Read The Transcript

Connect with Angel
https://linkfol.io/theceoconfidant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelribo/

Connect with Russ
https://russjohns.com/
https://thepiratesyndicate.com/
https://nextstepnext.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/

Audio digitally transcribed by Descript

Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:10] And it's a great day and welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™. We have another amazing individual here that we're going to be talking about, making connections, helping in the world, adding value and making sure that people have something that they need when they need it. Angel, welcome to the #PirateBroadcast.™

Angel Ribo: [00:00:33] Thank you very much, Russ. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here and obviously thank you everybody who's watching us today.

Russ Johns: [00:00:39] Whether you're watching today right now or in the future, I think this brings a lot of value to a larger audience. And the thing that we're in right now, and we were talking before the show Angel is, we're in a transformational age. And right now a lot of things are happening, a lot of chaos and noise and things like that. And I think that the optimists, the ones that have resilience, the ones that are flexible, the people and the individuals that allow things to unfold and then take the road that is open to them. They're going to succeed and always supply #inspiration for others. So I know on your journey, you had to start somewhere. So tell us, for those that may not know you yet, or those individuals that haven't heard of you yet, give us the backstory on how you got to be the CEO Confidant.

Angel Ribo: [00:01:37] Thank you. Yeah, I would say that probably the starting point was in I would say low middle class family in Spain. I was born close to Barcelona and I think that the big decision that my parents made was number one, to put me to French lessons. The French language classes in my formal education system. And also to put me to English, English language lessons outside at the same time as I was learning French and English at the same time.

Russ Johns: [00:02:06] Wow.

Angel Ribo: [00:02:06] I think  was probably the reason why I eventually have been doing what I have done, which is, really fast forward, like helping so many, more than 1500 companies and CEOs in more than 33 countries. Oh, I have always felt that my roots were everywhere, so I always felt comfortable living in everywhere. I've lived in eight different countries, although I've done business in more than 30 countries, but I always felt like everywhere was my home. And I could really thrive everywhere regardless. I could thrive anywhere. I think that as much as obviously I have my preferred places in the world, but I could really live for some time, anywhere. I could be a real nomad, having a family makes things a little bit complicated, but still and I think that dad was the journey. When I was, I think it was in seventh grade, eighth grade, , it was my first ever trip abroad. He was summering Scarborough, the famous Scarborough in the UK. When I went from having to translate, when you learn a language, translate everything in your head, going from translating it into language automation.  I could speak English without thinking about the just  expressing the concept, whatever that was. And that was the beginning eventually. When I was in college, it was part of an international organization that allow me to do enjoy several scholarships in several countries. And then my first job was actually working for the rector, which would be here, the president of the university, my own college helping them in the erectors office as an international officer, going all over Europe and the Americas, negotiating contracts and establishing partnerships. And it's pretty much what I have been doing throughout the rest of my life. I'm doing business development, then you said something which opened, which actually you're very right, which is adding value. I think that I've been adding value consistently to many different companies and organizations, and that has given me the chance to become eventually the CEO Confidant..

Russ Johns: [00:04:13] Yeah, that's amazing that the first job you had allowed you to become who you are today. A lot of us have multiple careers. We have these test careers, I call them. Something that it's okay, I have an opportunity to do this, so I go do this and then the next thing, that's not what I want to do. And you had an instant invitation and introduction to what you're doing now, and it falls in line with exactly what you're doing now. And that's incredible. So I love it. I love it.

Angel Ribo: [00:04:50] And I would like to add something when you were explaining the moment in history that we are living right now, this transformational moment in history. Yeah. I would like to add an additional objective to the ones that you mentioned, which, because I think it's very important and we all have been the last 14 months trying to figure out what's going on, what to do with our lives. Blah-blah-blah creator. Creator. I think that right now, it's the time of the creators. It's the time of the proactives it's the time of those that want to take the lead in the world. And those that are willing to take the leading the world, regardless of where they are today, I think it's going to be the ones that are going to be leading the world in the future.

Russ Johns: [00:05:38] Yeah. There are so many opportunities out there. Like we were talking about before the show is there so many opportunities out there for business owners. And like you said, creators, my mantra is I wake up with #gratitude, Angel. I create something every day. I work to help somebody every day. And then I just love the opportunity to inspire somebody every day. And that's what you're doing. You're inspiring CEOs and executives to think bigger, to think more impact. You help the top echelon learn about entrepreneurship. So I want to make sure that when we talk about creative, about how you created that #inspiration to those individuals  in different communities that may not have the resources available to us in some, like Texas or Arizona.

Angel Ribo: [00:06:32] Exactly. Isn't it amazing? We didn't plan for it, but today it's the World Innovation Day, actually.

How appropriate is that?

Exactly. So how else can we relate our conversation to innovation and creation and creativity? So one of the countries I lived in when I moved from the UK to the Americas was Mexico. So I lived in Mexico for 10 years and I was traveling all over the continent. And I was meeting with all those CEOs and C-level executives and general managers, all of these people, because the kind of business development work I was doing was basically closing business with the people in charge with the leadership teams of those companies. But at the same time, if you've been in Latin America, it's very easy to see those manufacturing plants where you went to close business. It was pretty easy to see those in the outskirts of the CTS, in the rural areas, all these places. And In those places, obviously there's always poverty and there's always kids that are asking you to do something. I remember clearly, very often, if not all the time outside those manufacturing plants, that would be those kids coming to me and say, hey Senor, I would like to clean your car. I would like to wash your car. I would like to wash your windscreen. They would like to sell a bottle of water to you. Or I would like to sell some gums or some candies, whatever it was, the way that they were making their ends meet. So I was always like, in my matter of minutes, I was seeing all those kids in need and it was dealing with, and it was talking to very powerful, let's say very powerful in terms of economy people. And yeah, at some point in 2015, I had this epiphany, I had this experience in which it was very clear to me that to help, if it wasn't me, who would be more experienced prone to do this, who have had these experience of reaching out to the most powerful people in those companies and at the same time, acknowledging those kids in need. And I've reached out to a business partner, a friend of mine, and then we brought his father in and we started what today's wisdom for kids. And it's basically, it's an international charity international non-profit organization. And what we do is we help the privileged kids in Latin America become intrepreneurs using the local resources. And the teaching kids, it's a nonstop source of #inspiration because kids are genuine. Kids are spontaneous. Kids are... not only that they are our future, but also they have so many lessons to teach to us. I'm one of those parents that have three kids and one of those parents who believe strongly believe that the kids actually choose us and the kids are here to teach us lessons. So it's not only that we have to make sure that they thrive and they grow and they are reliable, fully reliable when they become 18 or 21, whatever the age is, I believe that also they are in our lives to teach us some lessons. So we have to be wise enough, smart enough to be able to listen to the lessons that they have to teach us. And I think that historically speaking, we, as parents have done a very poor job of listening to our kids. And I'm not meaning I don't mean spoiling our kids. Let's be clear. I just mean to have real genuine conversations, I think that is true as it is the statement that we often say that we become parents without the manual and the kids come with many lessons to teach and we should be listening. We should be listening much more.

Russ Johns: [00:10:03] And do you think it's, because I've thought about this a lot, is the statement create like a five-year-old.

Angel Ribo: [00:10:10] Yeah, absolutely.

Russ Johns: [00:10:11] Cause it's the creativity and the curiosity that a five-year-old has. And the question, why is it done that way? Why do we have to do it that way? And when we get older, we have a tendency to throw those questions out the door. When, in reality, like you said, we could learn from those lessons.

Angel Ribo: [00:10:32] Totally. Yeah. Yeah. There's many questions, there's many things that I still to this day, when we go to not this past year, because unfortunately there were so many traveling restrictions, we couldn't go. But even the local volunteers we have in several places in Mexico to give you an example, they have not been able to see the kids. We have not been able to really be in touch with them. And that's obviously very unfortunate, but when they are, they ask you all sorts of questions and anything is possible. That's the good thing. And the way we designed our workshops is also very unconventional. We focus  much more in energy than knowledge, much more ine xperience than content, like entrepreneurial content, because those kids to start with, many of them have self-esteem problems and many of them have  these reinforcement in which they've been told this is your community and you will live here and that's your bank. These are your boundaries. You cannot leave this place, and you can only be this or that. So actually in our workshops we literally tell them and inspire them through different practices that they really can become whoever they want. They really can become whoever they want. And we also have to be extremely respectful with the local culture. We are not there to disrupt their community. We are there to help their community grow. We are there to really help them become the difference and become, we're just talking about transformational, right? We are there to help them be transformational, if that's what they want to be. And that's why also the role of their partners is so important.

Russ Johns: [00:12:10] I love the idea of being available to inspire people too, because like you said, the kids are the future and if we could teach them some free thought innovation, ask why and the creativity that goes into that and develop that skill, they're going to be creators in the future. They're going to be creating amazing things that we haven't even thought about yet.

Angel Ribo: [00:12:39] And with as many management consultants, as many theories, as many ways to help companies increase the engagement of the employees and have their employees accountable, keep them accountable to  the creation of shareholder value. You name it. There's so many things going on in the companies right now in the organizations in the world right now, why nobody has ever thought of consistently once a month, bring all the kids of the employees, all the kids once a month and having an amazing brainstorming session with those kids and just listen to them honestly, and just listen to them. I really don't know why nobody's doing this.

Russ Johns: [00:13:24] I think you could probably instigate that don't you?

Angel Ribo: [00:13:28] Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:13:30] They have parents day at school, why wouldn't we have kids day at work?

Angel Ribo: [00:13:33] Yeah. And at school, and for instance, here in Plano, Texas, North of Dallas, the library system actually organizes, I think it's one Saturday, a month. They organize large corporations to come and teach the kids in a library setup. But what if those kids were supported to go to where their parents work and again, once a month, or maybe once a quarter have an entire morning or even an entire day, with pizza, whatever that is and just have the owner's feedback? What do you think of what your parents does? Your father or your mother does in this company? What do you think? When you think about what we do as a company, what do you see? How do you explain to your friends what your parents do in this company? You know what I mean? This kind of conversation, I think that it would bring very inspiring feedback to the leadership teams of the organizations in the world today. Very honestly. And because again, who is in touch today consistently with the kids, besides the parents, right? The teachers. Everybody goes, let's say, K-12,  they go to school and they have teachers. So there's this gap between, those school districts and those schools and what the parents do for a living. They only meet, let's say carpool in the morning, carpool in the evening. Maybe some teacher/parent conference kind of thing, but that's it. But this gap is artificial. It's totally artificial. And also this gap, you probably remember in high school some of the most innovative high schools in the country, they try to also close the gap between organizations and students, because those are students eventually we'll work on those companies. But why not start to do that much more early on in the existence of those kids, because it's not two separate worlds now. And I don't mean that everybody will have to become an employee. Maybe some want to be a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, or we're not a startup CEO, but again, it's this inspirational part of the existence of us as human beings that we miss out totally today. Totally.

Russ Johns: [00:15:40] I think it's important also to understand that until a child or someone growing up is exposed to that community, that environment, either to be a business owner, an employee, or an entrepreneur or a startup community until someone was exposed to that, how did they even know that it exists? How do they even understand that it's an opportunity that they could actually do that. Could they be involved in, they could help and contribute, and it's really one of those things that we oftentimes fall into, or just through chance find a career. And a lot of people, some of the children or some of the kids that growing up through high school and college, they know exactly what they want to do. I'm going to be this, I'm going to do this. I'm going to be there. And it's very rare that takes place in my experience. And it happens through a number of different jobs. You have your startup jobs, you have your exposure to employees and you understand that, okay, I'm either going to take an employee role or I'm going to take an entrepreneur role or I'm going to do something. And if we could expose kids to that environment early on, imagine the power that they can have growing up and knowing that information in advance so they could choose what they do with their life.

Angel Ribo: [00:17:06] Yeah, absolutely. And also, there's also some experiences of trying to bring parents to schools and teach them or share with the kids, but there's still this gap. I think that it should be closed for the good of the society in general. And we're talking about the future and we're talking about being transformational leaders today and what transformation means. So I think that's one of the things that we have to really thoroughly think about. There are those gaps in the development of our world, the development of our society and those gaps can easily be closed. With just the intention  of wanting to do it. And we really don't have the intention. And again, every school system, every state has their own rules, blah, blah, blah.  What's the most important thing here? The most important thing here is to make progress as a civilization. To the make progress. Everybody wants to have their communities thrive and everybody wants to have safe communities.

Russ Johns: [00:18:00] Normally we all want the same thing, right?

Angel Ribo: [00:18:02] Yeah. We all help each other when someone is in need in the community, we all help each other try to do as much as we can. So that's why I think that the responses are not like outside of us, but they have responses of many of those questions, Russ, are inside of us. Eventually, I remember let me tell you that winter storm that we had here in Texas in February. Which was insane. It was crazy. Was it like nine to five? And I remember sleeping in our master bedroom at 35 degrees that night. Because there was no power and we live in a nice neighborhood. So I cannot believe what has happened in other neighborhoods.  But so many neighbors like coming together and trying to help each other and do this and do that. That week was difficult. It was really scary, but at the same time, there was so much good coming out of the communities and helping each other and bring you food and bring you water and sharing what we had with others. And so many things. There were so many gestures. Again, trying to divide us, is the wrong path to go. Because as humans, that's not what we want to do as humans. We all want to really help each other. That's who we are. Nobody can change this. We really want to help each other. And we understand each other. And Again, going back to the kids, that's why being or having a nonprofit, working for kids is so important is that we go back to the kids. Again, the kids have the answer, the kids are the answers to so many things in this world and the future is being built by them, and again, we should pay much more attention to what the kids represent in our world and really have them more present in the decisions that we make every single day.

Russ Johns: [00:19:52] The seed has been planted on world innovation day. So I want to give a shout out to some of the people that join us here, Angel. Angie, good morning, everyone pirate. Keto Harris here this morning. Good morning, Russ. Okay. Jeffrey Berger says good morning pirates from Western New York where it's snowing. It's still snowing in Western New York. Happy to join you this morning.

Angel Ribo: [00:20:16] Yeah, it's cold in Texas today, too. I don't know about Arizona, but here in Dallas, it's cold today.

Russ Johns: [00:20:22] Oh man. Jeffrey, snow in Michigan, left Florida last week. So agree with you, Angel, game-changers change before change is required. We need to be creators to make a difference. Love your nuggets. Thank you so much, Jeffrey for being here. Keto here, I'm in Cape Florida, Cape Coral, Florida. Taking care of my mom's estate. Get back to Florida. Thanks. Sheila Chamberlin joining us. Hello. Kate says, I agree with Angel. That is our it's our creator. It could be that we have the pandemic to remind us to come back to our roots. Absolutely.

Angel Ribo: [00:21:02] I was just going to say, I love to interact with the audience that, oh my God. Let's say, I don't know if you have kids, Russ, but  lots of people have kids. So if you have a kid who is a rebel, every single kid is different. I have three children and every single one of them is different. What do we do? Do we keep them out? What do we really do? Is there anything that we don't do for our kids? Is there anything that we don't consider? Is there any option that in order to help our kids, we don't consider, of course not because they are our blood, they're out of cells. So it's the same with the rest of the world. I really believe that it makes no difference to deal with our kids or someone else's kids or anybody else that we work with and that we interact with. There's really no big difference.

Russ Johns: [00:21:47] Yeah. And if we don't, if we don't offer the opportunity to plant those seeds and nurture that idea and that concept, somebody else will, and it's not always a good option. And at risk kids are out there and we need to do everything we can to help them find a positive outcome in their life and a journey that they can follow in and appreciate and help others as well. And I think planting that seed is really, so I love the idea. I love the idea of bringing in there and influencing Individuals that are growing up. And so in your CEO community how would you go about thinking of this kind of concept and planting that seed?

Angel Ribo: [00:22:33] Yeah, that's a great question. And sometimes people ask me, what kind of clients do you work with? It says a particular industries or particular vertical. I always say the same thing. I work with with business leaders who really want to change, who really want to leave a legacy and who really want to make the world a better place. Okay.

Russ Johns: [00:22:51] So it's in alignment with the idea that we just talked about.

Angel Ribo: [00:22:54] Exactly. Exactly. So I don't want to attract people that I don't resonate with, so that's why I've worked with, some so many different, markets and verticals and industries and countries. And I think that when you travel consistently internationally, you realize that, your very tight ideas, like small ideas, they become obsolete immediately because you realize that you have to open to possibilities continuous, and you have to be flexible enough to adapt to ways of thinking and of behaving that you never saw before. And they're not good or bad, they're just part of their local culture. And you have to consistently adapt to that. So I think that's why when I was thinking of my brand five, six years ago, I put confidant because when you become trustworthy to someone with their business, eventually if they perceive the value, you eventually have many other conversations that go beyond the business themselves. I know that obviously the main purpose of a business is to generate shareholder value. It's very clear that's the case to create shareholder value for the shareholders, for the people that put the risk and put the money to start with, and they keep on doing it every single day, but there's still a higher purpose, there's  still higher purpose. And I believe that companies can really work with these principles and they can really incorporate more of those principles as an organization, not only with the business leaders.

Russ Johns: [00:24:17] Yeah. I truly believe that it's an amazing opportunity for us to make changes, drastic changes, and a lot of people through this the last 14 months, like you mentioned, have sat back, identified some of the things that they may not need to do in the future. Business is going to change, lives are going to change and for you and I in conversation, sometimes this is a better outcome than we could ever imagined because a lot of times trauma is what makes the change. It causes and forces us to think about things that we hadn't thought of before. So I really want to thank you, Angel, for being here, sharing these ideas. I think we could go on for a few hours and just talk about these ideas.

Angel Ribo: [00:25:04] You bet.

Russ Johns: [00:25:05] Because there's so many people that need your help and need your service and need your support. And if you're not connected with Angel, reach out, tell him you're a pirate, make sure that the connection and the conversations take place. Where do you like people to reach out to you?

Angel Ribo: [00:25:20] Thank you. Yes, my email address, it's very easy. Either my team or myself respond to all the messages. It's pretty easy. It's angel@angelribo.com.  I'm very active online on all social media platforms. I'm on LinkedIn all the time, posting every single day. So it will be a pleasure to be in touch with you.

Russ Johns: [00:25:40] Jeffrey says, yes, we need to get out of the old school model, go to school, get an education, find a nice safe job. No such thing. All options should be taught early on for the kids to really decide where and what they want to do. So good, Russ, great talk this morning, guys. Angel. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for being a pirate, for being here.

I am a pirate going forward.

I love this and as always, everyone make those connections. Start those conversations. We're so close that we can't even sometimes see the differences and through those conversations, we all always know that#kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree so thank you, Angel. And don't go away. We'll be right back. Bye.

Exit: [00:26:39] Thank you for joining the #PirateBroadcast™. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. The #PirateSyndicate™ is a platform where you show up, we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about, join the #PirateSyndicate™ today.e

Join the next #PirateBroadcast™ on your favorite social media channel.