How Leadership, Culture, and Nearshoring Fuel Business Growth in Latin America

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Welcome everyone to another episode of the Near Tour Cafe Podcast.
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We are in season four.
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This is our leadoff episode to season four.
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And we're gonna go in a little bit different direction.
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We're really lucky to have Denis Champagne on the show today.
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And Denis has lived a really interesting life and has a lot to share about the world of near shore, especially from an anthropological, sociological angle.
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Before we do that, let me thank our sponsor.
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That's Plug Technologies, P-L-U-G-G.
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Great way to connect talent from all over Latin America with growing U.S.
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companies.
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Denis, thanks so much for joining us today.
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Thank you.
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Appreciate it, Brian, for being invited.
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Absolutely.
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Well, Denny, I know right now you're in a leadership role, guiding companies on sales strategy and all sorts of things that you've picked up on your experience.
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I think what our audience would love to hear is how how had this all started from a Latin America standpoint?
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Like how did where what when did you first get exposed to this world and kind of tell us the origin?
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Well, it started very early in high school.
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Um, you know, there's a point in high school where you walk around the corridors at the beginning of the season to choose your courses.
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And having been born in Ottawa, a bilingual city at that time, more than now, coming from a French Canadian background, with on one side a an English neighbor and a Protestant Anglican church in front of the house, and French Canadian Catholics on the left, I was exposed to bilingualism, and so I was fluent at a very early age.
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And so languages and music, because I think both have you know uh shared values, music and language.
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Language is musical.
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And so I was walking down the high uh the corridors in high school trying to find courses to take, and I saw in one room lots of good-looking young ladies.
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And I said, What is that course?
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It's it's Spanish.
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I said, Oh, let's go to Spanish.
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So I started studying Spanish because of young ladies.
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And I had a good time, and it was musical, and you know, Hispanic and Spanish-speaking culture has a lot of at its core music.
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So that when I started kind of really understanding Latin American and learning the language and the origins, and with two other languages as background, it helped me to kind of orient myself and put things together and say, okay, that's why this is the way it's said in English and the way it's said in French, and have add two points of comparison for all of it together, right?
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So that's how I got to appreciate that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Did you feel like uh Spanish came pretty quickly to you because of that language background?
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Well, it's partly, but uh also my musical ear.
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I was playing flute in the high school band, so I was musical, so that helped a lot to like the musicality of speaking Spanish.
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Yeah.
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There is some rhythmicity and some some cadencing and some sequencing and some, you know, up and down kind of inter inflections.
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So that was fun.
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It was different, right?
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But I tell you, the girls helped a lot in the motivation.
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Travel, what what was your first exposure to Latin America?
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When when did you first visit?
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Well, I visited actually Venezuelan friends in Ottawa, where I'm from, or was from, I am from.
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And that time, one of the university used to have summer integration of English as a second language, I guess a three-month venture, so kids from all over the world.
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So I would end up in a party there because I walked down the street one day and I heard Spanish.
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And after two years in in high school, I said, I ran and made a V line for those guys, and they ended up being from Venezuela.
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And they invited me to the parties because they were part of the three-month venture there, and it ended up staying longer.
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I would have met from see people from Africa, from Sweden, from everywhere, and I said, Ottawa is a nation capital, and we have a lot of tourists who came to Canada, Ottawa, namely.
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And so at the parliamentary area, I would see all these people and hear all these noises and these sounds.
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So I was already attuned and kind of, you know, sensitized.
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So it was fun.
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And I went to Miami to visit them because a lot of Venezuelans at that time had a lot of residences in Miami.
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And it's only a little bit later that I went to uh Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Caribbean, you know, for spending a week on the beach.
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Yeah.
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And it's only when I met a young lady in the early 90s in my Ottawa, who's from Venezuela as well.
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Yeah.
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And we got married.
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And uh got married for we lived together for six, seven years, we divorced.
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And my current wife, for twelve years now, we just celebrated our anniversary last week of twelve years.
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Congratulations.
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She's also from Venezuela.
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So Venezuela was kind of the core because I studied in university as well, civilization courses and advanced grammar courses.
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So to understand a language, you understand the soul of its people.
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So I could tell you, because I speak German as well and Italian, and I could tell you some things about the Italian thinking or the German thinking that kind of has congruity, congruence with the actual language or how the thinking has been structured.
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Yeah.
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Tell me about your your first impressions of Venezuela.
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And you know, I think people that are watching the news today see a Venezuela in chaos.
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What was it like when you when you were visiting, you know, a few decades ago?
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Yeah, the the the economy was different.
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I ended up getting there in 1990.
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In 1990, you know, there was you know a certain president, and but there was still the military still lurking in the background.
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South America as a as a whole, if you want to compare South to North America, South America were conquered, then they were colonized.
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North America was first colonized, then it was conquered.
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And that makes all the difference between North and South America.
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Can you can you go go a little deeper in that?
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I I think this is a really great jump-off point.
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Well, you know, when we arrived of the French, my family is from 360 years ago in Canada.
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Yeah, right?
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So I I have that kind of, I guess, leeway of time to be able to give some and I don't know everything about my ancestors.
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I know who they are on the paternal side from 1660 to now.
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Wow.
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But I can't tell you exactly what they did on the day-to-day basis on a monthly or in their lifetime.
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But I know that they came on account of the French government or the French king and the English king, and they were coming to discover, you know.
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When we make discovery calls and sales, right, what are we there?
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We're there to discover to and who in who says cover, this cover means there's a cover.
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So you lift up the cover, and there's a something you find inside.
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So they found things.
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It was, you know, obviously commercial and trying to find, you know, a place of uh habitation or habitat.
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But we had time to get settled in and to entrench ourselves in the part of the world.
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Whereas in South America, they were just completely annihilated faster.
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And I mean I could go country by country with specifics, but I won't because it's too much.
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Because of my civilization course, we went through those kind of pre-Columbian stories.
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But um I think that um, and this is based on my readings of uh famous philosopher Octavio Paz from Mexico, who wrote a book called The The Labyrinth of the Solitude.
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And it's really uh kind of a depiction of how South American and the what they say, Tristeza Indigena, which means the indigenous sadness, how they feel still raped and robbed.
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Yeah.
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It was rough.
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So my heart fell for them, and I think that the joy that that emanates from South American culture is that they they have bounced back and they have an amazing wealth of youth, brilliant youth.
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And the Montreal International Film Festival thirty years ago, I saw a documentary called High School, and it was Latin American kids in New York in the Bronx and Spanish Harlem.
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And they're the ones that were given the best notes, the best rewards, and the best marks, and ninety-two percent of them went to university.
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Yeah.
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There's something in their brain and their minds, their their the elasticity, the neuroplasticity that I find extremely inspiring in South America.
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Just the actual literature and the the plethora of languages, they are an amazing continent with so much talk about diversity.
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Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia have nothing to do with one one another.
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It's completely another world.
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Venezuela, well, they have 70 islands, they have four climates, they have the most beautiful women in the world, they have set the beaches, they have gold, they have the largest petroleum sources in the world.
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That's right.
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They have diamonds, they they they have the highest waterfalls, Angel Falls, Canaima, a river where half of the side of the river is piranhas, but they never come on the other side of the river, and you can swim.
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Interesting.
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Yeah.
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With pink sand.
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So and the food and the joy and the kinds of psychographic depiction in Venezuela.
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You know, Venezuela means little Venice.
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Oh, I didn't know that.
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Small Venice.
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So as the lieutenant of Christopher Columbus, his name is Amerigo Vespucci.
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Amerigo, that's why they call it America.
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So, you know, one tried to sell the sizzle, the other one produced the steak.
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Right.
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Vespucci closed the deal.
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And when they arrived in around the Maracaibo area of Venezuela, they saw those houses in the water.
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They said, Oh, little Venice, picola Venezia, from there emanated, you know, and in obviously indigenous language, just like Alabama is an indigenous word.
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Canada, Ottawa, they're all indigenous.
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You know, surely enough, two days ago it was the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation Year in Canada.
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For the residential school issue and everything else.
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Yeah.
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But anyhow, to come back to Venezuela and to South America, it's just extremely rich, a lot more rich than we think, and a lot bigger than the actual map on the Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I wanted to I think you're a great guest to talk about maybe like the pre-1900s, South America, and the post-1900s, and like how pre-shaped what we see today.
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I'm not quite sure I'm the best person for that.
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And I don't want to pretend that I'm not sure.
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I think you studied a lot of the civilization.
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Well, I studied pre-Columbian and post-Columbian versus pre-Columbian.
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Okay.
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Maybe we'll divide it that way.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Pre-Columbian was very uh obviously 2,000 languages.
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Yeah.
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The Inca Empire is just nothing but the amalgamation of many conquests of many races and languages under one kind of empire, the Inca Empire.
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You know, there are still certain languages still alive, but many of them have died with its people.
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I guess there were there was a lot more peace before the Spaniards arrived.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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The Spaniards they were the worst.
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I mean, you know, and the conquistadores, they just completely b you know, destroyed everything.
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Just in the name of God and the the sword, you know, they will, you know, obviously recognize their own.
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That's the way they said, just like they did in the Inquisition and in Spain, right?
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With the Jewish and the with the Catholics and uh Sister Isabella, right?
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Yeah.
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So uh a lot of their music has this kind of folklore of feelings of the past.
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But they're a very resilient, and I find that for humanity's sake, forget about just South America, there's a lot of resilience.
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People are very resilient.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I'd love to dive in deeper here, you know, because what you said a few minutes ago about conquered versus colonized.
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Conquered versus colonized, yeah.
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And you know, there's there's this kind of identity, you know, or maybe an identity crisis, or, you know, like who am I who am I mapping to, right?
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And you study genealogy, like as you talked about with, you know, at the at the beginning of the show.
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How how might that be helpful in businesses, companies that want to get established in Latin America in in kind of understanding the population?
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And obviously nuances country by country, but you know, macro-wise, what would you say?
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Well, I don't think it applies differently anywhere else.
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I just try to understand where they're coming from.
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Yeah.
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Ask them about the food.
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There are some things that they eat, you know, in Venezuela that is really, really popular in Christmas time, but it actually was the concoction concoction of food left for the slaves.
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And they made this a national Christmas meal.
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Yeah.
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So whatever lemon they were given, they made lemonade with it.
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Yeah.
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So it's kind of what I say poison into medicine, right?
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Whatever life throws at you, you can transform it.
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And they made it a source of joy.
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And they're uh they are more of a collectivist society.
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We are more individualistic here.
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People live in their own place, they don't want anybody.
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You need to call me before you come over.
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You know, when I was young, my our door at the house was a swinging, revolving door.
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People come in and out all the time.
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My mother, ah, sit down, have a coffee, you know, whatever.
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So that doesn't happen anymore.
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It's like it's somewhat saddening.
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And you know, we have probably friends from all over the world instead of having next door.
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Most people don't know each other's neighbors next door to each other.
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Yeah.
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I'm in a condo and short of a few people, I don't know many people on the street.
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Yeah.
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Would you say that's that's different in Latin America?
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They uh no everybody knows everybody.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And they'll sh they'll stick together for each other, right?
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As the socioeconomic profile changes of different individuals, there tends to be a little bit of a distancing.
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But uh in my in-laws a party, it's like 50 people and they're all family members.
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Yeah.
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And every Saturday night they all dance, they put music on, they have food, they celebrate life.
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They really enjoy life much more than us.
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Yeah, agree.
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Agreed.
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Yeah.
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Danny, how about the Caribbean part of Latin America versus the maybe more European part of Latin America?
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What what are the the differences that you see?
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Well, yeah, the that that's an interesting like I I've never been to Chile.
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I've worked with Chilean salespeople and sales teams.
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I have I have close uh Argentinian friends.
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As a matter of fact, I have one friend who's landing tomorrow from Argentina who actually lives in Spain now in Valencia.
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And she's here for some business in North America.
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And uh, you know, she she's very European, you know, the the the the the demographic profile, the psychographics are different.
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Chile is very much kind of a mix.
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They are a very small country, but their actual temperature and their climate is similar to us in Montreal.
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So that's why we've had a very strong influx, Chilean moving to Canada in the 70s with what happened with the regime there, Pinochet.
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So Argentina has been, you know, populated a lot with the Italian communities.
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And Italians went down there for the the meat and the railroad.
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Those two populations, notwithstanding Uruguay and Paraguay, they're in a particular section of the of the of the continent that's different.
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They're right on the frontier is Brazil.
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Right.
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And Argentinians would not let the Brazilian blacks come in.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Again, you know, human behavior is pretty well the same everywhere else.
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You know, racism is real everywhere.
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Without talking about our neighbors to the south, everything that's going on there is based on racism.
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Yeah.
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Bring it back to what it was.
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Yeah.
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Without getting too political, but so it's your love for people.
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If you love extra interchange, discovering, listening to new sounds, new flavors.
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Who wants to eat oatmeal every day for the rest of your life?
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I like lobster, I like, you know, raisins, I love you know.
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I want the rainbow of life, right?
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To to be omnipresent.
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We eat all kinds of food here, uh, but it's always because I lift weights, my wife lifts the weights, we are very, very focused on good quality organic meat.
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Yeah.
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We don't and we don't compromise on that.
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Um, I'm 91, people wouldn't be able to say that I'm 91.
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Um Denise, you love loving people.
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Loving people.
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Yeah, yeah.
00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:28.079
Are there different talent pockets in Latin America that you might recommend, like a a a closer look at?
00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:36.640
Well, if it's technical, like there's technical sales and there's consultative or relationship sales.
00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:41.519
You know, there's all kinds of terms and words that are using now, right?
00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:46.000
Uh AI interjecting there and bringing a new flavor.
00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:48.960
Flavor of the week of the month with terms.
00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:52.319
So you have to be careful with the semantic hair split about that.
00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:52.880
Right.
00:18:53.119 --> 00:18:57.519
But at the end of the day, it's a lot of individuals who can adapt.
00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:11.839
I think the I look at IQ, I look at TQ, technological quotient, I look at EQ, emotional quotient, but probably where I found the brightest talents were AQ, adaptability quotient.
00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:12.799
They adapt.
00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:18.880
They're able to take a situation and make something out of it that was not there in the first place.
00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:20.400
Interesting.
00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:25.599
Kind of commercial alchemy, I don't know, behavioral, social alchemy.
00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:31.599
You know, take take a piece of copper and make it golden, you know, just by virtue of the way they are.
00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:39.759
I think people, I think that who are looking to hire salespeople, it's not always the most bombastic, outspoken.
00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:45.920
The good listeners is the people who say, I don't know how to do this, but I'll learn and I'll get it done.
00:19:46.079 --> 00:19:48.720
I love what Richard Branson teaches us.
00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:52.559
Whenever you're asked something, just say yes, even if you don't know how to do it.
00:19:52.720 --> 00:19:58.640
And it predisposes you to assimilate and then learn the things that you need to learn to do what you need to do.
00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:00.400
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:09.599
How might you advise North American leaders to get the most out of their teams in Latin America if they they choose to near shore?
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:15.119
Well, right now is welcome them because they are they are bright.
00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:19.680
The youth of South America, first of all, there's more youth there than anywhere else.
00:20:19.839 --> 00:20:25.359
I would say India is probably and Africa are two of the great continents with youth.
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:27.680
Their birth rate is very high.
00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:32.160
They're not going hungry, you know, they're struggling, but they're not completely going hungry.
00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:34.960
The poverty around the world has reduced itself.
00:20:35.119 --> 00:20:40.319
South American young people are brilliant, and there's so much choice.
00:20:40.480 --> 00:20:42.480
There's so much to pick from.
00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:44.400
It's really a circus.
00:20:44.720 --> 00:20:46.000
It's a smorgasbord.
00:20:46.240 --> 00:20:48.960
Enjoy it, you know, and encourage them.
00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:52.319
And you'll find some of the most amazing talents.
00:20:52.480 --> 00:20:58.960
As a matter of fact, one of the biggest contracts I ever got was during a podcast like this where I was interviewed.
00:20:59.119 --> 00:21:00.240
It was only 20 minutes.
00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:22.160
I answered several questions in 2019, and their number one rep for North America was a Mexican who did his NBA at McGill University and reached out to me to introduce me to his VP of sales, thought what I was saying and what I spoke about was worthwhile and relevant to what he saw and he did it for his team.
00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:25.440
He's not even a manager or he doesn't even benefit from it.
00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:27.039
But he cared enough for the rest.
00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:33.039
And so I got a contract, I worked with them, and then I ended up coaching in South and North America and in AIPAC.
00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:37.359
And this guy is now triple his income, and he's no longer with that company.
00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:38.640
That's great.
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:41.519
It's called the law of cause and effect.
00:21:41.599 --> 00:21:45.359
When you create causes of nobility in your life, it comes back to you.
00:21:45.599 --> 00:21:45.920
Yep.
00:21:46.160 --> 00:21:46.799
Karma.
00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:47.839
Yep, absolutely.
00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:54.240
The practicing Buddhists, as you know, so that's the foundational principle of our lives, of our practice.
00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:54.960
I like that.
00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:57.759
Well, let's end the show on some travel.
00:21:57.920 --> 00:22:05.920
Uh I'd love to hear, you know, uh uh about a trip or two that you've taken to Latin America, favorites, anything interesting that you'd like to share.
00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:10.400
Well, you know, I have to say that, you know, my family is now moved.
00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:18.000
My in-laws, my sis my my my stepdaughter, my granddaughter are in Medellin in in Bogota, Colombia.
00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:23.839
They moved from Venezuela ten years ago because of all kinds of obvious political reasons.
00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:29.440
So I went to Medellin and met our friend Amir, and I fell in love with Medellin.
00:22:29.519 --> 00:22:30.480
It's a great city.
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:31.440
I would move there.
00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:42.160
Matter of fact, we may we may end up selling and moving there because quality of life is, you know, and I can, you know, I can build business there and maybe help me or whatever.
00:22:42.319 --> 00:22:48.000
But uh I loved uh Mexico, Cuba.
00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:50.720
Cuba was more on the beach, you know.
00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:54.720
There's old, it's an old history and it's repeat itself.
00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:57.039
Yeah, those are the places I really enjoyed.
00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:03.359
Obviously in Venezuela, I travel all over, so anywhere I went, it was absolutely gorgeous.
00:23:03.519 --> 00:23:04.880
The mountains or the beaches.
00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:07.279
And the food, the food and the people, you know.
00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:12.640
It's not a very original kind of explanation for you, but you know, you can go.
00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:18.480
I I I met people from Montenegro and from Serbia, who are also wonderful in their own way.
00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:21.119
I always try to look for the good, so yeah.
00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:22.960
It's a boring, it's a boring answer.
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:24.960
I'm not entertaining here at all.
00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:25.920
No, it's okay.
00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:35.759
I I I think uh I think we we can feel from your presence that uh you make the most of your trips and you've been to quite a few places.
00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:36.319
Yeah.
00:23:36.480 --> 00:23:39.200
And my best trips often were alone when I was alone.
00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:39.680
Yeah.
00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:42.240
Because I could really be me and only me.
00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:45.759
And it draw it drew me into places and situations.
00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:46.319
Wow.
00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:48.319
I'm just kind of I'm very blessed.
00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:51.039
I if I die tomorrow, I'll be I'll be in peace.
00:23:51.279 --> 00:23:51.920
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:52.160 --> 00:24:02.640
By the way, just a uh thought as you were talking about your your language fluency has nothing to do with near shoring, but uh the Quentin Tarantino movie, Inglorious Bastards.
00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:03.519
I don't know if you're familiar.
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:05.119
Christopher Waltz, I guess.
00:24:05.359 --> 00:24:06.640
I love Island's man.
00:24:06.960 --> 00:24:09.839
Yeah, he was trying, Tarantino was trying forever.
00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:18.960
He thought he might never make that movie, and then he finally found someone who could act and perform and speak all those four languages English, French, German, Italian.
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:20.480
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:24:20.559 --> 00:24:21.039
Those four.
00:24:21.839 --> 00:24:23.920
Unbelievable, unbelievable actor.
00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:24.720
I love him.
00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:29.200
And he was also in um what's the other one with um Chango?
00:24:29.279 --> 00:24:29.680
Unchained.
00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:31.200
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:31.839
Wow.
00:24:32.079 --> 00:24:33.119
Brilliant actor.
00:24:33.279 --> 00:24:33.519
Yeah.
00:24:33.759 --> 00:24:35.119
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:24:35.359 --> 00:24:37.119
Well, we'll we'll uh close on that.
00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:38.160
Thank you, Denis.
00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:40.160
Really enjoyed the conversation today.
00:24:40.319 --> 00:24:44.960
Let me thank our sponsor again, Plug Technologies, P-L-U-G-G dot tech.
00:24:45.359 --> 00:24:49.039
Great way to connect talent all over Latin America with growing U.S.
00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:49.599
companies.
00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:51.920
This is the Nearshore Cafe Podcast.
00:24:52.079 --> 00:24:53.200
We'll see you again next time.
00:24:53.359 --> 00:24:54.640
Thanks, everybody.