenges that business owners face as they're trying to make decisions. Yeah, and also probably something that we very much need is teach people about business, conducting business. Totally. And you don't have to be 40. Well, you could teach kids about conducting business and pushing a pencil to things and stuff. Yeah. I only need a, I'm pretty sure for like 60, 000 a month. I could create a series like that, but my revenues are only 50, 000 a month right now. And so we're going to have to wait. Hey, maybe, maybe we can work together. And we can get you to no, but I feel like this industry is about education. Yeah. Education is key. And then you tell people your customers and your clients for you. Yeah. And to me, I. Like, I know that a lot of companies, like marketing companies, will come to you with all these acronyms and all these names and all this like Like fancy things that they, it's like, and they're just confusing the clients so they can sign the papers to me is like, Hey, I want to, you're going to probably get tired of me because I'm going to explain everything. I want to, I want to be as open as possible. And I want to teach you what the acronyms mean. And I want to tell you that this is not a complicated science. I just. Like to do it where a lot of people it's like, yeah, it's not complicated, but I hate marketing. Yeah. What, uh, what's your typical client engagement? Are they on retainer? They're paying two, three, four, 5, 000 a month. Something like that. Do you have a certain amount of like, yeah. Talk to me about that. So I like to, Play it per case. A lot of the times I'll find custom pricing. We'll call it. Yeah. And, and, and not necessarily like you're going to pay more than the other person because you are more profitable than the other person. Uh, cause that's kind of like shadies, but the whole idea is, Hey, you might have the money to put up front right now, a little bit more than the other business that is starting out and then, so I'll take a bigger investment on them, like a bigger risk on that other person than you. So you put more upfront work on it. Yes. Yeah. So I try to balance it out in that way. And sometimes it is. I've had people that come to me and say, Hey, I only have like 200, 300 a month, which any other big company is going to tell you. So yeah, we'll kick rocks. We're not going to less than a thousand. Yeah, exactly. If you don't have like, sorry, I can't hear you or less than 2000. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I don't know. Our team is not for that. So I like to be like, Hey, you movement, movement, movement, movement. That's all I want because I need to have your data. And maybe the first few months, you're not going to see something like very like, Oh my God, you made my life so much better, but you have that data. So now in the future, you got 10 more clients. Now you can actually invest in the things that have already been working. Oh, and Diego got four of them for me or six of them for me. Yeah, exactly. I might increase Diego's thing from 300 a month up to 500 a month because it seems to be, And to me, I call it my self serving prophecy. So it's kind of like to me, if I help you go from 10 clients a month to 50 clients a month. You might be paying 200 now, but if you multiply it by five, then you pay 1, 000. That's kind of like, uh, now you're at least breaking even. Yeah, exactly. So, and, and I, I feel like the business, the way that I, the way that we do it, since we don't have like this up cost of, oh, we have a board of directors. We have like seven people that I have to keep on, on salary. I still am profitable with the smaller companies. And that's why that's the beauty. And that's what I, what I love about what I do is that I can approach you and be like, Hey, you don't, you don't have to like mortgage your house. To get, get me paid. So I like to give that opportunity. As long as your central interface, uh, holds up. Yeah, exactly. I don't wanna go insane. Although, that might be already a little late. I would imagine that, you know, you can probably manage to, about the strategic direction of 20 clients or something like that if they're selected within a band and things like that. Yeah. I've actually, uh, my worst time with an agency, working in the agency, I had up, upwards to I think it was 80 clients. Oh, for, were you at Medwire? Yeah. Oh, okay. And it was, well, how do you keep 80 clients? You can't, no, you can't. There's no, there's no way. Cause it, like, if you see it this way, small client will take you two to four hours. A month to get things done. Maybe five, add a little admin here and there, maybe sending an email and making sure that everything's correct. Once you're trained up on what they do properly and blah, blah, blah. Uh, a decent client, it's 10, 12 hours. So you're spending a full day with just one client. And if you have 80 and you only have 22, 25 days a month that you're working, there's no way. Everybody gets sick. Sort of. Yeah, there's no way. So it got to the point where it was just like, it's, I am, I, I'm an overachiever. So I like to do it. So I was, I was working 70, 80 hours a week being paid a salary. Right. Cause I didn't want to let my people down. Right. Cause at the end of the day, some, some of these people, it's like, Hey, small and pop, they need these, they need it. Yeah. They need to move. So I'm like, I can't let them down. You were like an ideal employee for a while, huh? Uh, I, it's funny because my numbers were always at the a hundred and. 10, 120 percent every month because I wanted to get that done. But then I started to realize it's like, this is like some of the people appreciate it. I'm grinding myself into a fine powder here. Yeah, exactly. And at the end, at the end, it's like, if I'm getting, uh, like actual Like extra money every time that I do something like this great, but it's just like nobody's noticing nobody's it's like and i'm not here To be like, oh my god, you're such a great employee I'm, just like but the appreciation of your employees, especially when somebody's like bleeding for your company Come on, man, you give them a little a little something give them a little push whatever it may be And I think that a lot of business owners Don't have that idea. And sometimes it might be that you're drowning in your own, like, okay, this is, I need to make this happen. Yeah. Um, that it gets to a point where it might be complicated for you to acknowledge that, but I don't want to get there. I don't want my company to get to the point where I can't acknowledge people. And that to me is very big. So I am, I learned it. You'd like to grow and become a boutique marketing. Yes. Yes. And I, and I want to, I, I would love to do for like, for BMW to come in tomorrow and be like, Hey, we're doing this campaign for this brand new car. That would be kind of like, wow, this is fantastic. But if I can help that small person to go from like, okay, I'm barely making it by having two more, uh, two other jobs with the company that I'm trying to get out of the ground to be like, now I'm going full in. Yeah. And I've got two employees. Yeah. That to me is like, crap. It's like, we're helping the people around. So it's, it, and I see myself a lot in the, in those situations because. I've been through it and I'm going through it as well. Right. It's just, it's that thing like How do you, uh, resonate with the term, uh, the cobbler's kids have no shoes? How's your website? Uh, it actually It's pretty good now? It's really good now. Okay, finally. Yeah, definitely before I was, I'm not gonna say I was disappointed because the visuals were there. It looked pretty, it looked clean, it looked sharp. It gave you all the information that you needed. It And it gave you the, the, the, the funnels to go through it. So the, the technical piece was there in the, some of the visuals aspect too, but it wasn't the last thing that I wanted. It wasn't like, this is it. So now it's one of those. It's like, okay, now, now I can breathe up a little bit. And I know in six months to a year, I'm going to come up with a brand new idea and be like, okay, let's see if we can switch something out. Fair enough. So, yeah. Um, so I want to jump in the time machine unless you're, unless you have anything else you'd like to share about marketing tips with our listeners. Uh, well, well, the big marketing tip that I can give somebody to do something now. Just move every day. Just do something. No, and not necessarily like go and serve your client. It's like tonight, take 15 minutes and learn how to do a solid Instagram and Facebook post and then do that twice a month. Keep the engine oil because if you oil it today and then you wait six months, the oil is going to be all like dry and sticky. Yeah, yeah. And then the engine is going to take a little longer to move. And then the other thing too, is like, uh, with SEO is a bigger piece. A good SEO campaign will take you six months to start seeing some numbers move. If you wait a year, you're waiting a year and a half. If you wait two, you're waiting two and a half. Like planting a tree. Yeah, exactly. So the, the longer you wait to plant that seed, the longer it takes for you to get that. It's not like, Oh, in six months, I'm going to put like really big effort. It's still gonna take you six months. So you're seeing a year out. So, to me, it's like, just start oiling things. Start looking up, maybe, hey, I wanna get a new website. Start looking for, hey, look into my company and then I can help you out. Right, right. Like from zero down, I don't care. I wanna help people move. So you need to move now. You know, if I look back at my, I'm the most famous on LinkedIn. I've got a lot of Facebook friends and stuff, but LinkedIn is like thousands of followers on there. And we had a firm that for a while was using my LinkedIn to approach leads and stuff. Um, but in that space, like if you looked at back at my LinkedIn feed for the last several months, like there'd be almost every week, Uh, podcast release. Hey, thanks to Diego Rago Vega, Rago Vega, uh, for being my guest this week. And it'll get, you know, a smattering 15 to 30 likes, depending, and a few comments. Hey, he's such a great guy. Um, and then there's a bunch of, you know, You know, shared posts, reposted posts of usually something about the government or the climate fear fiasco enterprise or something. And then the ones that actually get attention is when I like write something authentic about climate change. My team or one of my facilitators or myself or something. And that for me, at least is like, those are the real posts, but I only do it once a month at best. Yeah. And, and I feel like a good, a good approach on like, let's say on our end would be understanding how you think, and then you're, we're probably not going to pull the trigger on the post itself, but we can get you something very solid that it's like you read it and then you change a couple of things. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's you still that's talking, it's kind of like the new mentality of AI that you needed so much information and at some point it's going to talk like you. Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's kind of like that situation. So that burden is also taken off your shoulders to sometimes the hardest thing is to sit down and write the first sentence. Totally. Once you have that first, and I say it in the sense of like, I wrote a book two years ago, a science fiction novel. Yeah. And the first time that I approached the situation, I was like, this sucks. I can't do it. I'm not a writer. This is never going to happen. And then I ended up writing 125, 000 words for a, for a book. So it's that it's like, it's, it's like that first sentence is always the hardest. And then once you get that done, it's, you can roll with it. And that kind of like, it would be our approach too, that if you're struggling with that first couple, like. Letters. Yeah. Yeah. We'll give it to you. And all you have to do is read it and then be like, okay, in, in my spark, Well, you can probably use chat GPT or something too. Yeah. Hey, write a draft. Yeah. Article about da da da. Yeah. Yeah. For this guy. Yeah. And it's in that, that you guys could polish it up. Send it to me. Yeah. Now listen, I just got to click. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So it's, it, you're, that's why I want to have people think and feel that you're still, Are in control. Right. And at the end of the day, it's still, it's still you. It's still your company who's talking. It's not Obsidian Atlas through your, yeah. I've got people telling me I should become, you know, the, the founder of a collection of small business groups, including the CEOs of some notable brands and act like that. Yeah. And then others are like, Nope, keep sharing that. Conspiracy theory is shit, Kurt. I love you saying stuff that nobody else wants to. So, I'm working on my own personal brand. Well, you have the voice for it, so I think you have a good voice to get people following, so that's good. Well, we'll see. I don't know if I'm moderate so far, and if I stop talking. Would I lose followers if I stop with the conspiracy theorist stuff, or would I gain followers if I stop with that? I don't know. I feel like you can, you can still do both. I feel like, and I think that's the biggest, the, the, kind of like the other perspective of me coming into this, is that I want to make this fun. And if sometimes I'm going to post some silly stuff on Instagram for the company, great. If you don't like it, man, there's a million other companies out there. And there's a million other companies out there that might be for you or not for you. Yeah. The same goes with budget. If I tell somebody like, Hey, I can do as cheap as 500. I know that no other company is going to give you that price. Right. I'm probably the cheapest option that you and not because of sake of cheap is for the sake of like that self serving prophecy going back to it is that whole idea of like, Hey, if we get it started in the future, you're going to spend 5, 000 with me. I don't, that's kind of the thing. But if you still think that I'm not for you because you didn't like me, because I don't know, you don't like that. I'm bold of whatever it may be. I just don't like Venezuelans. Yeah, there you go. Immigrant. No, I'm just kidding. But that's the thing. It's like, Hey, I know there are people out there that it's just like, Oh, you're an immigrant. I don't know if it's right. More power to you because you know what you want, right? So you don't have to you don't have to fight with me for six months to realize that you want to like kick me Out of the boat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's fair. So I I am not against Client saying no and I am not against me firing people too Yeah, like firing a client if you're if you're if you're getting on my nerves and then you everything that I do is a problem For you, then it's just like then this is definitely not gonna work, right? Because we need we need to be Partners in some way Yeah, mutual appreciation. Yeah, exactly. And you're going to disagree with some things that I say, and I'm going to disagree with some things that you say. So, that's how this game works. So, I think I want to call a short break. Yeah. And, uh, we'll refresh our bourbons and then go on with the time machine. Perfect. And we're back. Um, by the way, I lied to you just earlier. I actually like Vanoss Whalen's quite a lot. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and partly because I feel Terrible for what they've endured. Um, so you came to found your business after coming here and Madware. Um, how did you get to Fort Collins? Can we jump to the short term time machine first? Okay. Yeah. So I lived here when I was 10. Oh, Willie. 80 100 years ago. Yeah, yeah. Um, in my sister and her family, I've been living here for 25 plus years. Oh, this whole thing was just like farmland still. Oh, it was just like half empty, empty town still pretty. It's still like that, like shadows wasn't even in power yet. Yeah, not not even. And then I came in when I was 10. I went to school here for those like six months. So it was kind of like a late thing. I got here on December, finished the school year, and then when went back, That's funny. Alma spent one semester in fourth grade when she was about ten, living in Mexico. Oh, nice. And she got turned into the temporary English teacher for the class because they found out that she could speak English. So they're like, oh yeah, well you're our new English teacher. Yeah. So, opposite land kind of for you guys. I actually had a really funny encounter with that because since the age of ten I've been, you know, Fully bilingual. Right. And then I've had so, so many bad encounters with like some English teachers back home because I'm like, I You suck at grammar. Sorry. I'm not trying to be a dick or anything, but it's just like you came up with these like things that are not Either like grammatically correct or they're well spoken. Whatever it may be. You're just wrong. Yeah, I wasn't, but I wasn't the type of guy who would come in and be like, you're, you're wrong. You suck. I would be like, what if we put it this way? What if you write it this way? And they were like, No, that's not how it goes. And I'm like, okay. And like five minutes later, they will auto correct themselves. Be like, well, I think this is better written this way. And I'm like, yeah, of course it is. That's funny. So yeah. And both a blessing and a curse to have that early bilingual action. Um, so once going back, the, we had that, that was kind of like probably our lowest point as a family in the sense of economically, uh, my dad. So you were rebuilding your life. Yeah. Back home. And then it, like the, then Venezuela fell apart again, more so. Literally the shit hit the fan and then it just never came back. You know what? It's going to make more sense if we just jump all the way in the time machine and go to your equivalent of first grade. Okay. Before you even came here or whatever, when you were just a little shaver. Yeah. So very Set the scene. Are you in Caracas? Yeah. So I lived in Caracas for five, till I was like five or six and then we moved to Margarita Island, which is like one of the biggest. Uh, tourist attractions in Venezuela, basically. So every summer, it was, uh, four to six hundred thousand people living in the island. We had an influx of three million people almost in the summer. So it was a, it was a mess. Like Estes Park in the summer. Yeah. It was a big mess. Of Venezuelans or of international tourists or both? Both. But there was a big, a big number coming from the U. S. and a big number coming from Europe as well. And this is, give or take, like, two years? 2000 or something. Yeah, kind of kind of around that that that timeline. I don't know how old you are 35. Yeah, actually. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm not very far off in that regard. Yeah, but um, so we moved to Margarita Okay, my dad had a decent job. He was in in the insurance business for okay to the time He passed he was probably in the insurance business by for like 35 years Okay, really big name back home. A lot of people knew him a lot of people did business with him You And he was like, almost like the, on the president seed on this company for a few years, the company goes down, it's like, this is your package, psych, this is not your package, we're taking the money and heading out. Sorry, bye. So yeah, they, basically, the people Like it was an international insurance? No, it was a national insurance company, but they just, they just robbed everybody of their Of their closing packages and whatnot. And they just left. They banished as a good third world country. Nobody could say anything. They could do anything. They probably bought some people out. Be like, okay, if somebody comes here, here's for our immunity defense fund. Yeah, exactly. And from that point on, we limped for. Three years or so it was that common like was a lot of distress happening or was that just in your particular case? This was kind of like particular but things were it was kind of there were some shifts happening It wasn't anything like too intense. There were a lot of people making a lot of money um But it was still like the, the, it was kind of like the, the good corruption flourishing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, so my dad being a, like a solid kind of like very correct person, he didn't want to do anything shady. He didn't want to do anything weird. So he, he Sorry, you don't have a place here. Yeah, exactly. So it was one of those things that it kind of like, okay, we, we got to the point where, uh, dad and brother were in Margarita. My mom and I went to Caracas That's a year that I came over because oh, yeah We did he went over there to like serve the tourist economy or something got well He we lived in Marietta for a while and he made he did a lot of business there Yeah, so at that point it was kind of one of those things that he knew All the people that he could probably make business with and whatnot, but we didn't have enough money to sustain a home. So we lived at our, my grandma's house for that year. Yeah. But that was the year that I came to the U. S. Yeah. So, cause the, long story short, we didn't have the money to pay for a private school because a lot of schools in Venezuela, like high school and all that are private. Uh, and then when we actually went into the public school, it was too late, so everything was sold out. So, and my sister, the first thing that she said to my mom was like, he's not spending a year without going to school. Oh, wow. He's nine, that's not, you're breaking a pattern. Oh, wow. So that's not happening. So she actually And she had taken off like 10 years before or five years before or something to come to America? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how did that happen? Did she meet a sweet U. S. boy or something? No, so my, my brother in law, he's been in the, He's an engineer and he's been in the industry for 35 years at this point. And he got hired by a company here in the US. And now he works for a big company here. One of my former facilitators was from Brazil and came through the JBS kind of organization. I'm sure that's not uncommon. Yeah. So for For him was kind of like that aspect. It's like they brought him in very smart guy. He's he does way too much that I he was like you at Medware for a while. Yeah, kind of working too hard for nobody. I actually look up to him quite a bit because he's one of those people that he's not only good at that, but he's also an amazing family man. He's just he's he's been My other dad for so many different situations. So I do appreciate that quite anything So you came up here and stayed with them for a semester and yeah, and then that was done go back Went to school for that next year in caracas, and then we moved back to Margarita Island. Yeah. Once my dad kind of established himself again, we were living. In insurance? Uh, yeah. Okay. Again, in insurance. We had. So you were pretty much an upper middle class family or? We were, we were middle class before the problem. Okay. Then we went to like as low as you can get. Right, super poor. Yeah, and After that, we became middle class for the next like five years or so. And then my dad actually got a good position. He started making business for himself. He started like growing a lot more. So we came, I would say a middle upper, but still on the, on the, we can't do everything that you want, but we still get like, Hey, we're like, we'll, we'll buy a couple of things here and there. Well, we have openings for me. It wasn't even despite the inflation already occurring in Venezuela and stuff back then, cause this is now the. Early 2000s, 05, 07 or something, I suppose, because Chavez didn't come into power until like nine. He was in 99. Oh, He was inaugurated in 99. I consider that kind of the main beginning of the end for Venezuela. Yeah, yeah, that was the first three years were, I would say, were kind of like on that Interesting visual of things are probably not looking great, but still, we haven't noticed it yet. We still can hold, there's a lot of people making money. There's a lot of big companies from outside of Venezuela coming in and putting money into Venezuela because it's just, we got a ton of oil, oil's expensive right now. For some reason, there's, we have money printing machines in a lot of industries. Right. So it's kind of like one of those things everybody could just, Oh yeah, I mean, agriculture and oil and a lot of different things. And then. At some point things started shifting and then that's where he went crazy and started like expropriating everything that he could see that, right. Yeah. Well, and he invested a ton in like the education system and stuff. Like they took those oil monies and just like did like healthcare for everybody and education supposedly quote unquote. Right. They didn't actually improve the education system, but they actually, I, I, I like to think that they, they actually build it. Down they broke it. They broke it a little bit because one of the big things that had happened in In venezuela and this happens with dictatorships all over the world. It's like the stupider you can make your people The the more you can actually control them, right because then they depend on you They depend on you to be the feeder the guide the everything So once that starts happening, then people are not going to try to look for solutions outside. They're trying to be like, oh god What's your next command? Right? So in that and it's funny enough that A lot of people in Venezuela still consider him a messiah. Whoa, really? Yeah, it's insane. For real? Yes. And it's, it's so bizarre to think about it and see people that are like, you just lost a child for starvation, and then you still consider this guy to be your, your god. You know, I, I, there's a, there's a, a podcast blog that I listen to sometimes, it's called, uh, Blog and Mayblog. And one of his, uh, And he's kind of engaged in this Christian nationalism conversation lately, and we'll get to the religion segment. But he says one of the problems with having a secular state is if there is no God, then the state is the God. And like what you're describing here is almost terrifying to me that, that these poor, mostly uneducated and worse educated than they were 20 years before. People were like, oh, the Chavez Messiah. Yep. And, and then he's. He's next in Kim, which is Maduro, who's still, yeah, who's still there. It's, it's almost that it's like this guy is if you put together the worst Political figures around the globe totally and mesh them together and take all the good bits out of them. You get that guy? Hitler plus Mussolini plus he's not that aggressive right, but he is Well, it's like a slow creeping slime. Yeah, yeah, and the guy has no clue what he's doing, but he knows a lot about corruption, and a lot about drugs, and a lot about, like, shitty things to do for your people, and keep them down oppressed, so. So you think his actual motivations are terrible? Yeah, well, the whole Like sometimes I think that socialists think that they're doing good for they're doing good. Yeah, no, these people, these people are really good to put a facade in front and then they, they know that, yeah, there's, there's no way that you can be that naive to think that you're actually helping people when you see your, you have a mass exodus of five, six million people leave and leave the country right out of a 30 million population. Wow. In the span of like three, five years. And when is this? This happened about seven years ago. Yeah, okay, that's when I Between seven and ten, like when I left in 2012, it was kind of like the starting of getting really out. You were one of the early outs. Yeah, well, I was, I was, The middle. I was in the middle where it's just like, I think things are really getting all ugly here. Right. I wonder how my sister's doing. Yeah, exactly. Um, for me, it was like somewhat a political reason as well as looking for a better life. Yeah. My dad had, you know, Some nasty encounters in the company that he was in. Oh, uh, before he, the first one even? No, the, the, the, the, the second one. The, the last one before he started. So he rebuilt his insurance agency Yeah. And then fled that because like he was willing to not think wonderfully about the president or something or, so the, the one that like, is it a party thing or is it a president thing? Um, I think it's a, it's a precedent thing because people still look at Maduro as is like your Chavez is like kind of Jesus below God. Yeah, exactly. So, but for him, it was the company that he worked for, uh, got bought by the, well, got expropriated by the government and they started doing all their biddings for the military and all the government things. So it was like, I'm laundromat for the government for many things. He got in multiple chances, like people coming in and telling him, it's like, you are going to sign these papers because X, Y, and Z. And then you'll get some money out of it. And this is naive, you just have to sacrifice your integrity. Yeah, exactly. Naive me, 15 year old. I remember my dad telling me one time, it's like, yeah, I got this people. And this is like 15 years ago, 20 years ago, like something along those lines. Um, it's like, yeah. Yeah. I got this people coming in wanting me to sign these contracts for like this aviation kind of like Problems that would make them so much money and they were giving me like a million bucks for just to look the other way Yeah, and I'm like dad. Why didn't you sign it up? It's like and then that a very valuable lesson was learned that day because it's like the second you accept that You become their bitch for the rest of your life and the second you say no We're all dead. Then you're dead. Yeah. So it was like, Oh, that makes sense. But it was, but it's dramatic, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's no, there's no grace. There's like black or white. It's like, you're right. If you're not with them, then you're, you're politically persecutive. You're with them. You're probably hated by a lot of people. You're probably making a lot of money, so you don't care. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, it's like, are you willing to break who you are for something like that? So, um, the first of your type, I guess. Uh, that I, that I befriended was a young lady that, uh, that just announced that she got her citizenship a couple of weeks ago on Instagram, Carol Sacco, uh, Carolina. She, she called herself Carol because she didn't think that people would understand Carolina. I was like, well, we have a two states named after Carolina, but, uh, Well, you will be impressed. Mine is Diego and it's like San Diego is probably one of the biggest cities in the U. S. And people still do not know Diego. People do not get it. And they're like, Daniel, David, what's your name? It's like, it's, it's fine. It's. So, uh, Carol, uh, was, had a very successful dog training business in Caraco and she was like, she was on TV a bunch of times and stuff like that. She had like 13 dog trainers, plus her very upper middle class. And then her dog got cancer. And she brought it up here to CSU to get cancer treatment. And then, meanwhile, the bee went from 1, 000 to 7, 000 bees per dollar while she was here for eight months. And so, my wife and I did some fundraisers for her so she could raise some dollars and different things. And her father was an oil industry economist. And I suspect, uh Also a free thinker and not willing to be turned into a bitch. Um, it's such a fascinating thing, right? Where integrity is a negative. Almost like when you think about like evolutionary psychology and stuff, you think about, okay, well, why don't we have more integrity in the world? Well, cause sometimes when you show integrity, you get killed. Yep. Um, and that's like one of the, I guess, negative biases toward. The good things. Yeah. And then you see it, you see it everywhere else. And like, some people, Tell it's like well the corruption here and there's like everywhere. There's corruption. It's everywhere, right? Corruption here might look more in the all I'll pay you so media military pharma. Yeah, but a lot of the times is like the common one It's kind of like, I'm going to be doing business by myself in this industry for six months, and then you can start letting people in kind of like that, that might be the situation back home. It's like, if you start a business, you and your entire family's dead. Right. So good luck with that. So, and nobody will ever investigate. Yeah, exactly. And we, before, like when we were on the, on the highest peak of our economical situation, we wanted to buy a. A piece of land in the in kind of like the farm area of Venezuela to have cattle and then start dealing cattle. It was my dad. Enjoy the kind of like the fun part of it in the business side of it. It was like, OK, it could be a really fun thing to do. We thought about my brother and I. It's like, OK, we'll get our pilot's license and we'll get a small plane so we can because it's It's like a three hour flight, four hour flight. But it's like, if you be the ranch manager's vice. Yeah, exactly. But if you go on, on land, it's, it's an extra like four hours on top of that. And it's a nightmare. So it was one of those Right, you get robbed at every corner. Yeah, exactly. Pop in with the airplane is good. Yeah, so it was one of those things. And then that time was where expropriation started like happening rampantly everywhere. It was just like, oh, uh, you have, uh, Uh, plays that has 10 cows, uh, I don't think it's yours anymore. I think it's ours. Yeah, exactly. And it was, the reasoning, cause you have to, quote unquote, still give some reason for it. But the reasons were like, it's because you're, you're like, Yankees and then you're in cahoots with the U. S. and it's like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Your sister lives in the U. S. So you're probably some kind of a spy. Yeah, for us, it never connected. So that was a good thing. Cause then it would have been probably a bigger problem, but we weren't such big names, right? So I flew under the radar enough. Yeah. But I, so I'm here under, so you're like thinking about this situation. Yeah. Oh, so you came as a, as a political, a proper political aside. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was here under student visa. Cause I thought that my case didn't have enough strength to be considered political. And then I was I realized that a lot of things that happened in my family and a lot of things that happened to my dad Were like politically related danger So it was one of those that I'm says like I either leave and I like or I get killed here So one of the two I didn't think because I wasn't like, uh, a political, like appointee or whatever it might be connected to the actual politics in Venezuela. I never thought that that would be a problem. Like that would be my case. Cause it's like, I'm not a political figure, but it's just like, you did enough that you started to like turn people's eyes and then you had some like bad encounters here and there. So at this point it's like, you probably, you're probably better off. So do you feel kind of, uh, ripped off? You could have waited until 2020, 2021, and then just come here and not had to go through all that book. I do have some, some problem with that because I've been, I haven't received anything. The only thing that I've received from the USCIS is the, your next step is an interview. And that's been the case for four years. So you're here with a green card on political asylum. I'm, I'm, uh, I'm, uh, I'm almost like a refugee slash asylee. Oh, so you don't even have a green card proper. I am in the worst position that you can have anybody. You're more likely to get kicked out in any of the 14 million people that have come in the last three years. So that's the positive is that I am fully legal and I'm under every single like aspect of the law here. I'm legal. Okay. I just don't have any paperwork that says that I'm either Venezuelan or that I'm American or that I'm a refugee or. You're just in limbo, in a green limbo. That's where you are. You're in the thumbs up limbo. Fascinating. Okay. Well, that's good. Yeah, so there is a positive aspect of that, but at the same time, it's like, I don't know if Well, at least you're not in a place where you just don't know. Yeah, exactly. Right? There's millions of people in the country now that I have never even contacted our government, you know what I don't know. Yeah. So that's awkward. Yeah. And to me, like, I get it. I, I, I lived in Venezuela. I lived in Argentina. I've been to other, other countries here and there. I get it, man. I, I get it. I get it. And this is the part of that. This is one of my biggest pet peeve when I get Americans telling me that this is a shitty country and then the virtual world drowning. Yeah, try somewhere else for a while. It's just like, I'll let you get in my house in Venezuela for a month. Figure it out. You don't have to pay for a house. Figure the rest out. And then you'll figure out that it's like, oh my God, I'm living in paradise. Right. And a lot of people look at me, it's like, this shit is happening. And I'm like, dude, I'm still really happy. Yeah. There are circumstances that I've had in some self made whatever, but yeah, still that look what I'm doing. I'm building a business where in Venezuela, probably a good word is get somebody else to employees, then they would just take it from you. Yeah, exactly. Or, or be or being a In a political situation where it's just like, if you, like, you're going to get people coming into your business to kind of like, just be bullies until you quit. Yeah. Or just take 10 percent of your revenues. So there's a lot of, we call them vacunas, which is, uh, vaccines. So a lot of people ask for vaccines from businesses. Okay. So you go into, Oh, well, Hey, how's it going, man? Um, so I see that you're making 50 K a year. How about if you're making 40? So you can keep, so you can keep working. Right. So you won't kidnap your daughter. Yeah, exactly. So you have to give them 10 grand just because you exist. Right. And you have a business that's somewhat successful. Why is it called vaccines? I, I, that's why they've been called for ages. It's like a vaccine against us coming and taking all your shit. Yeah. That, I think that's kind of like, it just costs you 10 percent of your life force. That's all. So it's kind of like evangelical in a way. It's a lot like the COVID thing. Yeah, exactly. So, so your family's fortunes actually rose again, partly because your dad was just a hard worker. So he started his own thing, got chased out of this second venture and did an import export business. So the import export business happened in the midst of him working in that previous company that wasn't his. Okay. We get this going. He has some really good deals happening. He starts his own firm and then from there on this company started it survive on its own and made some money here and there. We used it to import certain things like some were just personal stuff. Some it was just business. Yeah, yeah, but we sent a bunch of just like. Random crap home with Carol. Cause yeah, it was like, we're the fortune in bees. Yeah. And it, it helped out a lot of, because of that, because in Venezuela, there's a big issue with trying to bring things from outside. I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to send a full suitcase full of random small things that your family could sell. But yeah, the thing is not that it's illegal or legal or whatever. If you have to pay taxes on it or whatever it may be, the thing is like, When it goes to customs, it disappears. So if you don't have something solid like we did with like, Oh, right. Things would disappear and things would just like, Oh, I just spent 10 grand on this like container filled with shit. Then you go in one day, it'd be like, Uh, the container's here. Oh yeah, we don't know where it is. Dude, it's a 40 by 20 by 8. Right, it was It's a huge block. Full of iPods. Yeah, exactly. Or iPads. Yeah, what happened? It's like, oh, we don't know. And then say somebody in the, usually the military. up with the, uh, 1 800 I don't give a shit about you department. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of the times would be, you get to the point where you're like, if you keep asking about this, we're gonna Yeah, now you're on the list. Yeah. It's like, if you keep talking about this problem Right. It's gonna be a bigger problem for you. Right. So it's just like, either shut up, or you shut up actually because you can't speak English. Those are all those, like, anti evolutionary things. Yeah. Like, the things that we want the most, and I don't even want to take this into that kind of a conversation, but When I learn about big complex systems turning into things like Venezuela has become or frankly like Argentina Like does Argentina make you so excited now having kind of a libertarian president and trying to tear down those walls Are you just like no, it's probably gonna turn around and turn into shit again Yeah So I lived in Argentina I lived in Argentina for a year Um, and I feel like there is a curse with the South American population, and I feel like we have something and I don't want to put us because there's a lot of something about us wants that, but there's there's a lot of big minds that want to make that change. It wants to move forward. But the problem is, is that you also have people that have been accustomed for a lot of small minds. That, hey, the government has given me food my entire life. Right. Why do I want to change that? Why do I want to go out and work? The danger of pure democracy, right? Yeah, so, there are, and you see it in almost, like, America, we're getting close. Yeah, and Chile went through it recently, where it's just like, Chile was considered, number one country in South America, very well, like educated, very well, like economically wise, a lot of different things. Like they were a huge exporter for so many different items. And then it just started limping in the last five years, just because they started fantasizing about the socialist mindset. All the things that they could do. And it's just like, I, I get it. I get that we have to take care of people as people. So I, I like the poetic side of the socialist mentality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can still be a social person with a Money background and some other backgrounds that kind of like we're helping every end. Sure. We're helping businesses grow We're helping people. I like to say I'm a communitarian. Yeah, so, you know, I think that helping people should be done on a relational level Not a federal level. Yeah, exactly. And then otherwise you'll just get grifters Yeah. So, and it gets to a point where, and I've had so many conversations with people here that are very much on the, on the socialist mindset. Yeah. And they're like, whoa, but it's, the thing is like, it hasn't been like, They're trying to tell you that Venezuela hasn't, isn't done right. Whoa, and that's the thing. It's like, so you consider that the country that has had, Probably the best minds in the oil industry. Totally. You think that those people that have been so smart in the engineering side, that the U S has higher, so many hundreds, maybe thousands of people on the engineering side, because we had some of the best schools in the world for a lot of that. You're telling me those are the same people that don't know how to run a country, don't know how to like put shit together. It's like, this doesn't make any sense to me. It's like, And I tell them, it's like, go live in a socialist country with the people. Don't go from the U. S. be like, okay, I'm gonna take like 20 grand and then live in Venice because you're, you're gonna live like a king. That'd be easy. Yeah, it's like, oh, I can spend a hundred dollars a month and still, like, just ball and then have fun. Right. I'll do that. You could hire three cookers a week. Yeah, so that's the whole aspect. Because they're so desperate. Yeah, so you, you have to go live The actual thing. Right. And go in, there's a place in Caracas called Petare, which is probably, it's a, I don't know if you've heard, uh, Ciudad de Dios in, or City of God. Oh, yeah. In Brazil. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of like our equivalent. Okay. So this is a huge mountainside town that was built up by the people. No infrastructure, no nothing. It's just a nightmare of a labyrinth. Right. A lot of times if you go in, you might never come out. Just because you get killed in the middle of it. It's almost Slums now, virtually. Well, it's slums. And it's so bad that the military and the police will not go past the entrance. They go in and like raids. Right. If they catch like, oh, this isn't target number one. If they know there's a real terrible guy there, they'll take in a 12 person team and get Not even 12. It's like hundreds of police. Right. Because it's too scary. Yeah. Wow. And they've had like battles that take days. Wow. So it's that, like, we have that, that still, and people don't understand. It's like, you have no idea what you're talking about. Reading something doesn't mean you know what it means. So there's a, there's a discrepancy there between experience gained by reading and experience gained by living it. So fascinating. Um, so. Talk me through this, this fall of the second enterprise, right? Or was that like your, your dad started this new import export kind of thing and stuff. It prospered and grew, you were involved, you're going to buy a ranch and then 2012 happened kind of? So before that, I started getting some, some hints. About the situation around the area not being as safe as I wanted it to be. I've actually got, had been followed to my home multiple times. We were, um, Actually, we were taken hostage in our own home for a day by the poli by the police. Well, police. They were they all had plates, but, like, the police, uh, badges, but none of them care about it. So, you know, like dirty cops. Okay. Uh, so a lot of different things started happening. So, like, for money? Well, I think Ransom? Uh, For your dad to do something different? Yeah, so I think it was, like, connected somehow to my dad in one way or another. And you're, like, a teenager virtually? Yeah. Uh, yeah, this was 2009, I believe. So I was almost 20. Yeah, yeah. Uh, so that happens and that kind of like broke the whole idea of being like this, we can fight this. Right. And it started getting to the point where it's, it's not fun to like, You sit in your car, turn on your car, and then be like, Who the fuck am I gonna find today? What is, who's gonna follow me today? Is anybody gonna look at me weird? Will my car blow up when I start it? Is there something weird that's gonna happen today because of the situation that I'm in at the moment? So, uh, at that point, I'm like, you know what? I need, I need some time out. And we, we were fortunate enough to, I went to Argentina to study. It's the lucky people of Venezuela that have gotten out. Yeah, I, I, I will say. The wealthy and the lucky and the ambitious. Yeah, I will say that I'm very fortunate on that end because my dad believed a lot in education. So he, he was never one to cut. So this is your Argentine story. My Argentine dream. Starts now. Yeah. So I a little hot in the kitchen over here. Yeah. Why don't you go over there? Yeah, I actually went to study culinary arts. Oh, really? I was in the kitchen. Oh, cool. Um, so I went there. I did my, my degree. I finished it. It was a, like a very intense one. So it was a full year. I loved Argentina, but not to live. So I'm like, you know what? Things might have changed. Let's go back. Let's figure things out. Let's see if we can make something. I don't want to be a good chef at a wonderful restaurant. Yeah, exactly. I don't have to work in dad's business and stuff where there's stuff. Yeah. So I come back and then things are kind of like Effy still, but I didn't feel it as much. It might've been that I cooled off. Like I get, it was like the ice treatment for some people and we, we weren't looked at enough. Sure. Um, so I started a, a business. My own business which was a catering. Okay. Uh, so I started doing catering. I started kind of like feeding some of the local cafes and summer restaurants with sweets and and things that they would sell in their place. And it got to a point where, that's when things started actually hitting like rock bottom, and then I couldn't find flour, sugar, milk, eggs. And I'm like selling sweets, selling like baking goods, and it's just like, this is my bread and butter, no pun intended. And it's just like, I can't find that. So you had to be in cahoots with some mafia that sold flour To be like, okay, the flour is like a dollar a pound, but we're selling it for five, right? So it was or you can have none Oh, yeah, or you or you just don't run your business and it got to the point where I kept trying I kept trying and I kept trying I think I'd spend maybe six to eight months Working like 14 hours a day, my girlfriend at the moment was like, Hey, dude, are we ever going to like do something together? Are we going to go out or whatever? You always come home and then you're dead. I just need to find a consistent sugar source, baby. Yeah, go out and have some fun. But it was, it was interesting. Cause they got to that point where I'm like, this, this is stupid. Like the time that I'm putting here. Would be, for me at least, for the business to run. Right. Not to run good. Not to run itself, not to run, to stay alive. Yeah. The, the amount of effort that I'm putting and the positive feedback I'm getting from people should translate into this is a successful business. Right. And it got to the point where it's just like, I, I just kept, I, I felt, I felt the scales falling off every, every day. It's like, okay, this like massive dragon is like hitting the front, like really good and then it just kept falling apart and fall. Yeah. Yeah. So I got to the point. I can work as hard as I can on this. Yeah. And it just won't work. And that's, and that, and that was a desperation. It's like knowing that like you, there is no lack of effort. Right. The effort is there. I would, if I would have done that effort that I put that at that time here in the U. S. at that point with that company, the same thing, selling the same things. Yeah. I would have today a Dunkin Donuts. Right. Like type of franchise. I would have something that I would be right now talking to you and Right. You worked as hard as you could be. Like right after this, we're getting on my jet and we're going to Hawaii for the weekend. I would be on that point. So it's it. I knew that it's just like this is not the place for me anymore. Yeah. Because my mentality does not connect anymore with the current mentality.'cause we were like that for decades. Venezuelans were the type of people that would go to Miami and be like. Okay, that's ten grand. Give me two. Oh, that's that. Give me three. Or just send like five home. Or like, oh, I need new cars for me and the wife. Give me two of the good ones and give me one for the, for The housekeeper. Yeah, for the housekeeper. Like, that's how we were for decades. That oil money was really good. My wife and I, uh, had, uh, well, she's Brazilian, but she had grown up in a fairly well to do family that had like gardeners and housekeepers and all these things, which is very common. Yeah. It's not like we were like, everybody was like a multimillionaire, but it was. But if you're a middle class or above, you kind of live that lifestyle. Whereas in the U S like even rich people barely have like helpers and stuff cause they cost too much money, you know? Um, and that was one of her biggest, Manuela was her name. And one of her biggest, I guess, compliments toward us or observations about our time was that like, you prepared me to actually take care of myself. Like, if I, whether I have an apartment with roommates, or live by myself or something, like I can cook, I can do these things, cause I've actually had to take care of myself. Um, yeah, so that's an interesting dynamic. So, so you've come to this conclusion. Yeah, so I, I finished that and that business goes down to the ground. Uh, the, your girlfriend breaks up with you cause you don't have any time for her. Yeah. We actually had some rough patches after that. And I, well, yeah, who wants to date a broke guy, rough patches. For us, it was like, I think we were too comfortable in a situation that wasn't feeding anybody. So it was one of those that I'm like, eh, we both kind of like, we're not there anymore. Uh, so I finished that relationship finishes that business relationship is done. The other big import export companies already on its way down because of the same complications. There's not enough money if you don't want to play insider ball. There's no one that I think we were already kind of like establishing. We had our contacts to get things clean enough that people wouldn't steal or would become a bigger issue. But the problem started getting into the, if you don't have money to eat, why are you going to buy other goods or not? Well, in hyperinflation, it's just like, you know, I can't buy something for 10, 000 this month and sell it next month for a profit because next month people would have to pay 14, 000 for it. Yeah. So it got to the point where that company was not going anywhere either. And I moved to the capital again. Um, I spent a year there and like, I try my hardest. I wanted to start another food business. I, I worked at a restaurant as a sous chef slash chef for, for that, like six months, some of it, like at the beginning that I was there and then I'm like, okay, I want to start my own business. I know food can still sell food, food will always be, yeah, exactly. And I had some good ideas, something that was going to be like something decent. And then I kept looking at prices and the price is constantly changing. And like rent was up the roof because they were, a lot of people are laundering money through. So if you have a government where everybody has millions and millions of dollars, but they're all like drug related, you have to laundry that money somehow. So they would rent things and just let them die. You're like, Oh yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm renting this out for. 100, 000 a month, which it's just like got way too long from themselves virtually and stuff, or, or, or start a restaurant that doesn't have to make any money. Yeah. Or you and I would go in because you have this place and then you would rent this office to me for 20 grand, but you pay five grand for the place and then you're like, okay, I paid that I took another two and then I give you the change. I get the clean money. Yeah. So you get clean money. And so that happened a lot. And he got to the point where I. I remember this was like, this was like a very emotional, like conflicted area of my life in that point that I told my dad, it's like, I'm tired of this shit. I want to live. I don't want to survive. Surviving is, I'm done. I'm done surviving because I don't know if I'm going to go out tonight and then not come back. It's not an, it's not a point of being like, Oh, I want to live better. I want to have a nice car. It's like, I want to go out. And walk. Right. I wanna go out to a park and know that somebody's not gonna be waiting behind a bush and then shoot me because I had a nice pair of shoes. Yeah. Be sitting in the backseat of my car when I get back in my car. Yeah. I had a, a problem, like the girlfriend that I had at the time, we were coming back from one of her cousin's house, which was like an hour away. It's kind like, imagine driving from Denver up here. Sure. And in the highway, one of my tires blows up. Okay. I destroyed. That rim because I couldn't stop wasn't safe to stop. I I stopped at my house and I call my dad the next day. It's like dude, I just obliterated this rim. The rim is almost like on the on the on the center and sparks the whole time. And it's just like, and he's like, Yep, that's probably what you had to do. You probably if I would have stopped anywhere, I she would have been well, something really bad or I would have gotten killed or something. Something bad would have happened because it was Past midnight in the middle of a city that doesn't sleep that bad people don't sleep Wow, so it was one of those things that I'm like, you know what there's no good people out after midnight Yeah, I think I think I could this car could burn and I'll still be alive and I'll be fine So after that point, I'm like I could this I was very conflicted. Well, you had this experience of Other parts of the world, I imagine, too, like living in Northern Colorado for even just a little while as a kiddo, living in Argentina, not that that was any better at the time, but When I went there, it was, government wise, was kind of like putrid, but money wise, it was pretty stable. Things were easy, yeah. Uh, so the money, the transfer, the, the, the exchange rates were pretty decent. I was living comfortably, so I didn't ever feel the, the heaviness of it, but still, it's kind of like a rough city to be in if you don't like that, like really heavy cement jungle. Yup. So. Fair enough. Yeah. Um, so what's next for you? Like how did, like when you pull the trigger, what's that look like? Like, cause you said you went to Caracas and you were ready to, like, get the heck out of there now. And is that when you came to work for Medwire virtually or? Well, no. So I started doing my, my, my background check on everything, like how things were happening here, what I would need to be here. I actually, we figured out to go, like for me to go to school in Florida, uh, with the help of my dad. So I can't say that I'm a self made man in any way, shape or form, because I think my dad, Was the one who actually got me to a lot of different places. Um, so that happens. I come to the U. S., go to school, graduate, and then come back up in Tufor Collins around 2014. Okay. And I, it's because I, my family was here, my sister was here, so it's kind of like, it's, it's easier transition. And it, it always in my mind was a place that I'm like, I could live there. I don't, a 10 year old could not potentially, like, for sure. It's like, oh yeah, Fort Collins is a great place to race. I'll go through a transition, that's why I was going to fall apart. Yeah, exactly. But, but it was like something that is always, it was always in the back of my head being like, okay, it's a good place. It's a cool place. It's beautiful. There's a lot of nice people. People are warm and welcoming and whatnot, even though some people here like to think otherwise. I believe it's still, they're still that warm. No, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I kind of like came back up here and then I just, Did chart everything I worked in the in the restaurant industry for a while. I realized sure, like two, three years into that, that it was not for me anymore. Very low glass ceiling there. Yeah. And not only that, it's cause I feel like, and even to this day, I feel like if I started a restaurant with the food that I could make and all that, I'm pretty sure it can, it can happen because I know people here like to eat. And it's, uh, like people here spend a lot of money in food. I make some of the best food I've ever had personally. And I'm not, I don't think I could start a good restaurant. I don't have enough capital, you know, I don't have enough patience to build the, the thing. I'm not really a systems guy. I don't want to have to be constrained by prices when I come up with my creative ideas. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I thought of that for a while, but then I never got the opportunity to like pitch it to somebody, uh, in working in the industry, I got burned out. Because here, like, like, wages were really low for that, and I'm, I'm just working 12, 14 hours a day, and my paychecks were 300 bucks, 400 bucks, and I'm like, this is, this is a nightmare. I'm never going anywhere with this, so I, I got out of that, I started reading a lot, I started, uh, writing, so kind of like getting into that. What was your degree, from Florida? Uh, so it was kind of like in the 3D graphic, so kind of like digital graphics in general. Um, so I came, I spent the first like year and a half trying to, You don't have to, you're trying to find, break into that, it's a tough industry to get into, right, apply to hundreds of jobs, with no experience, yeah, never got it, well there aren't that many companies that need a lot of graphics anymore, yeah, yeah, and at that point I focused on the gaming industry for a while, so it was kind of like what I, like my biggest focus in college, yep, Uh, and that was the time where everything was going towards like Russia and China, India. So a lot of really big companies that had the talent and they would charge a fifth of what you would charge here in the U. S. So I understand it's a very logical solution, be like, do I pay you 100, 000 or I paid this guy 15, 000? In India, 18, 000. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, so that, that happened and then I started kind of like figuring out that I, I didn't want to lose the creativity. And I always thought that writing was a fun thing. I used to write poetry back home. Uh, so it was something fun to do, but in South America, being a writer is like the, the lower piece of the totem pole of starving artists. It's worse than being gay and all these other things. Well, I love, so many really, really good authors. Yeah. Really good authors in Venice, in, in not Venezuela, in South America in general. Yeah. Made it to what a middle low class would be. Wow. Very, maybe like one or two became really renowned. Actually, financially successfully. Uh, so it was kind of like that perspective in mind, but it's always like if it's art, it's going to be a really bad thing. So do not look that way. And I started kind of like falling in love again with writing here and then reading for a year or so, just reading books every week, different book, just go and then start writing. And you're like working at restaurant jobs or different things. Yeah. Yeah. And I was working as a Lyft driver for a while too. That was a very interesting point. Right, right. And then I started writing. And I wrote this novel. I kind of like got into the whole writing thing. And then I realized at one point, it's like, you know what? I think I could be a writer, whether it be a technical writer for a company or whether it be a writer for like to write novels. And that's still kind of like on the horizon somewhere. That's something you really want to do. And before we leave this writing part. Talk to me about your science fiction book. So, it's a, um, So, it's about a mercenary that gets hired by this multi galactic mining and exploration company. Okay. To go to this, uh, kind of like planet and clear out, uh, Kind of like the Dune movie that Almost, almost on that end. I mean, it's different, but But it's just like a planet that's completely empty. Oh, and they just want you to go in there to clean it out because they want to come in and exploit. It's probably an empty space Yeah, basically like North Dakota. Yeah, something like that where you're like, hey, there's a few Indians, maybe Yeah, if there's bears and wolves and whatnot, just get rid of all that I don't want to lose personnel because there's some like wildlife trying to kill my stuff my people So he, like this guy goes there alongside with a bunch of other, uh, mercenaries, his team, whatever, his team. And he's the leader. He's just, well, he's, he's the leader of his pack, but there's two other crews that come in, each one specializing in different things. The pay was fantastic. So he's like, yes, I will take this money, baby. Yeah, and then he gets there and he realizes that there's something in there that shouldn't be kind of like owned or shouldn't be exploited by anybody. And the way that I like that I wanted to write the novel was to have that mental dichotomy between Should I do the right thing and not? Indulge in this problem. Yeah, or should I just like get paid for this and live the life? Yeah. Ten lifetimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Happily. Should I destroy this spirit of goodness and flourishing that exists here for the money? Yeah, exactly. So I got it. Was it a critter of some sort that he was it was, uh, my, I have seven other books that I have in my head. Some of them I started writing, like, they're in the works. Yeah, yeah. But my concept, this universe is. Put together by these entities that were from outside created this universe and now they live in this universe So they're entities of things in that we come across. Yeah. Yeah. So the first book deals with the entity of time So it's the the kind of like the mind behind how time works in the universe And then this is the essence of it, and that's what is inside of this planet, is this planet. So it creates kind of the value of time. Yeah, so it's, it was one of those things that it's just like, should I give the, the ability, the control of time to these greedy people? Right. That are going to destroy everything in their path? Right. Or should I just like, help these, this thing? Let time be on its own. Yeah, let time be time and then just have, you know, It just not be affected by this problem. So, and I have other concept of, there's some, like another book that I started that it's like the essence of like evolution and how things like progress and how things kind of like grow from there, from their point, what would happen to the universe if we lost that? Yeah. Somebody else controlled that ability to progress. So to me, and there, there are like dead essences and like some, some planets might have a dead essence of what like kindness might be, right? And then they just don't know what kindness entails because kindness left. Yeah, that place. Well, it's like Fort Collins still has kindness. Yeah, exactly. It's one of the things that are characteristic about us. Yeah. You know, I would argue that, Like the United States for at least 150 years had striving, virtually, you know, or working hard toward good ends. Um, and it's less so? Yeah, it's slowed down a little bit. Um, you know, while we're, while we're on this thread, and before we, we're gonna, I'm gonna have to take another break here, cause I gotta go pee, but, Um, like, When you think about the U. S. that you've seen in the last, I guess, mostly 10 years has been the bulk of your experience, right? Like, 14 to now, virtually 15. Yeah, 12 years. Um, like, have you seen a cultural change in terms of its striving and its desire? Are you concerned about a Venezuelan type economy? I'm not concerned about that, just because at the end of the day, I do believe that the American mind is a, it's a, it's a bit stronger than that. It's more resistant to it? Yeah, the resistant, it's in. I tell this to a lot of people, when a country has gone through war. And know what unifying means and know what that like kind of like heart to heart like you're in with your neighbor because it's the only person that you can rely on things get done and things get like you're going to go like everybody else. You're going to go through shitty times. You're going to go through times where like right now we're not understanding each other. We're like very, very Like everybody's on their own corner and everyone wants to pull their own, like to their own side, that's a, and I feel like it's a common thing in politics in a lot of places, but at the end of the day, I feel like there's a, there's another change happening already right now that people are kind of like getting tired of that bullshit. It's like we are one people. This is not a thing just because you're loud and you can yell your stuff louder. That doesn't mean that's the end all be all. Nobody's listening anymore. Now it's just like, I'm so tired of listening to your crap. I just don't want to do this anymore. I want to go with Kurt and we're going to have a beer and we're going to figure out what we can do for this area to make it better. Something like that. So I feel like people here are very on that end. Where it's just like, we want to work together. We want to make things happen. And yeah, sometimes you have people that are just, I don't want to work for the rest of my life. Well, collaborative over taking advantage. Yeah, exactly. Which is kind of the culture, unfortunately. Yeah. Venezuela evolved into, was very much taking advantage economy and to us we kind of like created that in the sense of, uh, why Chaz was so, such a big figure is that he was the first. Or probably one of the first and maybe the only person that actually looked into the lower class poverty levels and where it was like, what do you guys want? Right. So if you tell somebody that hasn't, yeah, if you have somebody that has never seen the light of day, it's like, hey, I'm going to take you to Cancun and then we're going to have fun and you're going to eat all you want. Right. And you have a limitless credit card. To buy whatever the fuck you want. I'm going to say yes. Heck yeah. I'm voting for that guy. Yeah, I'm good. What I, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna have to work for free. Forgive my student loans. Yeah, exactly. There you go. So it's like, you're gonna give me this thing for free without any repercussions with, or making me think that there's nothing there, nothing bad is gonna happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'll be, I'm down with you. You got it, homie. So, yeah, once you, once you. Tap into the people that feel neglected, that feel oppressed, that feel pushed down, you get People following you and then you start getting this for us. It was the unfortunate piece It was a big side of the population that was that was I need it smitten by that. Yeah Well, and that will I'm gonna call the call pause here shortly But they like the current like Palestinian situation with all these college students like like if you're the oppressed even if you're full of suicide bombers And whatever else, like, you're the good guys, automatically, and if you're the oppressor, then you're the bad guys. Yeah, I've been reading so much about that lately, I've been listening to a lot of, like, commentary on both sides. I'm sure it's probably a topic you never even heard about. Yeah. Five years ago. Yeah, but it's, it's very interesting because I, That's the only thing that I, that I find really complicated to find here in the U. S. is that critical thinking and common sense and having a good solid foundation to have some of these conversations because I do believe that there's some problems going in the Palestinian world that it's just like, Hey, some of these people don't. They've got legit beefs. Yeah. Well, and not only that, it's just like, some of these people are, are very much on the side of like, they don't deserve any of this. They just have an it. A quote unquote ally. I would say that it's not beneficial to them Right. And I would say that the other side is also has a, a very, probably like Right, right. A powering side. So I do believe there's a problem in both of them. There's, there's victimizing both, and there's a problem in both. And there's an aggressor in both. Mm-Hmm. There is a totally, it's, it's a, and it's, again, it's a battle that's been raging on for 2000 years. Right. With people as puns. Yeah. But it's, uh. It's a lot more complicated than saying that they're killing this or they doing that it's like you a lot of people that are Yelling about this have no idea. Totally what the problem is or or how heavy it is So I think there's there's a lot to be said about Sorry to dip into there, but it ties right into that oppressor victim kind of notion of who are you? Where are you? Yeah All right, quick break. We'll be back. Gonna be a fairly long one already when we're back. Hey, great. I, I love this type of conversation. So, if you, if, if you want to do this more often, I'm more than done. We can do once every quarter or something. Yeah, I'm, I'm up for that all the time. Well, we need the, uh, Launched the Diego Rego Vaga Vega podcast in the future. I'll be one of your guests for sure. Oh for sure. We'll start we'll start it together for a little Okay, it's pretty easy. If you can do all your digital marketing things you can run a podcast simple simple so faith family politics is always our Ladder segments. Okay, we usually get there sooner than now, but we've enjoyed kind of Well, some, some faith and family and politics questions. Um, but I wanted to start with faith, um, because I've, I've picked up some cues to at least some levels of kind of Christian orientation, maybe Catholic, I assume is maybe more prevalent, but I also know that like, um, socialist countries and stuff kind of tend to try to. Disrupt that notion. Yeah. And so, yeah, talk to me about faith and, and so for you and for Venezuela in general, love to hear some, so we're very Catholic. Okay. Roman and Apo Apostolic, I think is the, the translation to it. So it's kinda like that Big Angels Mother Mary, and then God and Jesus like, so we have like the whole shebang kind of icons and stuff is a big deal. Angels are a big thing. Okay. So we like, we have like Santeria, which is kind of like witchcraft in some sense. Oh, okay. But connected to saints. Okay. Interesting. Kind of like situation. All right. Uh, I am actually a very atheist person. Okay. A lot of the times, mostly because I, I don't. You're pushing against that. Well, not necessarily against it. I do believe that there's, there's some room in the, in the cake for that. Okay. If you want to put it that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you don't have any of that in your background necessarily? No, no, like even for my, this is a funny story. When I was, I think, four or five, I remember this clearly. I can picture, I can put the scene together. I was on my bed, big fan going on. open window and it was just midnight or something like that. I couldn't sleep. And the first thing that comes out of my mouth, it's like, if you're real, just do something, anything, anything could be the stupidest thing. And I'll believe it. And I'll go from there. Right, right. And then, nothing happens, and like, 10 minutes go by, 20 minutes go by, 30 minutes go by, like, time goes by. Right, right. And I'm like, okay, I guess I'm not, and to me it was kind of like a waste of time. So I'm very scientific. You think you're that important that God's gonna like, jump when you say jump? Yeah, yeah. I'm one of his scientists. Sons. So all alright. Why not answer to, even if it's just like a, wouldn't take much faith if he answered every time somebody ask a question like that. Yeah, I know. But to me, I saw that when being, being a kid, you kind of like, yeah, yeah. You're very exaggerated in your abuse. It's like, sure, sure. I've been in this life for six years. Right? Like, what? What's going on? Um, but it was one of those things that I kind of like never picked it up after that. Yeah. There might have been some points in my life where. My, the good thing is like my mom or dad, my dad died, I think of an agnostic, basically. Yeah, yeah. So, I think by the end, kind of maybe believed a little bit more, but never was a person for religion or beliefs. Uh, my mom was a little bit more, but she still Is that common? Uh, not necessarily, we're a very religious country, but the good thing is like they never put anything on us, so we never went to church, we never did any, like every now and again, we have some like very in depth religious kind of like events that happen throughout the country, that people go to church, religious holidays, like our Easter and Christmas kind of thing. Yeah, stuff like that. Um, and people go to church for those. We never did any of that. Actually, the times that we went to church is because people came to visit and then we went and showed up. Because those churches are, they're still one of those like, 300 year old like churches. So there I love the architecture. So that's why I appreciate Religion a lot because if I would go to Italy or Spain sure, I would like to go to those places because they're Like I can still not believe that we went from that into the shitty architecture that we have right now That we got these square boxes and whatever. Yeah, they're like gray, all gray, no windows, no nothing. You guys, uh, you, we, we lost, we lost touch somewhere. Uh, but I'm personally, I'm not a religious person. I do believe in somewhat of like energy just because we, like, I, like right now we're exchanging that energy between you and I, and I think there is some sort of connection. So there is still like a very scientific approach from my end to that. Sure. It's not like, oh, well, there, it might be some sort of like. Cosmic energy that's connecting us like no, it's probably like a very scientific thing. There's actually a wave there that's connecting us right now or whatever. And then we kind of like, that's why we clicked or whatever. So there is that so it could be somewhat spiritual, but at the same time I'm like, I'm So you would say you would lean Almost in the atheist camp not the agnostic camp. Yeah, definitely definitely more on the atheist camp fair enough. Yeah, hopefully this doesn't Take away business from you because some people are like you're not you don't believe in God at all Well, I mean, yeah, they'd be the right people not to call you I suppose and I'm not that popular So don't worry about that too much One thing I've well one thing I've brought up on this podcast is when I was a kid say five six seven ten years old I Like it was kind of proposed almost like it was Big Bang or God. And that was kind of the offering. You could believe in the Big Bang and there is no God or you could believe in God. And God held the whole universe in his hands. And now that we've got this new telescope thing, I forget what the, not the Hubble, but the one after that. Yeah, the, the web. Yeah, the web telescope. So, people, observers of that have started looking at kind of the, how it folded out, and they're like, Well, there almost had to have been an intelligent designer. Mm. Before the Big Bang, because otherwise it just wouldn't have unfolded like it was. And so now the Big Bang is starting to look like more of a faith oriented event. Yeah. And, to me at least, I don't really see, like, a Atheist oriented event. It feels like more and more really smart people are starting to become, if not Christians, at least like God believers. Yeah, yeah, but I've seen it in a lot of like very high Yeah, over the last 10 years especially, you know, people that are very high up there, they're starting to kind of come around a little bit and be like, you know, I thought there was no God and now I'm starting to think there's a God. Uh, what's your, what's your thoughts on that? So, hey, the one thing that I wanted to say is, like, maybe I'm, what I'm writing in my novels are just, like, some of this cosmic Well, you've got seven novels in your head. Where's that shit falling out of? Like, where do those ideas come from? Just you? I have no idea, man. Like, this novel, so the first thing, I started writing one novel that I will finish at some point in my life because I really enjoy the idea. And it's the one about evolution. And it's like more superhero connected, but it's still like sci fi y. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the sci fi world. Um, But when I started writing it, I was horrible at it, not saying that I'm great right now, but writing writing in general, I didn't know how to put sentences together. My paragraphs look like a big mess of oatmeal. It was just you were just a puppy. Then when you started, right? Yeah, it was a disaster. And I hated it because I'm like, I don't feel like there's a connection between me and the text and I don't feel like I'm putting actually something enticing. So to me it was like, okay, that's when I stopped and then I started reading. But the idea is there. I still like the idea and I kind of like, Um, to me, this is gonna, this, this is one of those projects that I really want to make him happen, but it's still on that end where I'm like, I still need to like, eat, so I don't want to, I don't want to force it. Yeah, you can't go into an eight month sabbatical. Yeah, exactly. And like, I'm gonna finish my book. Yeah, but it's, um, the reason I like, I, I like to connect it to like the religious piece because I feel like that might be like, to me, more fathomable. Yeah. Idea of being like there, there is like, we're just an experiment for somebody else, right? And it's still kind of like, I think that's feasible. Yeah, I feel like that, that to me would be landing more on the religious side of being like that, where somebody came in and put like water and like the Dallas. Um, of, uh, like the, of the founding fathers in America, Thomas Jefferson, I believe is like recognized as kind of a Taoist where there's a God, he spun it up and then he let it go. He doesn't actively intervene and interject himself in the hearts of men or in the circumstances of the world, but somebody, the, the, the prime mover, uh, or the, the, what the uncaused cause. And that's kind of like the idea behind these like entities, this essence, like the essence of time. Create a time, put everything in motion. This is the equation. Now I'm not meddling with it. I'm living here because I like to see how things grow, how things evolve, how things kind of like, kind of like create their own doom and their own safe, like saving grace and whatnot. So kind of like, that's, that's kind of like these entities, how they work. They just came in, build it, and now they're watching through a lens and then seeing how it works. There is a book that was maybe my favorite back in my teenage years, and it was, I believe it was written by Madeline L'Engle or something, A Wrinkle in Time. Okay, I heard. You've heard of that series, I think, probably. And I don't, I don't know if I think there was a series that followed up with it, but the original book was, and it was, I would say it was probably, cause I grew up in a I guess similar, where faith was kind of assumed, but I spent over 10 years assuming not in my lifetime, maybe 15 almost, and that was a reinforcing item in that. It was kind of like that universal, almost in the, you would like that book if you haven't read it. It would, it's kind of adjacent to some of the topics that you're talking about with your series. Okay. So, check that out. And I've, I've heard it before too, where people are like, Hey, you might want to read those books. Right. It feels like it's right down your alley. Right. And it was, well, I mean, I read it when I was 12 and it wasn't a new book at that time and I'm 50 now. So that was 40 years ago. It was probably written 50, 60, 70 years ago. Yeah. Would be my guess. So anything else to reflect on in the faith conversation? I, one thing that I always believed in is like, we do need faith for a lot of people. I feel like a lot for a lot of people is the driving factor for a lot of people is the saving factor for a lot of people is that like, like, this is your execute, like your executor, your judge. Yeah. So I feel like there is a need. For it, we've, I think we can both agree that some, some of us have gone on the stream end of certain things with religion. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's why I say faith instead of religion, because I think religion is kind of gross. Yeah, so, and I feel Religion is kind of what you do because you don't think about doing what you do. Yeah, yeah, and I think that there's, there's that, like, component of that faith where, just, just think a little deeper. Not necessarily for you to like, stop believing in the God that you believe in, or to stop following the things that you follow. Just understand that just because this is a solution for you, it's not the solution for everybody else. Yeah. And that's why, like, when people come to me trying to offer that, like, saving grace of being like, Hey, I'm gonna, like, introduce you to Jesus. Like, it's not that I don't need it. I would love to discuss it. I love the stories. I love the content. I love the concept. Sounds a little too good to be true, huh? Well, and not only Because you're You've got a sin filled heart. You know all the terrible things you've done. You probably remember most of them. Yeah, yeah. But it's one of those things that I'm like Like, if it's not for that person, you should not be able to push it. And if it's, if, if it's what you believe in, people will come to you for it. Yeah. And it's, and to me, like, I don't want to make this a business approach, but if I, if you create a business and you put it out with passion and you believe it yourself, people will come to you for the business. Well, that's part of why I say faith, like having faith that this offering that you have is going to be. Yeah. Acceptable to people or whatever. Um, I, I'm trying to remember who it, it might be, it might be Richard Dawkins or one of those kind of notable new atheists, if you will, um, has recently called himself a cultural Christian. Oh. Okay. Um, and because he doesn't believe in Christ, he doesn't believe in God, but culturally he thinks that the world is kind of a better place with, People reflecting on things like, what does the Ten Commandments say I should live like, or what does Jesus think I should do about this? Well, and if you see it too on the psychological end of things, a lot of the stories, at least in the Bible and the Quran, has the same thing in the, in Sure. Yeah. Whatever the, the Talmud Yeah, all the books have Similar stories and a lot of the stories if you actually want to like detach yourself spiritually from things and see it in a psychological way or say in a scientific way, it's just logical to be like, why kill somebody else and deprive them of their, Chance to have fun in this life or enjoy what this life has to offer So it is logical because you don't want somebody to come in and kill you For you to stop enjoying what you enjoy or or like so a lot of these stories a lot They have that psychological back end of being like this is just what you would do Yeah, the straight truth kind of thing. Yeah, it's kind of like that ultimate truth. Everybody wants this Nobody wants to go anywhere Like, nobody wants to get killed. So, you shall not kill. Have you, uh, have you looked at the book of Proverbs before? Have you gotten into the Bible? So, uh, consider, check it out sometime. Consider it, call it the book of wisdom. Because it's kind of like, kind of like, these are wise sayings written by randos across time in the Old Testament. And, like, if you just open it up and said, this is a book of wisdom, And didn't like attribute it to God saying it virtually you'd be like fuck. Yeah, this is some good stuff right here And I feel I feel like that that's the people that are against because I'm not against religion I am just I to me I got it I got to a point where it's just like this is more space in my hard drive that I don't want So I just discard the information. Well, and you got all these ghosty things with magic stuff and I'm pretty sure it ain't like that. Yeah. So, but, but I, I feel like the people that are against it and that like fight it, that are constantly like, okay, we should burn this down. It's like, you don't understand that like there is some value to this and there are, there's beauty in this writings. The writings have stories that are fantastic and you can learn so much. And then it's just, to me, is a, is a, it's kind of like one of the best written novels in history. Yeah. And it's basically the most sold book ever. Oh, for sure. Well, Billions upon billions of copies. Once you start understanding it more and investigating it, and I would encourage you to even, As an intellectual pursuit, perhaps not a spiritual pursuit, but as an intellectual pursuit, the interconnectedness of the books of the Bible is just, yeah, and I've read your top. I read some of it. Yeah. Uh, I read some of it and I remember being a kid around like 10, 15. We had religious like classes in school because we were. Since it's a religious country where it's taught into the schools as well. So I definitely read a lot of the stories, and this is where I kind of started getting, I think, the one that comes to mind very vividly is the Noah's Ark story. So there are a lot of things, and it, to me, was just fascinating. Because it's a great learning exercise. Well, and also, for me, I'm a big creative person. And I write really, really odd things. I just didn't write them at the right time to become a religion, so So I do, I We'll say, uh Well, yeah, maybe in a thousand years somebody will I agree to disagree on that one. No, but it's one of those things. But yeah, right. Well, I'm not going to give you the opportunity to, like, start a Christianity thing, I'm not But you could maybe do it, be like, Scientology. Maybe. Like, you get up there, like, I'm just saying, if you're gonna start a fake religion, you might as well compare yourself to another one. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I have as much push as Christianity has. No, it's gonna be tough to compete. It's like trying to start up against Amazon. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Um, Family or politics would you like to drift to next? Um, I like both, so You want to talk about your family next? I mean, we talked about them some already. Um, talk to me about, like, your family here. Yeah. Your sister is still here, I assume. Maybe you have some sibling or nephews or nieces or things. How about your extended family? Yeah, so I just, I actually just became a grand uncle. Oh, wow. Yeah. Very young for a grand uncle. Yeah. So I was, I've been in uncles as I was three. So I think my uncle was one when he became my uncle. Oh, there you go. He was my classmate growing up in school. Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like the same situation. So I believe that I'm there kind of like older brother sometimes. Right. And my sister and I are 19 years apart. Oh, wow. Yeah. Um, but yeah, the baby just moved back here from Hawaii. Yeah. Uh, so it's been fun. It's, uh, it's been interesting to spend some time with a kid cause I, I'm not, I'm not, uh, uh, kid type of guy. Like I enjoy having kids around, but to me I'm very much on the uncle side where it's just like, uh, once, uh, once you, like you have the kids around you, You play with them for a little bit. You kind of like enjoy their time. And then you're like, mom, here you go. I'm out of here. So I, I am not the, I probably will be the learning child interaction skills. Yeah. And I probably will be the ultimately bachelor, like just. Ongoing bachelor for the rest of my life. Yeah. I not necessarily not for finding somebody. It's just more on this. Even if you find a woman that will, you know, Yeah, I I've always like you, you'll still might not have kids. Probably. I I keep saying it is like there might be an opportunity in my life where I find that somebody that's like, there's nothing more in life that we could accomplish together. And like happiness is the right It's always the drink of the day. Sure. And maybe if the, the, the, the waves flow that, that, that route, I'm not against, I'm not opposed. I am a very selfish person when it comes to that situation. I want to have somebody that I can enjoy my time with, that I can do all the things that I want to. Yeah, yeah. And in the future, if that happens because it's just a natural thing to happen, I'm not against it. I am not somebody that believes in the push for kids to better marriage or have kids because it's gonna bring some fulfillment in your life. I feel like kids I just want somebody to pay my social security down the line. Yeah, there you go. Somebody to be like, hey, I need to go to the bathroom again. What you need is, uh, get married. Have a couple kids then get divorced and do the week on, week off thing. Okay. That's like the new best life So you get, like, you get to raise kids. Yeah. And then you get a week off every, you know, two weeks off every month to go chase women or whatever else you're looking to do. And, and it's funny enough, I'm sorry I joke about it, but it's sadly that's so, and it's a, it's a hard, interesting dynamic in American culture at least. Yeah. And I, we do have a lot of like broken houses back home. Sure. But I believe that America has a little bit more of that. Uh, and especially in the recent time in the maybe the last decade, uh, I feel in this, my hardest time in this country have has been the dating scene by far. That's kind of been a very complicated topic on, on top of that, because culturally I'm a very romantic, very kind of like lovey type of person. That's kind of like what we are. We're. We're like over the top in romance. Okay, people here fear that. Yeah, a lot of people. Get off me. Yeah, a lot of people it's like you are too intense, this does not work. But I feel like there's a in in it might be a phenomenon that's been happening around the world that people Since you have that quick connection that you can go on your phone and find somebody tomorrow, I can find 500 new people tomorrow. Yeah. I think that has given the false sense of option to people. And then if you have anything that could resemble, not even a red flag, but a flag that is not, Fully green, then people are like, no, you're not for me. It's like, this is not what relationships are supposed to be. Yes. If you find somebody that does this thing that either brings you back your traumas or brings back something really bad for you, I completely understand for you to be like, this is not my cup of tea and it's fair, but if it's something like, yeah, I don't know, he eats with his left hand. He never puts the coffee cup away in the dishwasher after he finishes it. Yeah, he's probably a monster. It's like, and that's the thing, I think we've gotten so quick to categorize people in this like, really, really bad, like, kind of like, spectrums. Like, the recent one commonly happened in politics is, if you're bad for one group, you're, you're, Hitler like right and people don't understand how detrimental that it is to society. How that is to education. That is to all the things because you're you're comparing this person that has a mile. I think that mildly just like disagrees with your beliefs as one of the worst people People that have lived in this planet. My, uh, did you, did you, uh, come across the Alec Baldwin interaction with a free Palestine protestor thing? I have not. I have not. It was about 10 days ago or something. This person literally was like filming Alec Baldwin, like saying, we know you killed that girl, Alec. We know you killed that girl. Just just need you to say free free Palestine and I'll leave you alone and she like harassed him for minutes as Being like an asshole that killed somebody on a movie set and she would let him go if he endorsed her cause Yeah, that is not the way to approach that super logical Yeah, and I Honestly, I hate you unless you say free Palestine and then you can be my spokesman. And to me, I don't understand how I've had my encounter with so many smart people that fall for these like schemes so much. And I'm like, how, how are you not understanding whether you are on the right or the left of the situation, you are falling for the stupidest tricks. Right. And you are smarter than this. You have drank all the Kool Aid. Yeah, you're like, you, you, you're making more. Right. For the group. You're like, purple? Red? I got free Kool Aid right here. Yeah, I'll make both, you know, I'll make both, it's okay. Um, so we're drifting into politics, so let's just stay there now. Um, do you know what TDS is? TDS, uh Trump Derangement Syndrome. No. Oh, it's like when somebody like hates Trump so much that they can't even really think clearly about anything in the world except for Trump, orange man bad. Yeah. And they can't even listen to you saying, you know, Joe Biden seems like he's a little senile. Yeah. They can't even hear it. So have you noticed that in America? Yes, especially lately in this last like five years. Hey. I will, I will admit it here. Trump, not my cup of tea. The guys can be a moron sometimes. Totally. A lot of the time. Most of the time. Yeah, let's put it that way. Has some good ideas here and there had maybe some ideas that he attributes to himself, but it's somebody else's idea. Yeah, somebody else. It's okay Oh, he's a narcissist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure But the other side like at this point like Biden it's like dude This guy cannot speak in front like the thing that he's been training his entire life that in that he's been on His entire life he cannot do anymore, right? What's a, what's a politician without his words? You could, zero actions for the rest of your life as a politician, and you, if you have the speech, you have it all. You could be the worst at applying your, your words, but if you have that, like, that silver tongue to bring people in, you are a good politician, period. This guy cannot do that anymore, and people are still thinking, it's like, well, this is probably a better option. Why don't we all focus on bringing a third option? Somebody who actually has, yeah, somebody who has brains, who has maybe more than four years to live. Somebody who can actually get something done, or in the case of RFK, I know that there's some big things on his back pocket that maybe are A little bit ugly, but he's gotten shit done, which is why So you're is that where your vote's gonna go? Uh, I can't vote, so Oh, right. But you would. I would probably vote for him, but I would stay, probably Quiet about it? Not necessarily, I would probably not even vote for him. Well, even though that's probably the worst option, and I'm being a little hypocritical, I mean, I voted for Kanye in the last election. Oh, there you go. Well, then we might, that's probably what we need. We would, we just need like a super wild card shakes it up. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. And what happened with Trump? I believe that that was a wild card at the moment. And we actually started to realize that there's so many other problems. It's not Trump. It's that we as people have so many issues. Oh, right. And then we just Well, and most of it's fomented by the media and by this kind of environment that invites diversion or di What's the, when you battle each other? Uh, maybe dichotomy? I don't know. Well, yeah. Whatever, you know what I'm talking about. Like this, this dual sided thing. Yeah, and that to me, that would be the only reason why I would be in any way, you know, On a dictator path. It's just to get rid of that. Yeah, and not getting rid of the division on negative, not getting rid of those people. It's just you will. It's going to be. Yeah, I will be your check and balance. If you come out and say this thing that is a complete lie. I will charge you like half of your money every single time. You're going to run out of money really quick if you keep doing this crap. It's like, I don't, I'm not against you being like having money and making money as a company, as a, as a, as a news company, you cannot keep doing this shit, man. Like you're, you're, you're literally implanting fake seeds on people's heads and then feeding them all these like. Weird information that has nothing to do with what is misinformation, you know, I mean, Mark Zuckerberg spent 400, 000, 000 on their election last time around. Um, I don't know where exactly or what happened. Let me ask you about that because you were here right as an observer. Like, I want to ask you about your opinions of The election in general. Yeah. Was it fair as an outside observer? And then January six was that an insurrection? So for the, for the election piece, I would say that there's, there were, I think everybody had their, had their hands dirty. Okay. Everybody did something odd that shouldn't have been done. Okay. The only problem is that we took the side that corresponded, like that, that we felt The safest width. Mm. So I feel like a lot of, I, I feel like one side did something really bad, the other side did something really bad, but depending on if you were blue or red, okay. You went against the yellow one. Alright. Because it, if you see it, you, if you read from outside from an outsider Yeah. That's, I'm curious about. You don't follow either, right? You, you see that blue side said Trump did, did this with V shot. He did not the right and Yeah. Or did that, or they paid this amount of people or they. Met with this documentation, or they did all this stuff to get in power. And then you say you see on the re on the red side, you, you go like, oh yeah, these people, uh, paid all this stuff and did all this propaganda side mailing ballots and yeah, mailing ballot, voters voting ballot, ballot and blah, blah, blah ballot and all the like, and undocumented voters that got in and blah, blah. And they're paying all these people to be so everybody has a problem, had had a, a stake on this problem all. It's just depending on where you see it. I see it as you all suck. I like it. I like it. I agree. At the end of the day, at the end of the day, if you're a voter, if you're blue or red or green or purple, you're fucking yourself up. Yourself. You're not screwing anybody else. You're destroying your house. Yeah, because you're not voting because you're just a color. Well, not only, not, yeah, not only the voting piece, it's just, okay, Trump won, Biden won, let's try to accomplish something instead of fighting for four years, because that's four years that you lost. So to me, it's not the, it's not the idea. Yeah, there are like either one has their own extreme Propositions and those are probably the ones that we're not looking into. It's like, okay, you're, you're a little. Mostly they agree on most shit. Yeah, you're a little crazy on that perspective. So you're not gonna even pay attention to this, but let's figure out I don't know housing situation in the US. That's a problem. We all can get behind Because we're having a crisis on the housing totally peace We're having a crisis sometimes on the food. What's your housing situation now? You're not living with your sister anymore No, no, i'm living on under rent, but it's still it's even though the person i'm living with. Uh, he's been a very like helpful person because as a Relatively new business owner you're still struggling constantly So he's been really open about it and he's been really helpful with it So I can I do appreciate that but it's still way over a thousand dollars a month Well right now it's 700 but i'm living in loveland. So it's kind of like a And it's a smaller place. And I think that's the hookup almost. Yeah. Yeah. For him, like he's a friend and I kind of like almost pester him into like renting. Right. Hey, you got an extra room, man. Yeah, exactly. And it was that situation. It's like you live by yourself. There's an extra room that you're not doing anything with. It's like, do you want to make an extra few hundred bucks a month? Yeah. So basically that was kind of like it. Uh, but I, I do believe it's a problem and we all recognize it. Yeah. Why don't we all work together towards it? Oh no. It's because like Trump said that he was, Oh, it's because Biden can't talk. It's like, Oh, and mostly it's done nothing about any of those things. It's a bunch of regulations around building codes and it's inflation of interest rates. And it's a lot of other things beyond the control of the president, no matter who he is. And, and to me, like, it seeps. It seeps into like business as well in the sense of the whole perspective of getting everything right now instead of having like a long term thing, which to me comes down to like companies when they want to do, Oh, we want to make a million dollars right now, but you don't want to make 10 million in the next two years. Well, you just want to make the million now and that's it. Well, and know that it takes you a while to get to that. I, that's what I was reflecting about is your, you know, website, getting it done 20 percent of the time is the right method. Not being perfect coming out of the gate. Yeah, exactly. And, and I, I've had so many conversations with people on that, on that perspective of, I just don't understand how like the business mentality of not seeing into three years in the future, you're making you, you're literally making more money in three years than you're making today, right? You just have to weigh that. You're gonna sacrifice something now. One, it's also a success story, like, it's also a success, like, an almost confirmed success, like, it's gonna happen. You're still deciding on the shitty product now. That's, uh, one thing that I find interesting, and, uh, do you ever listen to Jordan Peterson? Yeah. His podcast? Yeah. So Like, in some ways, he's kind of making a case, or has made a case that sacrifice, like, going back to the Jewish system and then even into the Christian system, to a way, is like the foundation of Western civilization. You gotta sacrifice something now so you can have something more later. And I think, uh, what's his name, uh, lives by that same thing. He's a famous financial guy in the world today. Live like nobody else today, so you can live like nobody else tomorrow. Anyway. Yeah, it's a, no, but I think there's, there's that, like the, the whole concept of, and I'm, and I'm guilty of this myself, like the immediate gratification. Like you could live in a 2, 000 a month apartment now by yourself. Yeah. Not have a roommate. Yeah. Probably could spin it. And your business would be without 1, 300 a month to try to pay contractors, to do good work, to get more customers for yourself, all that. Well, and to me, like the biggest example I have of this is the getting. That's third or fourth job to live a better life, instead of sacrificing every single day of my life, to get that business going to where it needs to go. I'm not making money right now, but I know I'm a hundred percent certain that it's going to be making that money tomorrow, but I'm suffering the consequences right now. Exactly, you're right now, it's like, well, I guess it's the fourth day of Rice Man. Right? Rice and tuna. It's just like, it's something, it's sustenance. I appreciate that you're in that space right now. Well, and and it's something that I'm, I can guarantee you that every single business owner in this country and in every other country has gone through it. Yep. There. Unless you're like a, like a on baby. Eight months. Eight months in. When you were in Caracas, you were like, this just isn't gonna work. Yeah, exactly. So here you're like, Hey, it's not. Great now. Yeah, I've got this roommate situation. It's pretty cool. Sometimes he's a dick, but it's cheap. Sorry, dude When you listen back But a few more clients a couple more clients and I can be stable and a few more clients after that I can be You know have some date nights again. Yeah, exactly and a couple of clients vacation after that in 10 years, right? That's fair. That's fair. But I think I And that's kind of like, it comes back to the perspective that I give potential clients in that sense is understand that you have to sacrifice that now. If you don't sacrifice it now, going back to what we said earlier today is that. You're pushing that, it's not the six months that it takes you, you're pushing that six months plus the time that you're waiting. Totally. And every time you wait is that time plus the time it takes. Yep. Somebody put me on hold as far as joining local think tank recently. I said, you know, it's fine, I understand, you know, budgets are budgets and all. But the longer you wait to plant the tree, the longer you have to wait to sit in a chair. I my biggest complication with that is finding a way to not make it seem like I'm being pushy That's really that's the only piece that I find complicated because It's kind of like telling your telling somebody that their kid has like something in their eyes It's like oh you there's a problem with their legs. Your baby is ugly. Yeah, you're offending their baby is totally ugly Yeah, and even if you're doing for the right reasons, right you you Probably should get it checked. It's not that I think your baby's ugly. It's I think that your baby needs help. Right. He's got some kind of something wrong. Yeah, exactly. So definitely one of those where it's, it can be a touchy subject and I, and I've had it. In the past a couple times where you try to tell people this and you can tell like you can totally see their hair on Their back kind of like right just like I already hate you. Yeah, let's figure out the exit for this conversation And i'm like, i'm, sorry It's like this is the option that I can give you and if you want to take it good if not It was a pleasure meeting you. I like it. Um, it's time for the loco experience, your craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners. Doesn't have to be good, bad, or good, bad, or otherwise could be a moment. Could be a week. Could be a day. Could be, you know, if you'd gotten kidnapped and raped on that flat tire episode thing. Yeah. So the, I think the craziest one and it's. I was prepared for it, but I, I still couldn't believe it when it happened is when we got kidnapped, not kidnapped. We were held hostage our own house for ransom or for so action or tell me about that. So it was, it was an interesting thing because I feel, I feel like somehow they got the house mistaken and they got into the wrong house, but then they kept asking things that were like, yeah, this could be connected to us in some way, shape or form. And this was the cop situation with three cops that come into the house. So the whole thing started, we're a good friend of mine, still friends with him to this day. We were upstairs in my room just talking whatnot. My mom comes out and it's like, hey, Uh, kind of like around 10, 11 a. m. And you guys are like upper teenagers? Yeah, he's, he's seven years old. And so he was like 25, 27. I'm like 19, 20, somewhere around those things. We're needed to go out to do some, like, get some stuff done. And before that happens, like, okay, I'm telling my mom, it's like, yeah, we're going to go do whatever. Okay. Uh, my mom, my friend, uh, Super big coffee addict. My mom knows it because we've been friends for 15 years and she's like, do you want coffee before you guys leave? And my friend is like, absolutely. Let's go. So we go down to the kitchen. My mom puts the little Greca on the, on the fire. We're talking there. It's like a French press kind of style. Is that even coffee? The little, the little metal one that you like, it has like three parts. Goes from the bottom to the top? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that style. So puts it together. We put it in the fire. Two minutes later, a guy comes in, pistol on his chest, and I could see the badge underneath his shirt. So I'm like, the fuck is going on? This, this, this is weird. So I, like, I see the guy and the guy's like, don't worry, there's something happening in a few houses down. We're here to protect you. I'm Venezuelan. I know my country. Bullshit. Right. Immediately, I'm like Fuck. And then the guy's just like, yeah, follow me, like, whatever. The guy's just like, kind of like, standing against the wall. That's so funny. In America, people would be like, come on in, you're here to protect us. Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, the cops? Yeah, they're here to, like, save us. Great. Uh, we walk up, so it was lower floor. A middle floor that had an office and the entrance and then the upper floor was that so this was kind of like a mid floor. Okay. So we're right when we get there. You're in basically an apartment kind of thing. Well, a big house, but it's kind of like structure. Gotcha. Okay. Get there, there's two more guys. The main guy, I still remember to this day, really spiky hair, a little bit on the chubby side. Uh, the, so they, the guy had a Colombian accent, but it's the, it's our Colombian accent that it's on the border. I see. So we call him Gochos. Okay. So the guy was like, really, I'm pretty sure he was like hyped up on, on coke because he was like, you know what? Like kind of like that really high energy type of situation. Yeah. And he's constantly telling us, like, if you guys fucking move, if you say a word, if you do something, we're gonna kill you all, blah, blah, blah. So we were like, okay, just you and your buddy or your mom and my mom too. Okay. They, we go upstairs. We will actually to my room, they, the guys grab some of the blankets. They start ripping them off to start tying us down on the floor. Yeah. And then we're on the floor and the guy just kept asking, these are not cops actually there. They are. Yeah. They're, they're on the, what you would call here, maybe like special forces for cops or almost. FBI. Yeah. Kind of situation. Uh, so the guys come in and they start, like, one of the guys just goes around the house to start looking for other, I'm assuming for other people. We had the, the people that were doing the lawn that day. They were, they brought them in too, so they tied them down next to us. We're all just like there, and this guy kept asking questions, like, where's the money? Where's the blah? Where's the jewels? And this was about your dad somehow? Or? So we thought about it for a while, that it was this. It was a conflicting thing. But your dad wasn't corrupted, so they really had no reason to bust in. But it was, it was kind of like a conflicted thing because they probably knew where he lived because he came, like, that's, that's his house. Easy to figure out. Yeah, so, but we also thought that it's like, this is a rampant thing that's happened to everybody in this country. Like, there's, you know, the seven levels of, like, connection. Yeah, separation or whatever. Separation. In Venezuela, this complication is like a two level. Everybody knows one or one level away. Yes, it's a two level. It's like, at most. Wow. So. Big guys comes in, keep talking. It's like, where's the money? Where's whatever. It got to a point where it's just like, dude, you got the wrong house. Right. And then the guy's just like, still pissed. Like still walking, pacing around. What do you mean? We have the wrong house. You guys don't have a bunch of money for us. Yeah. And then, and I knew where my mom kept just like a handful of dollars in one of her coats. And right. And dollars too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, because that was like gold. Yeah. That's gold for us. I would say like. Three four hundred bucks maybe worth of like 20s 50s and 100s Which was a fortune for her at the time. Well for us, like, at the moment it could have gotten you by a month for like two people. So it's not that much. As a time. Yeah. Today it would get you by for six months. Yeah. So the guy, and I tell the guy, it's like, Hey dude, I can show you everywhere in the house where we like hide shit. We had a, a, a actual, uh, like a safe, but the previous owner of the house turned it into a key safe because he had the same situation happened to him. Oh, he was so nervous. He couldn't open. He thought he was going. And I think they actually beat him up because he couldn't open the safe. So he turned it into a key safe because I'm not doing it anymore. So we go to my mom's room. I give him the cash, whatever. And I take out the keys and open it. And me still being a stupid kid at 19. I put like, Papers in there, there, there's no wealth, riches, or you had your term paper from, it was just stupid things that we put in there for, yeah, because it was like, as soon as we, yeah, as soon as we move into the house, it was your porno collection, as soon as we move into the house. It's like, oh, we have this, right? Why would we actually have a safe underneath the stairs going down to our basement in the crappy house? Yeah, I grew up in yeah, but it's like we never used it right same and then we open I open the thing and show the Guys, here you go This is a decoy. Where's the real one? It's like what the fuck do you think we are? Right? We got a second safe Yeah, exactly. We are that big of a deal that we have not only one but two saves in the house And the guy, at some point, he probably realized that he messed up, or it wasn't what he wanted it to be, or it was a bad investment, whatever it may be. Right. They weren't gonna get a bunch of money out of this place. Yeah, so they started taking a lot of different things in the house, so like all the consoles for like gaming consoles. Right. Laptops, phones, everything that they could put in a bag or a suitcase they started taking. Uh, I actually, this was the only part where it kind of like was a little bit freaky at the moment, but I had a, you know, um, Airsoft. Sure. I had an MP5 airsoft. Okay. One to one replica. Perfect. It was in my room. As soon as the guy saw it, it's like, Oh my God, what's this? Kind of like excited about it. And then, and then I'm like, Oh, that's an airsoft gun. It's not an actual gun. It's like, Oh, well you're lucky. Cause if it was a real thing, cause the only people that carry that back home are the, like the special forces. Right. It's not cause we, we don't have legalized guns. Oh, right. Um, yeah. So it would've been like, you are part of any of these groups, so we're gonna, like, they would've killed us all if it was a real Right. So it would've, because you're part of them. Yeah.'cause you were a part of a, like an actual, some other group, that group had access to guns that, that could probably clash. Right. So it would've been put them guys down. Yeah. So, wow. The guy took that, they took a bunch of stuff in the house. Um, they actually wanted to take some of the cars, but they never took any. And in the middle of it for three, four hours after that, my dad and my brother went out to buy, I think he was buying a ticket to go back to Caracas to do some business, comes back in and they, like, it's interesting cause my brother lets the dog from the, from the patio in and the dog knew how to open the doors, so he kept pushing the door and somebody kept closing it, pushing the door, closing, pushing, closing, pushing, my brother's like, what the fuck, opens the door and there's a guy with a gun pointed to his head and it's like. Yeah. Hello. So they bring it up. Um, bring them up here up to my dad and brother. Yeah. No, everybody's there. Yeah. Tie them up. Start asking. One of the things that my dad, everybody that knows my, that knew my dad would always tell you that he had a, like a, a thing that he had his nerves cut out. It was a very cold. Like the guy was just pointing a gun at him and being like i'm gonna kill your entire family And my dad is like we got no money man, like it's just like it's sure it's like and then at one point he pulls out a He came to visit one time and he went to Vegas and got one of those like million dollar bills. Oh, right. Paper. Yeah, yeah. It's like, then what is this? It's like, are you fucking stupid? Like, literally, are you fucking stupid? Right. Don't you see that that's a piece of paper that it's not real. It's just a souvenir. Right. Like I would have a million dollar bill laying around my house. He actually Slap my dad across the face. And that was the only time that I'm like, Oh, I'm timing. Yeah, but you're tied up. Right. So he doesn't much you can do. Yeah. There was one, one point in the whole situation where I actually felt really scared because. Everything went silent. Mm. And I'm facing down with a hat, so I'm, I cannot see from like middle forehead up. Right. But I can see to the sides and I see his two feet. Right. Right next, next to my ears. On other side of your head. Yeah. And I thought because everybody was quiet that he was pointing at my head and I'm like, okay, I guess, I guess I should just, this is it. Give it everything I got here. Well, and I, I knew that moving was a stupid move. Right. But at the same time, I'm like, I kind of like accepted it. I'm like, well, I guess this is, this is how it goes. This is all the cookie crumbles. That wasn't how it happened. Uh, no. And they kept telling my mom, it's like, we're going to take him and we're not caught his fingers and we're not caught his ears. And I was like, why me, man? Do something. Do my mom. No, just kidding. Bless her. Well, I mean, you and your mom and your brother and your dad, like, you're like, but. This is the, this is the time where you realize how like powerful a mother, like a mother's love is because every time they said something about me, even my best friend, not her kid whatsoever, she every single time said to them, take me, me, do with me, whatever, whatever you want, do it to me, not to my kids, not to my husband, not to anybody in this house. Take me and I'm like, this is that's the testament. That's something like that's that's the strength of the family It's like your mom. Yeah, and she's always been a bear a bear mom. So anytime Yeah, any anything happened to us? She was like, I'm gonna kill something. Yeah, that's awesome. So that was kind of like the Situation there and we actually ended up They just, yeah, they took everything that they could, uh, took one of the keys, but threw it outside of the house, somewhere in the middle, like car, whatever, yeah, never took a car, took everything, IDs, a bunch of stuff. And one thing that it's in, I'm pretty sure it's a common practice here too, is like once, if somebody steals your ID, you go to the cops and tell like, sure, my ID has been stolen because you don't want somebody to go kill somebody, rob a bank, whatever. Yeah. Uh, so we went to the place, uh, so it's C I C P C, I think it's like the, the, one of the intelligent bodies of the police. No one else, that agency. Yeah, that was the agency. Um, that, and these were people from there. So that's where you go and report stolen IDs. Yeah. So like the, the thing that we had to do is just walk in and say, like, our IDs were stolen. They asked us like, what happened? It's like, we lost our wallets. Right. Really? You couldn't say we were held at some point by some of your officers. Yeah. The thing that they said is like, if we know where you live, if we're leaving and you're scream, we come back and kill you. Yeah. If you go out and put a police report, we come back and kill you. If you tell anybody about this, we come back and kill you. We know everything that happens, so we're not gonna let you down on this one. So we had to shut up about it. We told our friends and it was like a story to tell friends and whatnot. Right, and now 20 years later, it's fine. Yeah, you're here. Uh, but it was one of those things is like you, we, we were never able to say anything about that. Wow. So yeah. How traumatic was that in itself? Just like not being able to say anything about it almost, that has been almost harder. Honestly, I will say, I don't know what it was. I never, I don't think I ever developed trauma from it. I know my brother did and he started going to therapy after a little bit for that. But for him was probably more impactful because he came in later and saw us all tied down. Yeah. We kind of like started the whole situation. So, and there are, there might be something hidden inside my brain that I kind of like, I, I, one thing that I noticed a lot in you, I don't know if you've noticed it, like when we're talking before that I kind of like look everywhere when things move, I have a really like high perception of my surroundings. So every time something moves, I need to check what it is. So those, those are living in countries like that. What it does. Gives you, it gives you that kind of like you have to be hyper vigilance, but I don't think that I ever develop anything like too in depth from that situation. And it comes down to, it's such a common occurrence. Because if it's something that it happened just to you, it might be one of those that it's like, fuck, nobody understands me, But it was one out of a hundred families that experienced that. It's not even that, maybe one out of twenty. Wow. So it's, it's a, it's such a common situation that some of the people that I spoke to. Here's our particular story. Yeah, some of the people that I spoke to about it, they're like, oh yeah, my cousin had that happen like two weeks ago. Right. Or, oh yeah, my aunt in like another state had the exact same thing or the, the, there was a very common thing that happened in Venezuela in those times I would, it was a, an express kidnapping. So they, they would take you in the street, put you in a car and then start you start driving you around and call people on your phone until they found somebody that was willing to put money for you and be like, Hey, if you give us 10 grand now, uh, We're, we'll drop him in like, I don't know, like Loveland, and that was it. So it was just, it was a day kidnapping. That actually sounds really sweet, like there's no planning necessary, you just grab somebody and see what happens. Yep, yep. And a lot of the times I heard stories of people just receiving the money and then they found them dead in the side of the road, stuff like that. It was actually safer. To not have them be around to tell a story afterwards. Yeah. So yeah, that was, that, that, I guess that could be a local experience. Yeah, local experience for sure. Um, we're gonna wrap this up. It's been fun. Yeah. We're, we're way over our normal timeline, but that's okay. Um, tell people where to find Obsidian Atlas. Yeah. So obsidianatlas. com. And you can find Obsidian Atlas media on Instagram, Obsidian Atlas on Facebook and info at obsidianatlas. com. You can reach out to us and then we can get back to you as soon as possible. And whatever you need, sometimes it's just sitting down and talking to somebody about your business, how it's going. You probably don't want to invest money at the moment. But I like to be that voice of, on the marketing side to be like, Hey, you might be able to do this stuff that are for free, that will get your foot in the door. Uh, so I, I like that a lot, even though maybe like a business person from outside of my perspective tells me that's a stupid thing. And are you, uh, taking bilingual clients at all? Yes. Yes. I am actually, that was one of the things that I was thinking. Something you should mention, actually, because we do have a lot of mostly Mexican, Hispanic clients. Business owners in our community that aren't up to speed on some of their digital stuff because they don't have that Yeah, and I will say that we do full on Spanish I can I can we can tackle a little bit of the Portuguese as well. It's a Venezuelan But yeah, oh Brazil's they can call you a little bit if they want to yeah so in the whole the whole aspect of it is just Especially for people that don't speak the language well, it's that, like, you need, you need that opportunity to get going and sometimes, yeah, especially here that you're in the middle of America, very few people speak Spanish, so this could help them out quite a bit. Awesome. Well, thanks for taking the time. Oh, thank you for inviting me. Cheers until next time. All right. Thanks, Teo.