franklin: [00:00:00] All right, welcome back to the world needs men podcast i'm your host franklin swan and i've got dr Paul rivera on the show today who i'm very excited to introduce His first generation latino american Holds a phd in economics from the university of southern california Fluent in four languages served as a u.
s. Diplomat. He and his wife esther Our coauthors of a book, uh, called creating your limitless life. He's a founder of an organization called be at change, which we'll discuss in the, uh, in our conversation here coming up and the list goes on. But Paul, very excited to have you on the show today and appreciate your time.
paul: Man, it sounds like I've been busy. Wow.
franklin: I know. I was like, I've gotta stop the, uh, stop the intro somewhere. And so I thought that'd give a pretty good oversight.
paul: No, it's a huge honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
franklin: Awesome. Well, I guess, uh, let's start off, just introduce yourself, you know, give a little bit more of your background, some context and help us kind of understand, uh, where [00:01:00] you've been and kind of where you are today.
paul: Sure, that sounds great. You know, I think the easiest place to start is just to, to share that my, who I am, like my purpose in life as I see it is to as much as possible be a positive influence in people's you know, and that's something that, that I've carried with me As I think about it now, you know, I'm telling you this story with the benefit of reflection of, you know, over many years of life at this point, I realized now that it's always, that's always been my focus and I've looked for different ways to do it, you know, I started out actually my first job was actually I was a lifeguard.
And it was a really cool job, right? I mean, it's one where you are, you so tangibly see. That you are there to be a positive influence in people's lives, right? Like you're finding them in their truest moment of difficulty And you're the one who's helping bring them back and that was really nice and then you know I as my life has gone through a career has gone through, you know I did my phd in economics as you said I became a faculty member.
I was a professor for a long time [00:02:00] At California State University, Channel Islands, which I loved. And what I loved about it was that I'm actually founding faculty at that university. So I arrived the year that the school opened, and it's in a in an area of California that was really underserved in terms of collegiate education, and it's an area that's really heavily Latino, which is my background, right?
My mom is Mexican. My dad is from El Salvador. I was born in Los Angeles. And when you sort of come from that demographic, you pretty much everyone that I knew for my whole childhood was Hispanic. All my friends at school, everyone that we were surrounded by, you know, so it was an important, it was important for me to be able to serve that community as I moved along in sort of higher education.
And then what I realized was that I could do more. I could take that influence, that positive influence that I wanted to have and make it bigger. And that's what, prompted me to go into diplomacy. So I was a U. S. diplomat. I served in, in Washington, in [00:03:00] Nicaragua, in Jamaica, in the Dominican Republic for longer periods, and then for shorter stints all over the world.
Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Paraguay, uh, Morocco, Ghana, Senegal, Zimbabwe, uh, Thailand, all over the place, right? And my specialty is strategic planning. So basically helping countries create the plan of what they're going to do with the assistance that U. S., that the U. S. government provides, right? So what and it's, you know, it's interesting.
I see it on my bio sometimes that, uh, that it says that through my work that I've helped direct over a billion dollars in resources for international development. And it seems like a crazy number, like it seems like a crazy number, like I've never seen a billion dollars, you know? But as I go through, I mean, all of these countries that I've been in, I'm helping direct hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, you know?
So, so, I get there though, I get to that point where I'm a U. S. diplomat and, Working all over the [00:04:00] place in strategic planning and what I come to realize is that a lot of the work that we do is very Paternalistic in that it doesn't necessarily respect very well what's happening in those countries and The strengths that they have and helping them instead of helping them to develop what strengths they have and address Problems as they see them.
We tend to come in with a sort of prescription approach where we say we know what you need I'm the doctor and so here's what you need to fix And the problem with that is that the solutions that come out of an approach like that are very short lived it's not something that's been You that has buy in from the local people, and it means at the end of the day that we haven't listened to them.
And so the listening part is really important. And so that's actually what prompted me to leave diplomacy and create be at change this idea that we wanted people to learn how to [00:05:00] first listen to themselves. Align their actions to things that are meaningful to them in their core, create the action plan that they carry out.
And then create the resilience to keep them on that path as they go forward. And so we now work at several levels that we work with individuals on uh, coaching basis. And then we work a lot with nonprofit organizations, uh, corporate teams and that sort of thing. And then I do. And so that's the business side, right?
That. It's basically that it's create its strategic planning at a different level where we're really impacting people in their lives and how they move forward. Aside from that, one of the things that's really important to me is talking to men, especially young men. And I think because of my demographic, I end up talking to a lot of young.
Black and Latino men and it's a really fascinating thing because it's, you know, for all the cool things that I've done in my [00:06:00] circles, in my family, oftentimes I am seen as not a very manly man, right? I come from a very blue collar family. Kind of a background. I'm the only one who's who I was the first one to go to college.
I'm the first one to have sort of this white collar job kind of a thing, you know, I grew up in the environment where. It was very clear that if you smelled as good at the end of the day as you did at the beginning of the day, then you didn't do right? And you weren't a
franklin: didn't put in a hard day's
paul: You didn't put in a hard day's work, right? What did you do all day? Nothing, you know? So, so it's been really interesting because I see that a lot of these young men are growing up in that same environment. And I see, I think I see it as my. masculinity. to show them that a different concept of masculinity is possible.
That the idea that you are doing. The manliest thing that you can do is to get in touch with your core and what it is that moves you. And what's the superpower that you bring to the world? It [00:07:00] doesn't matter if it's the superpower that, you know, others expect of you, but you have them. You have a superpower.
There's a special way. There's a unique way that you have of approaching the world of approaching problems. And it's a gift. That is your gift to this world and the manliest thing that you can do is to cultivate that inside of you and to bring that out. Right. So, you know, for in, in my case, it means, you know, I have a, I make a nice living and whatever.
But for me, for example, I love to cook in my house, in our household. I'm the cook. I am, I was a teacher for a long time, so helping the kids with their homework is something that comes extremely naturally to you know? So, in my culture, oftentimes those are activities that are seen as feminine. But, for me, that's, that is me living in authenticity.
Right. To, for me to say, you know what, I'm not going to do that because that's not what a man does, would be me denying myself, in [00:08:00] fact. Right. So it's interesting. It's a lot of the conversations that I have with these young men to show them that masculinity is you. It's authenticity.
It's you. Being the best version of yourself that you possibly can and should and through that honoring the gifts that were given to you and Being the greatest possible Benefit to yourself to your family in your community.
franklin: So how do you feel like you were able to kind of step out of the norms and the expectations of your family of origin and culture and kind step out on and kind of go on your own path and do that in a meaningful way?
paul: I think that's a great question. And because it's a really tough path to take. You know, everybody wants to be accepted. Everybody wants to be loved. Everyone wants to be feel supported by their community. And I will tell you that for the vast majority of my life. I have felt like an outsider in my own family on [00:09:00] multiple levels.
So, Sadly, it's the case that I had to, at a certain point, distance myself a little bit from my family. Because that's not where my support was coming from. That's not where where I was feeling encouraged. And when I tried to Feel like I was when I tried to do the things that would make me feel accepted by them It was very clear that I was doing that at the expense of myself, right?
So it came down to that choice, you know either I continue to deny who I am and basically fake it through life or I take steps to separate a little bit from my family Until the point where I feel secure in who I am and then come back around to reintegrate and it's a very conversation Very different conversation when you come back Later, right after you've done some work on yourself after you've understood what's important to You've [00:10:00] grown You've created the actions in your life that are aligned with who you are.
You've created the resilience tools So that when you encounter that pushback you still know who you are and you still know what your path is when you reintegrate into those spaces after having done some of that work. It's a very different conversation because you come at it with so much more confidence, you know, like you when you understand that they love you they love you unconditionally.
But that doesn't always mean that you have their support unconditionally, and that you understand that you have other ways to have it too. You know, it doesn't have to be from them.
franklin: Is it a challenge? Do you think for them it's a challenge of understanding, like, like what you're trying to do and what you're trying to change? And is some of that is some of that a bit of a fear of? You know from them, you know, because it kind of bumps up against what they, you know, consider to be true And then you're kind of deconstructing that in a way
paul: Absolutely. I think the fear really drives it, [00:11:00] you know, when it's really interesting to, to work a lot with immigrant communities. So I work a lot, as I said with Latinos but honestly It's a having worked all over the world. It's a phenomenon that you see everywhere, you know, where you see that people have gone from places.
They've left their families. They've left their homes. They've left their language, their culture, their food, their music, their religion, and moved to another place in hopes of starting over and in hopes of creating something. And when they do, when they've achieved a certain level of success, In those places their biggest fear is to lose what they've built So so that kind of fear really surrounds a lot of these communities and you see it in you see it in sort of popular tv and Social media and that sort of thing, you know that the children of immigrants, you know We're told that we have to be doctors We have to be engineers or something like that because our immigrant parents see that as the safe path Right, I've created this space and now this is what you're going to do because you're going to stay in the circle of safety, right?
So for sure [00:12:00] my parents my family have very little Understanding of how I have lived my life, you know, like they understand and I don't even mean necessarily the fact that I became a diplomat or anything like like they and they when I was a professor they could kind of understand that he was He's a teacher.
He's a teacher and that's what he does and that's great, right? But you know, I it was a tenured job and I left that job because that I realized that wasn't my path I became a tenured diplomat and I left that job and you know, my immigrant parents screaming at the idea of you know, you're leaving a job for life You know, and for something that seems so risky to them.
So for sure, a lot of it is their concept of what fear is and what safety is. And the truth is that I've realized that my concept of safety is much broader. Right. I understand my possibilities in the world much more broadly than they do. So what they see as a tremendous risk, I see as [00:13:00] a much larger opportunity.
franklin: Being a first generation American versus an immigrant You know How much has that played a role in your ability to see? Possibilities for yourself that maybe your parents and other members of your family didn't.
paul: It's an interesting question. So I was born in Los Angeles, born and raised in Los Angeles. My wife is from Nicaragua and she was actually born in Nicaragua and then later immigrated to the United States. I would say that we. Our experiences are very parallel in a lot of ways there were expectations that were placed on us and we had to Do what we thought was right and you know sort of gather our own strength to follow our own paths I so I you know, I don't know that the sort of binary statistic of having been born in the U.
S. or not was necessarily the, a trigger point for that kind of thing because really at the end of the day we were raised in very much the same kind of [00:14:00] environment in the same kind of mentality. Yeah,
franklin: So when you work there, there's a couple of things that just are really fascinating, interesting to me. And let me kind of play this out. So, so you're kind of trying to break out of cultural norms, uh, expectations from your family. And I would think it would be. Not just a Latino thing, but just anyone, you know, everyone's got, uh, expectations from the community that they community, they live in, whatever that, you know, wherever they're from and some of those expectations and in service in a positive way, and some of them don't.
So how do you get to, uh, how do you get to a place where you're able to assess those things that help you and the things that hurt you, and then remove the things that hurt you in order to. To move on to bigger and better possibilities as sounds like you did.
paul: That's a great one. For me, so like in, in as an economist, I'm a micro economist. [00:15:00] So for me, everything comes down to the level of the individual, basically. So even if I'm working in large groups, everything starts with you. So, I mean, I mentioned earlier, I believe that everyone has a superpower. Everyone has one. It's not a way in which people are accustomed to speaking about themselves So part of the process that you would undergo if you work with me with us Is that process of understanding what that superpower is?
Like, how do you solve problems? What is it that you value? um and it's really fascinating. It's such an interesting process because Nobody really answers those questions the same. For example, I've had people say to me, for example, what, when I asked them what they value, like, what's a problem in the world that you would want to solve lots of people say, for example, [00:16:00] hunger, I want to solve world hunger is a problem.
And then you start digging into people. How is it that you go about. If you had say you had infinite resources, you know The united nations is giving you 20 billion dollars and they say, you know, I want you to work on Solving global hunger. How do you solve it? And it's really fascinating because It's the how is really where the meat of the question is, right?
So there are some people Who will say well i'm I want to go into The science of agriculture and understand how it is that we maximize crop yields to make sure that there's enough for everybody So there are some people who approach it from that way There are others who are who say things like for example, I it's really important for me to fix market systems The problem right now is not that there isn't enough food Just that not enough people have access to food and that access is limited By the markets and the way that it's working and I want to fix that and then everybody has a problem a different way of approaching it, right?
And so it becomes really fascinating that it's not the problem that, that you're solving that [00:17:00] matters so much as how it is that you see the world. A lot of people say, I, first thing I would do is bring together all of the global experts. Every single day for you guys. It's like this whole class, we have to just lecture you.
And we have to distract ourselves and then you'll be like, Oh, all these people I'm probably not going to learn from, right. I don't want to repeat myself. we will be able to unite together. or all these leaders understand that this whole time we've been Approaches problems in this way. I want to bring people together.
I want to gather information, whatever it is It's it is really powerful way to start seeing yourself and valuing yourself The second thing that does though is that once you are able to recognize a superpower in yourself You start to see it in everyone you start to see who's the person that man that person is so valuable because They are [00:18:00] the connector.
They're the ones who brings people together That person is so valuable because they know exactly how to put the right words to something That person really has the analysis whatever it is, right and you really start to see how everyone's Superpowers kind of come together to create at the end of the day what I call collective power, right that it's about How can, instead of me competing against you, instead of me trying to one up you, it's me recognizing that you and I both have valuable superpowers.
How can we bring them together to uplift all of us, right? So, it's a, the conversation goes along that way, you know, so building from the individual, Up to this idea of collective power and the collective power is super fascinating and this is where we do a lot of the work with teams with small organizations But I would argue that even within Your household within your marriage the idea of collective power is one that's really useful.
franklin: Well, it goes from a competitive environment to [00:19:00] a collaborative one where you're able to both, you know, bring the best of what you got to work together versus, you know, I'm better than you or you're better than me.
paul: Exactly. Exactly. And I would argue that if the, if that sort of relationship is truly like in the best sense those sorts of relationships are not just the ones where we're collaborating, but we're together, we're creating something. More than the sum of our parts that makes sense, you know, and i've seen it multiple times in places in my life, you know where Having the right people together and having the right mindset about how it is that you go about Your work or the you know, whatever projects it is that you're there to accomplish Makes that progress so much more impactful.
franklin: it. It seems like you have done, uh. Fair bit of work on yourself in order to get clear and really understand your purpose and your mission and who [00:20:00] you are and to get to a place where you're very comfortable being yourself. You mentioned, uh, you enjoy cooking and how that's considered to be, you know, that is not a masculine thing in your community.
It's interesting though. Well, my. My brother in law, very masculine man, like, uh, loves to hunt and fish. And he's the one you want in the kitchen. If dinner needs to be cooked, cause he's just fabulous in the kitchen, but that, you know, it's interesting how, uh, from a cultural standpoint, like one view is that's not masculine.
And I look at him and like, well, he can kill. Right. But I'm, uh, so I'm interested in kind of how you, what is some of the work that you did on yourself that allowed you to break out of that? And I think that's important because And in my opinion, more men could use more work on themselves. And I think there's just, uh, there's a lack of understanding of what that even means.
And [00:21:00] there's probably a lot of you know, preconceived notions of what that is and all, but could you kind of shed some light on that? kind of given the listeners an understanding of what it would
paul: Yeah I agree with you. It's definitely something that, that I think more guys could, would for sure benefit from. A tough road. I guess I got to start that answer with saying that I was married once before. I was married for a long time. And in, in that marriage, there, there's lots of reasons why that marriage failed.
But. Communication was a big one. Our failure to talk to each other honestly and authentically was a real problem. And looking back, I wasn't able to do that because, for example, I felt like showing my emotion, was something that would be considered not masculine, right? Telling her when I wasn't okay, telling her when I needed help, telling her or [00:22:00] telling her when some, even when something bothered me, you know?
And so that, that was a big challenge. So when and she and I even did, for example, therapeutic intervention a few times and all of that. And I understand now that I was not, Truly committed to that process, right? So after the failure of our marriage, I started on a therapeutic course and I realize now how different that my mindset was that sort of second time around where I realized that something needed to change in my life.
And I felt that my. Almost like I didn't recognize my own reflection in the mirror sometimes. Like I wasn't like that authenticity wasn't there for me. So I start doing these therapeutic, you know, going basically, I mean, literally seeing a family counselor. I spend a lot of my time, my, we spend about half of our time in Latin America [00:23:00] in, I'm actually calling you from Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic right now.
And I found that my, my therapist here in the DR was much more. useful to me in a lot of ways. I you know, this is just a broad commentary based on my own experience but for example, my experiences with therapy in the United States is that it's a very gentle approach of trying To coax you into self realizing what it is that you want and what it is that's blocking you and all of this and that's good and fine.
But Latinos are sometimes much more blunt, much more direct. And so my therapist here in the DR was brutally honest. And it was a kick in the butt like like emotionally it was just a kick in the butt But so much what I needed right to have [00:24:00] someone say well, you know, that was really dumb You shouldn't have done that, you know, i'm sure that's not necessarily good therapeutic protocol perhaps But it was really effective to you know Because I don't need to I don't need to feel good about the mistakes that I made in the past I just want to know how not to repeat them You know, so that was really useful for me I have to say that once you go into that process with an open mind and an open heart and a real desire for change That change is completely possible but when you know it There's so many podcasts and shows and everything out there right now that tells you how important it is to do the work, right?
What you have to know is that the work is a beating. The work is you confronting your darkest places, your darkest thoughts, your darkest feelings, your deepest insecurities about yourself and exposing them and bringing them to light, all the cards on the table. [00:25:00] And it is really important. It's tough. It's things about yourself that you that you've always known, but have kept hidden from the world and from yourself, you know?
And so I love words you mentioned earlier I speak several languages, you know? And so a big part of this is liberation. Liberation is a big piece of it for me. The word liberation comes from libre, which means freedom. Right? The original root word in, for those people who speak Spanish, uh, of the way that you say a pound, like, how much something weighs a pound in Spanish is una libra, right?
And that's weight. Freedom is libre. It's only one letter difference, and they have the same ancient root word. But, in the sense of freedom, of libre, the original meaning of that word is not [00:26:00] of, like liberation is not casting off everything that you're carrying. Actually, it's a concept of balance. Libre, liberation is a concept of balance where you have, where freedom means that you have the freedom to choose.
What weight you're going to carry and what weight you're going to put aside, right? And so in this Really tough process. Like when you think about it, you know, at least in Latino culture, right. That, you know, therapy is for girls, it's for crazy people, whatever. And honestly, having gone through it, the fortitude that it took to be able to put it all out there and to reconstruct myself, I think is probably the toughest thing I've ever had to do.
You know, so, but the beauty of having everything spilled out and then I say, okay, I'm going to choose now, what's the weight that I'm going to carry, what's the weight that's mine to [00:27:00] carry, and what are the things that I'm going to leave aside, you know, and that, that part has, that was the turning point.
For me, you know at that point you see everything that you've done Everything that you've fought everything that you've said and you get to pick and choose you say, okay, this is me this is what aligns with me And then suddenly that light bulb goes off in your soul where you're like, this is who I am All this other stuff was, that wasn't me, I was carrying all this stuff and it wasn't me.
And just the peace that comes from understanding that, yes, this is me, this is how I want to carry myself forward. And, you know, the world, sadly, there's a lot of forces that want to keep you down. You know, but once you have that certainty, On the inside of who you are and what you are and what you do and what you contribute your armor Against those things that are [00:28:00] trying to beat you down is so much stronger.
franklin: That's fascinating. Was there a, uh, was there kind of a model or a frame for how you went through? So you put everything out on the table, so to speak, and then it's like, okay, well, what am I going to pick up and take with me? And what do I see here that I've been carrying it, but doesn't serve me, and so I'm going to leave it behind.
Was there kind of a model or a way that you made that differentiation?
paul: It's pretty easy Actually I thought about as soon as you started asking that question I thought about your core four because what I thought what I mean for me the biggest thing was writing it down You got to pull out that paper and you have and there's something about the kinesthetic movement Of committing your hand to the pen to the paper and then seeing it um, and it is it's pretty amazing.
It's pretty amazing because you see yourself Projected onto this page, right? And then it's an analytical process so [00:29:00] I mean I wrote pages and pages and pages of You All sorts of things. And, you know, the therapist would give me prompts about what to write about, you know, whether it was my mom, my family, my, my ex, my feelings, my fears, whatever it was, and lots of prompts, and then going back and analyzing, you start seeing what are the words that you, what are you seeing the words that you use?
What are the themes that keep coming up across different prompts? What are, you know, so, so for example, for me, one of the things that came up. Across the board like, you know in the hundreds of questions that I was asked One of the things that came up across the board was that I was consistently Basically, I was a classic textbook people pleaser, right?
I was doing everything For others and that one of the hardest things was the resentment that I carried was feeling like I was giving of myself Constantly and not necessarily receiving back, right? So that kind of theme starts once you realize that about yourself you start to question next time that [00:30:00] situation comes up It's like wait a second.
Is this for me? Or is this for them? You know, who am I doing this for and why? And you go into it with that knowledge. And so having that scripted out about all of the things that you feel that, that are good and bad, by the way, you know, it's not just a dump of what are the things that, that hurt you or the trauma, but also what are the things that bring you joy?
What are the things that you celebrated? What are the things that really lit up your soul, you know, and you start to identify. you start to identify those patterns over time. And, you know, like I said, it's hard to say that there's a magic time, but you start to have greater and greater clarity about yourself, about who you are and, and understanding of what's right and what's wrong for you.
franklin: What was the timeframe that you spent doing this work, uh, and then to get to the point where you felt like, okay, I've, I've made some progress and you see, you know, circumstances or situations show up in life where it's like, oh, I just [00:31:00] responded very differently to this or you know, handled things in a different way where you felt like, okay, I've, you know, I've been doing this work and then here's the result and I feel like I've.
I've really made a lot of progress. How, what was that timeframe for you?
paul: I would say about,
I'd say about six months. I'd say about it, well, so, so here's the thing. So, so again, so like this particular therapist, the way that she worked with me is that we would talk exactly, actually exactly what you're saying. Like, we would talk about scenarios. Like, I would say something that was, Some sort of interaction what I would where I would respond in a way that ultimately was detrimental to me or ultimately Not what I wanted to do.
She would say okay, let's script that out So we would actually write I would actually write out when this situation comes up This is what's going to be my response sort of like a contingency planning kind of a situation And so when those situations inevitably came [00:32:00] up, it's not that I'm struggling for the words.
I'm not scrambling to, to what to think and what to say. I have that response already. And so,
franklin: It's like pre programming.
paul: pre programmed. Absolutely. So you, what you start to see, and you know what, it works. And so you start to see that progress and there's the snowball. I mean, I will tell you that my full program with her was about three years.
So, you know, and that was intense interventions for a long time. But like, when did I start to see that, you know what, This stuff is kind of working after about, I would say after about six months, when we started, when I started to be able to put into practice some of those prompts that we had been working on,
franklin: Yeah. For I've thought of this analogy lately, and I think this may help men kind of wrap their mind around, you know, if they're resistant to, uh, some sort of coaching or work on themselves and And as you mentioned, it's not fun work, right? To [00:33:00] really do real, if it's real work it's not fun.
But what is fun is when you see the, your normal responses in life to different circumstances and situations change radically in a way that really improves your life, right? And so I think of as an analogy, If you want to get fit, a great way to do that is to hire a personal trainer who puts you on a path and a program and helps you start doing work and anyone who goes to a gym.
I mean, no matter how fit you are, I mean, it's hard work. It's not real pleasant usually. And if you weren't in very great shape and if you hadn't been to a gym in a very long time, you know, what's this program going to take? Well, six months you get, you start seeing some improvement. And if you want to really get in great shape, that's going to last the rest of your life and create a, uh, something sustainable.
It's a long term game. It's not that in 30 days you're going to be ripped, right? So we can wrap our mind around that. I think of our mind and our emotions working with a coach or [00:34:00] a therapist as being the same thing. It's just taking it from the physical gym to the mental gym. And it's, you know, you can work on your physical body all day long and still have a very undeveloped mind instead of emotions.
But then you work with, you know, Uh, with a counselor, with a therapist to take your mental game and perspective and mindset to another level, no different than you would your physical body. And if you just stop at the physical, you are never going to reach your full potential as a human. No, I don't care if you're a man, woman, what, like you're not going to reach your full potential if you don't do some of that work on that part of your, uh, on that part of yourself.
paul: I tell people all the time that Kobe Bryant had 20 coaches and it's not that he was deficient in any way. It's not that he was deficient in any way at all. He was the greatest, but he had 20 coaches. Why did he have 20 coaches? Because he understood. That to level up, that's what he's got to do if you got to keep moving up.
And what's fascinating is that [00:35:00] several of those coaches, as you say, were not about his technique or his physique or his training. They were mindset coaches. They were helping him, you know, get in touch with himself learn learning how to breathe properly learning how to Get in touch with his own intuition learning how to clear his mind of the things that of the doubt of the imposter syndrome because I guarantee you even kobe bryant suffered from imposter syndrome, you know so as you exactly as you said, I couldn't agree more you are never going to Reach your greatest potential if you don't If you only focus on the physical and don't reach that mental, spiritual intuition level of being able to develop that in yourself, sure.
franklin: To shift just a little bit. So you work with and I'm fascinated how you work with young men, you know, and I'm not sure what age group, but with youth, uh, I would love to know [00:36:00] kind of how you take some of the work this work to them because they're early on experiencing a lot of the struggles of Family of origin stuff or culture or all the things that are put on them And you know, this is who you're supposed to be and on all those things So, how do you come in and work with them to see?
A better possibility a bigger possibility than what they may be You looking at in their home and in their current circumstance.
paul: For starters, what's interesting is that we've worked with children as young as second graders, which is really fascinating. We've done this whole, that whole superpower exercise we've done with second graders, and it is. to see because as second graders, they're still, they're young enough that a lot of Our expectations and society's expectations haven't really reached them yet, but they have information about the world.
And so what's fascinating is that second [00:37:00] graders gave us some of the most insightful, innovative answers to some of these questions that we have ever seen, like really fascinating. So, so for one, Never underestimate your children. You know what I mean? Never underestimate what they're thinking and what they're capable of.
What's fascinating, though, is that then we went to work with fourth graders. By fourth grade, societal expectations have hit them. And the fourth graders gave us very nice, positive answers, but we were clearly being told what they thought we wanted to hear. They were filtering it through the expectations that they had already understood and that's just in a matter of two years It was really fascinating.
But most of the youth that I work with are actually college aged and and so basically we as you mentioned earlier, we have A book called creating your limitless life and there's an accompanying workbook that goes with it So we go out to these [00:38:00] universities and we've been to universities all over the u.
s We end up meeting In, in relatively, I don't know if you consider a small, but in that 10 to 50 people range, and we do several of these exercises in the workbook depending on what it is that they're, that they see as their pain point. So sometimes it is starting ground zero and starting building up from that superpower.
Sometimes it's concepts of limits and boundaries. You know, when I was a professor, I had a lot of students who were A lot. I had a good amount of students, for example, who came to me and said, professor i'm not gonna be able to enroll next semester because I can either Pay for tuition or I can pay for books, but I can't pay for both.
And my family needs me. I need to contribute to the family and all this stuff, you know, and it's hard. There, there certainly are answers for that, but they need to be the ones willing to set those limits and boundaries and decide what they're going to do, you know, and lots of situations like that, [00:39:00] or is it the case?
Or we also do a whole thing on time management. A lot of these young folks have not. Ever been exposed to a formal concept of time management and what are your priorities for the day, the week, the month, and how are you going to allocate your time and how your time allocation is a reflection of what you value, right?
So, so you know, all that is in our workbook. And so depending on what it is that they need, we do different things aside from all of that. I think one of the most powerful things that we do is that my wife and I do. All of these workshops together. We do them jointly. We give keynote addresses together Which is something almost nobody has ever seen like she and I will be on stage together delivering a keynote address or we'll be doing these workshops and we do it together and especially In black and brown communities where there's so much rhetoric and talk about, you know single mom households or the deadbeat [00:40:00] dad or the toxic relationship between You the parents, uh, or the complete separation between the parents in terms of what dad does and what mom does for them to see people who look like them, who sound like them, who have the same story as them together on stage, working together and creating greatness and inspiration is something that, well, I get choked up just talking about it because it's, As much as the techniques that we're showing them are really useful to them.
I understand that some of the biggest impact that we have is just our presence and the way that we go about doing that work, you know, it's something that so many of them have. When we talk, when I talk about, you know, seeing, dreaming something more than I was ever shown as a child, I know that's one of them.
You know, I know the relationship my parents had and how that how my household functioned I never could have envisioned for myself the relationship that I [00:41:00] have now, you know, so it's It's uh, it's such gratifying work and i'm so glad to be able to do it.
franklin: That, I mean, that's something to be so proud of. And you make such a good point because books are amazing. Workbooks are amazing, but the power of a role of a meaningful, relevant role model. Right. To look to, you know, I mean, it's just, you know, I don't think it can be overemphasized. I know that for me I had, you know, I come from a great family of great parents.
And in addition to that, I had just men that happened to be in my life all along the way. And I was just fortunate and blessed in that way to have good mentors and people that I could look to and go, okay, well, you know, that there's someone that's demonstrating what's possible. And so for y'all to step in and not just you individually, but as a couple show somebody what it can look like to be a man and a woman and to be like co creating together [00:42:00] something amazing, that's got to have so much of a, just a boost to the program itself, you know, cause you could just send that out and it'd have one level of impact, but for y'all to, you know, To be demonstrating that yourselves, that's just amazing.
paul: And it's really interesting because resonate with the audiences in different ways, right? And it's not always what you would expect for example You my, I think my original expectation was that a lot of my impact would be on the men and a lot of Esther's impact would be on the women.
And that is true, but unexpectedly it's also switched. So it's really important for the young women. To see that a positive male partner can happen, right, that it's not just that you know, you get married because you get pushed into it. And this is as good as it's going to get. And you sort of tolerate whatever comes afterwards.
Right. And at the same time, it's really important for the men. To see that there are [00:43:00] women who want to be partners who want to build collective power with them who want to You know who aren't they're not there as they're not there as gold diggers. They're not just baby mamas, right? You know what? I mean?
So that cross impact is something that has turned out to be really positive and powerful that I don't think that either of us expected Particularly when we started doing this work, but it's been tremendous, you know, and also for a lot of the community For a lot of the young men to be taught to, to see that that the women in their life can uplift them, like not just not belittle them, not berate them, not only see them as providers, but to actually see them as people and to value that.
And for the women. To be told by a man that they also have a superpower that they also have the capacity and the ability to live a limitless life, you know, anyway, it's it's [00:44:00] been such rewarding work and we're doing everything we can to sort of expand that.
franklin: Okay, I couldn't agree with all that more. The, you know, it's like the importance of my daughter seeing, you know, me being a loving husband. And my, the importance of my son seeing my wife being a, you know, a strong, loving, like, woman and wife in our home. Like, again, the role model from both sides.
It's not just boys that need men, male role models. They need to be to see What healthy, uh, you know, healthy feminine roles look like and vice versa.
paul: And I think that The action is really important like that doing and seeing of it, you know what I mean? And as I think about my relationship and my parents relationship and me as a child and all of that, I know that my parents would verbally say to each other all the time.
I love you. I love you. I love you And yet the action wasn't always there behind you know, so so You be you [00:45:00] acting as a loving father and doing the things that a loving father does and creating that example Does so much more than the words ever could know that? The reality the tangibility of I see now how it is that you do these things, you know, that's a lesson that's Seared in their minds and in their hearts forever.
franklin: I would love to know you know, as a man who did kind of break free from a lot of the expectations and the norms and you have a particular dynamic with your wife and you have a different perspective now on masculinity And I think you and I would both agree. There's a lot of confusion in the world as to what that is.
And there's, uh, you know, big swings and perspectives, but what, like, what do you, how would you define masculinity today? And what you see is the, you know, a beneficial and productive and positive version of masculinity that serves the world. Well, I would just love to hear kind of your thoughts on that.
paul: Okay I would say that what I would [00:46:00] want what I want to see as a functional accepted definition of masculinity Is one where? You look at a guy, you look at a person, it doesn't have to be just a guy, it can be anybody, but you look at a person and say that person, that guy is strong enough to be himself and strong enough to admit when he needs help.
So, so for me, the vulnerability is. And essential part of masculinity, right? Vulnerability means that you are opening up yourself to harm that's literally what the word means. And to me, if you are willing, if you are strong enough, if you are man enough to show, to open yourself up to potential harm, to me, that's, that is a pinnacle of strength.
[00:47:00] Because that's when you call on your collective power. That's when you call on the support system that you have. You know, and I think that one of the, one of the dangerous things about different concepts of masculinity, the machista concept of masculinity that I grew up with, is that it's extremely lonely.
You're expected to do this on your own. You're supposed to be, you're supposed to be this on your own. You should have, you shouldn't need any help for it. And the truth is that's not reality. That strength comes from all of us pulling together So so for me that concept of masculinity is one that has hurt men a lot I see it in my communities the mental health issues that come from Trying to be that version of masculinity and it's the thing is that not everyone fits that particular mold So as soon as you've given up that authenticity, you're going you're grinding against yourself You know, so, so for me, masculinity is a huge piece [00:48:00] about authenticity and being who you are and so that allowing that superpower to come out and then the vulnerability to say, the strength and vulnerability to be able to say when it is that I need to call on my community, you know, to me, those are the two big pieces of what I would want to see.
franklin: know the whole issue of isolation for men, I think is massively unhealthy. I mean, you taught, you mentioned, uh, mental health and emotional health and I mean, the stats are, Terrible. And the problem is rampant. And I think a lot of it is because of so much just isolation and inability to connect.
And, you know, not even most men don't even have friends that they can go to much less like, you know, open up in a meaningful way to their spouse or to their community. And so just getting past the fear and the, uh, the apprehension of, you know, what are people going to think when I share where I'm at and what I'm feeling and what I'm going through.
[00:49:00] And just changing the narrative on what that is and that you should or shouldn't be doing that.
paul: Yeah, it's a really fascinating thing. I'm I saw a thing not that long ago, but I think I couldn't agree with it more And it was they were basically doing this thing of stopping people on the street stopping men on the street And saying to them I will give you Five ten dollars if right now you call another guy on your phone in your contacts And tell that guy that you love him,
You know, and it was really fascinating because they People It was guy after guy and none of them could, there was one guy, one guy who at the end and it was amazing because he called his buddy and he, and without any other prompting, nothing, the guy picked up the phone on the other end and he says, I love you, man.
I love you too. And all this stuff. And you're like, wow. That. Why? Why is it that only that one guy out of. Dozens and dozens of guys that they stopped had that in his life, I think That's a huge [00:50:00] sign, you know that uh, the loneliness the disconnect that we have, you know that the inability to show that vulnerability that's been so ingrained in us that even as we interact as men oftentimes our conversations are very superficial You Oftentimes because we're sort of avoiding the elephant in the room a lot, you know So I think that's a barrier that needs to come down.
franklin: I could not agree more. I know that I've, the more I build close connections and, uh, and friendships with other men that I can really open up to the better I am mentally, emotionally, just in every way. It just is something so meaningful and beneficial. And I think men are just, they don't know they're desperate for it, but they're desperate
paul: Yeah, I mean just and it's just basic things man. They're like when you have and i'm not saying That you need to be like them like the gregarious life of [00:51:00] the party, you know Has a million friends because that's certainly not me you need You need a couple of guys who are not just your buddies, but your champions, right?
They're the people, they're your ride or die, and they're the people that are there for you. I promise you that you will make better decisions in your life just by having a couple of guys that it doesn't matter what the subject is. It doesn't matter how embarrassing you might think it is.
It doesn't matter how dark the thoughts may seem to you. By having one or two guys in your life that you can just bounce it off of doesn't matter what it is I guarantee you will make better choices You know, just being able to voice those things outside of your own body and not just keeping it here, you know, that's part of the collective power is making better decisions by sharing those ideas that, you know, whatever's in your head.
franklin: And then you show up as a better father because of it. You show up as a better husband.
paul: Absolutely. You show up [00:52:00] as the person that you want to be. You show up as the person who's ready to contribute to his family, to his community, to his country. In the best possible way.
franklin: Yeah, man. This has been really fun. Uh, I w I would love to give you a minute to just kind of talk about the work you're doing. I know that you got the book out and then you and your wife are all over the place making presentations, but please take a moment to share kind of what you're up to and your current mission and anything that could benefit somebody who would, you know, after they listened to this, feel a connection, want to reach out, look into more of what you do and, uh, because you've shared so much value today and I think it's really evident through our conversation that you've done a lot of deep work and that you've got a lot to offer and bring to the world.
And so we'd love to just give you a platform for a minute to kind of share anything on your heart.
paul: Amazing. Thank you so much. So a couple of things we, you know, BAC changes our business. So we do a lot [00:53:00] of public speaking. So anything from we do conferences, we do educational conferences corporate retreats. We do, we speak to a lot of employee resource groups. That sort of thing.
So I would love that. I really like that work, especially working with teams and people who have sort of a common mission and helping them reach that mission together is some of my favorite work. As I mentioned, we do a good amount of speaking also at universities, do lots of keynotes and that kind of thing.
And I would love to do more of that on the other side. We also recently opened a 501 C three. So It's called the BAC change movement. And what we want to do is actually reach a lot more of the school age kids. So the model for the BAC change movement is that basically Esther and I, and we have a core group of people that work with us, basically we'll be giving our time for free.
To all of these schools and anybody who wants to have us bring in and the 501 c3 is basically established [00:54:00] Only to raise money to purchase the workbooks So it's all of that will go straight to the kids in the schools and we give all of our time As pro bono and that's something that we want to bring we're hoping I'm hoping in the next couple of years actually that we as a family will take about a year You Touring the United States and taking this around so my Esther and I and our two kids on the road Doing that because I think that the earlier that we can start to make that kind of change is where we start to see Eventually that social movement, you know in a different direction and that's something that we believe in We're super committed to so so we're taking all the steps at this point to make that happen Other than that, we have our book called creating your limitless life You The workbook it's available Barnes and Noble, Amazon or whatever.
It's also available. Both are in the digital version for 99 cents. It's not a promotional price. That's our permanent price for those, because we know that growing up [00:55:00] dollars were tight sometimes. And we don't want. It ever to be the case that somebody who wants and needs that information is unable to access it because of the money.
So that's there. And then lastly, we have a website, bec change.com. You can find me on LinkedIn, Dr. Paul Rivera on LinkedIn, and we have a nice little Instagram page B dot act dot change. For us, community is a real thing. So. I invite anyone to, to reach out to me to connect with us and and I'm happy to be part of your community and your community of champions.
franklin: Awesome. Well, Paul, this is a, this has sure been a pleasure and, uh, and just really enjoyed the whole conversation. Uh, I'm going to conclude, you know, links to all the resources you mentioned in the show notes, uh, for anyone interested and, uh, just thank you for the work you and your wife are doing. Man it's just, it's needed at a level, you know, beyond what we probably even could imagine.
And so, but you making a dent in the world is, uh, is, uh, [00:56:00] very much appreciated. So thanks for your time. And I know this will serve some men in a meaningful way and just good luck and best of luck on the work that y'all are doing.
paul: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having and thank you for this platform. You know, I don't think that there's enough of positive voices and positive influences for men out there. So I think what you're doing also is tremendous and hugely valuable.
franklin: I appreciate that very much. All right, well, that wraps up this, uh, this episode. So thank you very much.