June 4, 2025 • 25 mins
Let's talk about the importance of communicating in business.
David Perez is an educator, a business english coach, and a podcast production and content strategy expert among other things. As a business english coach he specializes in helping non-native english speakers communicate effectively in business settings. As a podcast production and content strategist he helps brands, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders create, edit, and launch high-quality podcasts that resonate with their audience.
David is also the host of Fluent English Pro, a show dedicated to helping international professionals master English communication and leverage the power of podcasts.
You can find out more about David at his website TalkingSilkworm.com
Follow Marci Talks Money (and Life) wherever you get your podcasts to get the episodes as they post.
Visit MoneyMarci.com to check out other financial literacy resources.
David Perez is an educator, a business english coach, and a podcast production and content strategy expert among other things. As a business english coach he specializes in helping non-native english speakers communicate effectively in business settings. As a podcast production and content strategist he helps brands, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders create, edit, and launch high-quality podcasts that resonate with their audience.
David is also the host of Fluent English Pro, a show dedicated to helping international professionals master English communication and leverage the power of podcasts.
You can find out more about David at his website TalkingSilkworm.com
Follow Marci Talks Money (and Life) wherever you get your podcasts to get the episodes as they post.
Visit MoneyMarci.com to check out other financial literacy resources.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Powered by Riverside f M.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello, Welcome to Marcy talks money and life. I am Money, Marcy,
and I am continually in awe of the people I
get to talk to. My guest today is David Perez.
David is an educator, a business English coach, a podcast
production and content strategy expert, among other things, and as
(00:27):
a business English coach, he specializes in helping non native
English speakers communicate effectively in business settings. As a podcast
production and content strategist, he helps brands, entrepreneurs, and thought
leaders create, edit, and launch high quality podcasts that resonate
with their audience. He's also the host of Fluent English Pro,
(00:47):
a show dedicated to helping international professionals master English communication
and leverage the power of podcasts. Welcome David, Thank.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
You very much for having me, Marci.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh my god, that by it makes me look so
much bigger than I actually am.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But I'm glad. I'm glad you brought it up well.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean, you know, in this age of worldwide communication
and business, you're in this unique position to help people
be able to connect on so many different levels and
as well does help them understand the quality of what
they are connecting to what is your path? How did
you get here?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Oh my god, there are multiple answers to that. You
mean professionally, right, well, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
But I mean we are the sum of all of
our experience. So your personal brought you to your professional
experiences that you had.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, okay, it is good because this connects to the
money talk we're going to have. I have a degree
in foreign language education. I have worked as an English
teacher for quite some time. But there is a thing
with education, and see it is that sometimes this is
not very well paid, and sometimes contracts are quite short,
(01:57):
even if you work at university level, which is what
I used to do.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I used to be a university teacher.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
And these contracts are way too short. Like I am
getting four month contracts. I got a family, I got responsibilities,
I got children, and those are like those around for
twelve months a year, not for four months a year.
So I decided to start a side gig. I learned
to edit audio for podcasts. I specialized in it, and
my side gig ended up becoming my main business and
(02:27):
my main income. So I ended up quitting the university.
I mean I still teach there occasionally, but it was
a decision of making sure I had multiple streams of
income and that I will not put my family's well
being and my own well being at risk, because when
you have a single stream of income, things can happen,
(02:49):
and like you can have something and then have nothing
the next day. So it was a life lessen and
it has brought me a lot of inner peace and
also a lot of well wealth.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Not in the sense that I'm a meetnaer, because I'm
not yet, but.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
In the sense that I don't no longer have to
worry about making nands meat, and that is such a
piece of mind, amazing, huge piece of mind.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
That definitely is. You know, so many people live paycheck
to paycheck. They are one health issue, one car issue,
one whatever from being stuck into debt, and once you're
in that mud pit, it just keeps sucking you down.
So getting above that and getting the multiple streams of
income is huge.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You are in Colombia, correct, Yes, I'm based in Colombia,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So you know a lot of the financial things are
different than in the US, and a lot of them
are the same. But what you're able to do to
help people become better able as English learners to communicate.
I believe English is one of the significant languages for
business around the world, and you have to be able
to communicate.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
That's right, Marcy.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I am very mindful about the meaning of work and
making sure your work is something that actually brings transformation
to other people's lives for the best. So in the
case of being an English tutor and an English teacher,
I have seen with my own eyes how people's careers
have evolved because they have been able to improve their
(04:18):
level of English. So now they just don't have the
local company looking for them, but now they have opportunities
to work abroad, who take classes, to do a master's
degree abroad, you know, to have access to scholarships. So
it's been a very rewarding experience. So to see my
students advance in life because of this, it is really
(04:41):
amazing to see how they operate. All a world of
opportunities opens up for them.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, I mean we are and I don't think this
is just English speakers, but if someone doesn't speak our language,
well we don't necessarily realize all the things that they're
capable of because they can't communicate, whether it's them understanding
us or us understand if you can't bridge that communication gap,
it's going to get in the way of your opportunities.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, it reminds me of the fiavor Garai and Motor. Finally,
you know, she's Colombian but the series is English, of course,
and like she goes and she says like, hey, do
you know how smart I'm Spanish? Yes?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
We had we had a family friend growing up and
she was from Hungary and she was multi lingual, but
her English, you know, some of her grammar, some of
her pronunciation, and she was very frustrated. Here is this
brilliant woman. She speaks more languages than I do. Her
English is definitely better than my Hungarian. And yet people
(05:38):
were treating her as if she wasn't all there because
her English wasn't native fluency. And we miss opportunities when
we don't recognize people beyond the language. But I have
you here to talk about more than just language, because
as a as a content creator and as the strategist
(05:58):
and all that, you're in this position to help people
understand how to find quality content, how to understand when
when what they're getting is good and when what they're
getting might not be the quality information they hope.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it totally happens.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
When you are behind the scenes of content production, you
get to see.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
What is real and what is not.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And there is a lot of fake information in fake
content online that people just believe because I mean, it
looks like it's going to help them solve their problems,
so they jump in, they buy that course, they do
go to that event, But in the end, it's not
it's not real.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And how would people be able to tell what's real
and whatnot because you can, you can make up your content,
pull it out of the air, and yet you polish
it so nicely and you do the presentation and you
do whatever, and it looks good.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yes, well, I think the first thing as a consumer,
when you're looking for content, let's say, for example, we're
looking for content that refers to improving my personal finances
or getting out of that Yeah, the first sign of
alert is content that is way too generic and that
promises results. You say, Okay, I have a debt, but
(07:10):
what kind of depth do you have, how much do
you owe, what is duration of this depth?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
What is your current income in comparison to the depth
you have?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
But if a person wants to come and give you
a one size fits all solution.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Be wary, be wary of that, because there is not
such thing.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
And I think you have covered or you will cover
this in the other episodes, Marcie. If you have a
student loan, that's one way to tackle it. But if
you have a spending habit, because maybe you have an
addiction to gambling, that's a different thing.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
There is no one solution to everything.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
That's the first thing. The other aspect is they get
quick solutions with little effort or with no effort, that
effortless thing, and then out of the blue, you're going
to switch from having minus one hundred thousand in your
imbalances to plus a million plus two million dollars just
because you did this hack or just because you took
(08:05):
this course. So just because that's that's a lie. That's
a lie building up financial wealth. Sorry, financial health, that's
the term. Financial health. Does not happen overnight. It doesn't
happen because you follow that influencers. Doesn't happen because you
bought a course. And I know because I've been there,
I have been through that process. It is a step
by step thing, and it is healing both your habits,
(08:27):
your emotions and your actions so your your finances get better.
Is not an overnight thing. So if you're promised overnight
results amazing things ferrari or like trip to the Bahamas
and that kind.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Of thing, it's not real. It isn't real.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And the third element there, Marcy, is what is that
creator's background when it comes to the type of content
here is referring to let me give you an example.
This is extremely common. There are a lot of Okay,
there are some creators that sell courses and create content
about how to get rich by selling real state.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So they speak a lot of that blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
When you find out where their money comes from, they
have never sold real state.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Maybe they have money.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Because they inherited it or because they used a marketing
campaigner like, but they didn't actually make their money from
selling real state. Yet they are teaching you how to
get rich via real state, you know so. Or the
other thing is they tell you, Okay, this course or
this book is going to fix your problems in terms
of how to get rich. But the way they got
(09:34):
rich was by selling the book, not by doing the
things that are in the book. This is extremely common,
so you have to pay attention that the person that
you're listening to actually.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Walked the walk. A lot of them is just marketing
and they just doing the talk.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
They're making money from selling you the course and selling
you the book and selling you the thing. But they
didn't actually fix their issues or they didn't actually make
their money from while they're teaching.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, maybe they did, because if I sell a million
copies of my book for ten dollars a copy because
it's going to teach you how to get rich, the
fact that the whole book is print a book and
get people to buy copies of it, then they told
you exactly how they did it. But I can't imagine
what they spend on the marketing and on the other
(10:22):
aspects of it so that they can, you know, sell
ten million copies of their book. I'm you know, follow
me and take my course and you're going to have
one hundred thousand dollars a year income. I would I
would love to see their tax returns. I'm a CPA,
that's my background. Show me your tax return. Let's let's
see what you're saying. But when we see people and
(10:45):
we see what appears to be their wealth because it's
their spending. We have no idea what they paid for it.
We have no idea what's in debt. We have no
idea what is just faked images. Yeah, but you know,
it's it's scary because you never know when you when
you follow, when you when you look at buying a course,
(11:06):
you know, oh, look there are all these positive reviews.
Well who put those reviews up there. It's it's a
scary world out there to go and buy a class
or or buy even a book.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, you don't know what the profit margins are, Yeah,
because they can show you I made two hundred thousand
dollars in revenue last month. Yeah, but how much of
that they have to used to pay their marketing spend
or the ferrari and the luxury mansion they rented for
(11:39):
the ad.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So yeah, a lot of that is actually going.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Back to the business, or used to pay taxes, or
used to pay like operational expenses, and the profit.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Margin usually is very small.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
They show you what this also happens in photography, Like
you take a photo and you can retouch it and
you can like clean up the the the act and
I make people look nicer and I make this smile brighter.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
The same thing applies to marketing.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
They show you the pretty side of things, but they
won't show you what's behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
David, how do you help people recognize that? And what
would you do if you had a client that came
to you for their production and whatever else and you
know they are a snake oil salesman. You know that
they're going to pay you, and your job is to
do the production. Is that a problem for you when
you know it is?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
It is going back to one of the initial ideas
in the conversation, Marching. I am very mindful about the
value of work and how that positively impacts people's lives,
and that's something I apply both as a teacher and
as a podcast producer. And there are people I do
not work with. There are two reasons I don't work
with people. One is because I don't understand their business
(12:51):
and I don't understand their industry, so like I cannot
help them because my job goes beyond yes, editing audio.
My job goes to the point of making sure the
audience gets the message. And the other aspect is because
it is industries that do not or creators that do
not actually provide value and will being to their audience.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And I don't have a problem with saying no to
these people. I'm sure somebody else will.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Accept them and take them as clients, because that's how
the market works. But in my case, I would rather
focus on people that I know bring a lot of value.
I don't have a problem in making less money because
I am onboarding the right client. Like work is not
about not just about money. Of course, of course money
plays an important role there, but not something that you
(13:37):
do no matter what, don't matter, because yes, you have
to be mindful about who you're serving and why you're
doing what you're doing. So it's okay for me to
say no, I'm not going to work with you. I
will not give the reasons, of course, but I will
just take a step aside.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Okay, well, I mean that's much easier to do David,
now that you've reached this point where you've got the
multiple streams and you've got that financial stability. That may
have been harder to do beginning when you were starting,
but it is good to be in a position where
you can financially comfortably say no to those people. It's
it's got to be hard when you are just starting
out or when you're coming from a place of a
(14:12):
massive financial shortfall. You know that's hard.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I am luckily at a point where I am able
to make that choice.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
But for someone.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Who is new in business and they need to get
a portfolio, and they need to get more reputation and
they get to need more income. So in that case,
I understand they might need to make those decisions even
though they are not happy with them, and eventually they
could just let the client go or keep the client
as they prefer.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So how do you suggest to people that they would
spot the red flags that you know it's more than
just hey, overnight, you're going to get this money? And
how do you check to see whether someone you know
really walk the walk? Are there certain I don't know
if it's words or how they hide their affiliate or
(15:01):
what is available to the common person out there looking
for podcasts or instagrams or whatever to follow. What can
they do David to prevent falling into a trap?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah, okay, I already pinpointed a few items such as
checking the creator's background, expecting overnight results with very little
effort or just overnight results, even if it's a lot
of effort. But I will say not necessarily the reflags,
but the green flags that you can focus on.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Well like that even better, I think the green flags.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And I'm saying this because I recently started a contract
with people who held English teachers have more clients. And
I like that because they were real, Like, they didn't
show me I was gonna have overnight results. They showed
me a process we're gonna sell you is we're gonna
well walk with you throughout this process. It's gonna be
(15:55):
a three month, a six month, a nine month process,
and yes, we're gonna have results. Also we're going to
have situations that we don't like. Yeah, so we're going
to have ups and downs. But this is a process
that we have tested and we have been improving with
other teachers, so you can get results. They were honest
about it. They were clear that this is a mid term,
long term process. Is that an over ninth thing. It
(16:16):
takes work, it takes evolution to achieve the results. And
also you're going to have the positives that are going
to happen gradually, and you're going to have the negatives
because sometimes and I'm sure you have work with a
lot of business and you have seen this, Marsie, even
though you do the right thing, the.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Results might not be what you expect.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
You can do everything by the book, do the thing correctly,
but the formula, even though perfect as it might look,
the market or the circumstances or whatever else that is
outside of your control is going to affect the outcome.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So they were very real about it. They were very
real about.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
The expectations, the time it takes to achieve the results,
the pros and the counts, the ups and the downs.
That's a real thing. That is a very thing. So
if you have a content creator who is showing you process,
who show you a step by step for resulting in
six months, in one year, in two years, and they
tell you like not only the pretty things but also
(17:12):
the ugly things, they always come hand in hand. If
they show you both sides of the coin, that's a
person you can trust. Of course, you have to do
the observation anyway, check the background, check everything else. But
I think that it's a huge green flag in that case.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I like that when it's possible, I like to look
for the positives so I like the idea of looking
for the green flags rather than the red flags. Before
you decided to step from education because the four month
contracts and whatever else, was this on your radar or
was this just part of an evolution that because of
the things you knew from teaching English and teaching into
(17:50):
university and whatever else that with technology the way it
went and all of that. Because you were into podcasting
and that kind of stuff before COVID, before the world
turned to the internet, you were already doing this international
in this English and this podcasting and stuff. So so
many people pivoted because of COVID because it changed what
(18:13):
their options were, and you were ahead of that curve
on everything. How early did this start looking like you
wanted to pivot in this direction?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Okay, okay, that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And your money choices and your financial code choices have
to do have a lot to do with your beliefs,
and a lot of that with their unconscious beliefs. I
never planned to be a business owner. I kind of
fell into being a business owner because the way I
was raised, Like both my parents are teachers, they are scholars,
(18:45):
and I was raised to be a teacher. So like
the type of model that works for them in their
time was you graduate from university and then you go
work at a university or school for fifty years or
for forty years until you retire, because at that time
you had that opportunity. Is like a stable contrast and
all that not a true thing anymore, sadly in many cases.
(19:07):
So I grew up with that mindset, you know, like
being an employee for an institution. For many, many years,
I never thought of having a business running a business,
but then I realized the circumstances in the present are
not the same, and there there came a moment where
there was so much uncertainty that I started exploring other
(19:28):
possibilities for income, and that all opened a whole new
world for me. It was very organic. I never planned
to be at this point.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Now I do it.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Mindfully, of course, now I do plan, but for the
like the beginning stage, it just happened, and like I
got a client, and then I got another client, and
then okay, I'm cool with this. And then at one
point I was not able to get more work or
more clients because I was so busy. So then I
hired my first employee, and then I hired a second
one and a third one and then realize, Okay, this
(20:00):
is something that is going to continue growing and I
need some structure and I need some information and education
about it. So since then I have been trying to
learn more stuff related to business, and that has also
impacted my profession as a teacher. But just I don't
see myself as a teacher for a university anymore. I
see myself as a teacher who can provide value online,
(20:24):
Like I'm not just going to provide that value to
a person in the classroom based on the conditions provided
by a particular institution. I can do it on my
terms and to a wider audience. Oh and to answer
your question, how I had was that. I think I
started back in two thousand and seventeen, so it was
(20:44):
not a COVID related thing, Luckily, it was more of
a situation derived from the lack of stability at my
job at that time.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
You bring that up, and I think that's awesome because
we talk about how circumstances are different. Parents are like, well,
at your age, I had built a house or I
was already married, and that's fine. There are a lot
of people I know that are getting married, you know,
at younger ages that are buying houses and whatever else.
(21:14):
But the financial circumstances, at least here in the US,
are different. The ratio of average income to cost of
university or to cost of house, or to all of
these other things. Time has changed. The people who are
twenty now face a different world than the people who
are twenty twenty years ago, and the people who are
(21:35):
twenty forty years ago. Their opportunities, their reality of expenses
and life and income and whatever, is totally different. There
are some opportunities that there are much more of, and
some opportunities that there are much less of. And as
an older person like myself, I have to remember that,
(21:57):
and when I am talking to people who are be
open to the fact that what my experiences were and
what their experiences are financially are different. And that means
that they have to look at things differently and make
decisions differently as they plan for their financial future.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's a tricky thing because sometimes
the way we view money is so ingrained, ingrained in
how we were raised, Like there is an emotional component
to it, like you have that loyalty to your parents
because this is what they taught you. So usually parents
are right, quote unquote right, and you have to do
as they did, and if you don't, then you're feeding
(22:40):
your parents in a way. It happens not just with
money but with everything. But it's a different world. It's
a very different world. It's not the eighties anymore. In
my case, like even though my parents exists, or for him,
the world is still like that.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
It is not like that.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
But I think becoming aware of that, bringing that from
the unconscious to the conscious mind is very important.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Right, we are a part, as I said earlier, of
the experiences we have. We learned what our parents taught
us by saying it, we learned by what we witnessed
our parents doing. Whether we understood their motivation or their
perspective when they made those decisions is a whole different issue.
But we saw and whether we realize it or not,
we're basing decisions we make now on the on the
(23:22):
things we learned. Some of them we say, because they
did this, I am not going to do this, and
others we say, because they did that, that's what I'm
going to do. And it's hard. There is there is
the loyalty and the respect, and there is the but
this is a different world I've got than what they had.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, I agree with that. Wow, I have.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Really enjoyed talking to you as I did last time
as well. I was on your podcast a couple of
years ago as well. Well, that's all I talk about.
You talk about everything. I'm Monny Marci, So that's that's
my knowledge area. Have you got anything you'd like to
share before we wrap up?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Just I appreciate what you're doing, Marsie.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I was at some point I was in a time
in my life where I was dealing with scarcity and
lack of money and making bad decisions and making stupid
decisions money decisions that brought me a lot of problems.
And thanks to creators as yourself who are giving real advice,
who are giving amazing recommendations and amazing strategies for people
(24:24):
to improve their lives, I was able to change my
financial situation for the better and improve the quality of
my life and my family life. So I really appreciate
what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Well, well, thank you. I hope I can keep spreading
this world and sharing it and getting people like you
to talk to me and share their stories. It's phenomenal
because we learn by stories. So everyone, thank you so
much for stopping and visiting with me. David Perez, I
will be posting your links in the show notes. This
(24:58):
is money, Marci, and thank you for stopping by. Marcy
Talks Money and Life. You got this, Sia, thank you
Powered by Riverside f M.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello, Welcome to Marcy talks money and life. I am Money, Marcy,
and I am continually in awe of the people I
get to talk to. My guest today is David Perez.
David is an educator, a business English coach, a podcast
production and content strategy expert, among other things, and as
(00:27):
a business English coach, he specializes in helping non native
English speakers communicate effectively in business settings. As a podcast
production and content strategist, he helps brands, entrepreneurs, and thought
leaders create, edit, and launch high quality podcasts that resonate
with their audience. He's also the host of Fluent English Pro,
(00:47):
a show dedicated to helping international professionals master English communication
and leverage the power of podcasts. Welcome David, Thank.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
You very much for having me, Marci.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh my god, that by it makes me look so
much bigger than I actually am.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But I'm glad. I'm glad you brought it up well.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean, you know, in this age of worldwide communication
and business, you're in this unique position to help people
be able to connect on so many different levels and
as well does help them understand the quality of what
they are connecting to what is your path? How did
you get here?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Oh my god, there are multiple answers to that. You
mean professionally, right, well, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
But I mean we are the sum of all of
our experience. So your personal brought you to your professional
experiences that you had.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, okay, it is good because this connects to the
money talk we're going to have. I have a degree
in foreign language education. I have worked as an English
teacher for quite some time. But there is a thing
with education, and see it is that sometimes this is
not very well paid, and sometimes contracts are quite short,
(01:57):
even if you work at university level, which is what
I used to do.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I used to be a university teacher.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
And these contracts are way too short. Like I am
getting four month contracts. I got a family, I got responsibilities,
I got children, and those are like those around for
twelve months a year, not for four months a year.
So I decided to start a side gig. I learned
to edit audio for podcasts. I specialized in it, and
my side gig ended up becoming my main business and
(02:27):
my main income. So I ended up quitting the university.
I mean I still teach there occasionally, but it was
a decision of making sure I had multiple streams of
income and that I will not put my family's well
being and my own well being at risk, because when
you have a single stream of income, things can happen,
(02:49):
and like you can have something and then have nothing
the next day. So it was a life lessen and
it has brought me a lot of inner peace and
also a lot of well wealth.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Not in the sense that I'm a meetnaer, because I'm
not yet, but.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
In the sense that I don't no longer have to
worry about making nands meat, and that is such a
piece of mind, amazing, huge piece of mind.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
That definitely is. You know, so many people live paycheck
to paycheck. They are one health issue, one car issue,
one whatever from being stuck into debt, and once you're
in that mud pit, it just keeps sucking you down.
So getting above that and getting the multiple streams of
income is huge.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You are in Colombia, correct, Yes, I'm based in Colombia,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So you know a lot of the financial things are
different than in the US, and a lot of them
are the same. But what you're able to do to
help people become better able as English learners to communicate.
I believe English is one of the significant languages for
business around the world, and you have to be able
to communicate.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
That's right, Marcy.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I am very mindful about the meaning of work and
making sure your work is something that actually brings transformation
to other people's lives for the best. So in the
case of being an English tutor and an English teacher,
I have seen with my own eyes how people's careers
have evolved because they have been able to improve their
(04:18):
level of English. So now they just don't have the
local company looking for them, but now they have opportunities
to work abroad, who take classes, to do a master's
degree abroad, you know, to have access to scholarships. So
it's been a very rewarding experience. So to see my
students advance in life because of this, it is really
(04:41):
amazing to see how they operate. All a world of
opportunities opens up for them.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, I mean we are and I don't think this
is just English speakers, but if someone doesn't speak our language,
well we don't necessarily realize all the things that they're
capable of because they can't communicate, whether it's them understanding
us or us understand if you can't bridge that communication gap,
it's going to get in the way of your opportunities.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, it reminds me of the fiavor Garai and Motor. Finally,
you know, she's Colombian but the series is English, of course,
and like she goes and she says like, hey, do
you know how smart I'm Spanish? Yes?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
We had we had a family friend growing up and
she was from Hungary and she was multi lingual, but
her English, you know, some of her grammar, some of
her pronunciation, and she was very frustrated. Here is this
brilliant woman. She speaks more languages than I do. Her
English is definitely better than my Hungarian. And yet people
(05:38):
were treating her as if she wasn't all there because
her English wasn't native fluency. And we miss opportunities when
we don't recognize people beyond the language. But I have
you here to talk about more than just language, because
as a as a content creator and as the strategist
(05:58):
and all that, you're in this position to help people
understand how to find quality content, how to understand when
when what they're getting is good and when what they're
getting might not be the quality information they hope.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it totally happens.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
When you are behind the scenes of content production, you
get to see.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
What is real and what is not.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And there is a lot of fake information in fake
content online that people just believe because I mean, it
looks like it's going to help them solve their problems,
so they jump in, they buy that course, they do
go to that event, But in the end, it's not
it's not real.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And how would people be able to tell what's real
and whatnot because you can, you can make up your content,
pull it out of the air, and yet you polish
it so nicely and you do the presentation and you
do whatever, and it looks good.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yes, well, I think the first thing as a consumer,
when you're looking for content, let's say, for example, we're
looking for content that refers to improving my personal finances
or getting out of that Yeah, the first sign of
alert is content that is way too generic and that
promises results. You say, Okay, I have a debt, but
(07:10):
what kind of depth do you have, how much do
you owe, what is duration of this depth?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
What is your current income in comparison to the depth
you have?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
But if a person wants to come and give you
a one size fits all solution.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Be wary, be wary of that, because there is not
such thing.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
And I think you have covered or you will cover
this in the other episodes, Marcie. If you have a
student loan, that's one way to tackle it. But if
you have a spending habit, because maybe you have an
addiction to gambling, that's a different thing.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
There is no one solution to everything.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
That's the first thing. The other aspect is they get
quick solutions with little effort or with no effort, that
effortless thing, and then out of the blue, you're going
to switch from having minus one hundred thousand in your
imbalances to plus a million plus two million dollars just
because you did this hack or just because you took
(08:05):
this course. So just because that's that's a lie. That's
a lie building up financial wealth. Sorry, financial health, that's
the term. Financial health. Does not happen overnight. It doesn't
happen because you follow that influencers. Doesn't happen because you
bought a course. And I know because I've been there,
I have been through that process. It is a step
by step thing, and it is healing both your habits,
(08:27):
your emotions and your actions so your your finances get better.
Is not an overnight thing. So if you're promised overnight
results amazing things ferrari or like trip to the Bahamas
and that kind.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Of thing, it's not real. It isn't real.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And the third element there, Marcy, is what is that
creator's background when it comes to the type of content
here is referring to let me give you an example.
This is extremely common. There are a lot of Okay,
there are some creators that sell courses and create content
about how to get rich by selling real state.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So they speak a lot of that blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
When you find out where their money comes from, they
have never sold real state.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Maybe they have money.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Because they inherited it or because they used a marketing
campaigner like, but they didn't actually make their money from
selling real state. Yet they are teaching you how to
get rich via real state, you know so. Or the
other thing is they tell you, Okay, this course or
this book is going to fix your problems in terms
of how to get rich. But the way they got
(09:34):
rich was by selling the book, not by doing the
things that are in the book. This is extremely common,
so you have to pay attention that the person that
you're listening to actually.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Walked the walk. A lot of them is just marketing
and they just doing the talk.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
They're making money from selling you the course and selling
you the book and selling you the thing. But they
didn't actually fix their issues or they didn't actually make
their money from while they're teaching.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, maybe they did, because if I sell a million
copies of my book for ten dollars a copy because
it's going to teach you how to get rich, the
fact that the whole book is print a book and
get people to buy copies of it, then they told
you exactly how they did it. But I can't imagine
what they spend on the marketing and on the other
(10:22):
aspects of it so that they can, you know, sell
ten million copies of their book. I'm you know, follow
me and take my course and you're going to have
one hundred thousand dollars a year income. I would I
would love to see their tax returns. I'm a CPA,
that's my background. Show me your tax return. Let's let's
see what you're saying. But when we see people and
(10:45):
we see what appears to be their wealth because it's
their spending. We have no idea what they paid for it.
We have no idea what's in debt. We have no
idea what is just faked images. Yeah, but you know,
it's it's scary because you never know when you when
you follow, when you when you look at buying a course,
(11:06):
you know, oh, look there are all these positive reviews.
Well who put those reviews up there. It's it's a
scary world out there to go and buy a class
or or buy even a book.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, you don't know what the profit margins are, Yeah,
because they can show you I made two hundred thousand
dollars in revenue last month. Yeah, but how much of
that they have to used to pay their marketing spend
or the ferrari and the luxury mansion they rented for
(11:39):
the ad.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So yeah, a lot of that is actually going.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Back to the business, or used to pay taxes, or
used to pay like operational expenses, and the profit.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Margin usually is very small.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
They show you what this also happens in photography, Like
you take a photo and you can retouch it and
you can like clean up the the the act and
I make people look nicer and I make this smile brighter.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
The same thing applies to marketing.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
They show you the pretty side of things, but they
won't show you what's behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
David, how do you help people recognize that? And what
would you do if you had a client that came
to you for their production and whatever else and you
know they are a snake oil salesman. You know that
they're going to pay you, and your job is to
do the production. Is that a problem for you when
you know it is?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
It is going back to one of the initial ideas
in the conversation, Marching. I am very mindful about the
value of work and how that positively impacts people's lives,
and that's something I apply both as a teacher and
as a podcast producer. And there are people I do
not work with. There are two reasons I don't work
with people. One is because I don't understand their business
(12:51):
and I don't understand their industry, so like I cannot
help them because my job goes beyond yes, editing audio.
My job goes to the point of making sure the
audience gets the message. And the other aspect is because
it is industries that do not or creators that do
not actually provide value and will being to their audience.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And I don't have a problem with saying no to
these people. I'm sure somebody else will.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Accept them and take them as clients, because that's how
the market works. But in my case, I would rather
focus on people that I know bring a lot of value.
I don't have a problem in making less money because
I am onboarding the right client. Like work is not
about not just about money. Of course, of course money
plays an important role there, but not something that you
(13:37):
do no matter what, don't matter, because yes, you have
to be mindful about who you're serving and why you're
doing what you're doing. So it's okay for me to
say no, I'm not going to work with you. I
will not give the reasons, of course, but I will
just take a step aside.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Okay, well, I mean that's much easier to do David,
now that you've reached this point where you've got the
multiple streams and you've got that financial stability. That may
have been harder to do beginning when you were starting,
but it is good to be in a position where
you can financially comfortably say no to those people. It's
it's got to be hard when you are just starting
out or when you're coming from a place of a
(14:12):
massive financial shortfall. You know that's hard.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I am luckily at a point where I am able
to make that choice.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
But for someone.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Who is new in business and they need to get
a portfolio, and they need to get more reputation and
they get to need more income. So in that case,
I understand they might need to make those decisions even
though they are not happy with them, and eventually they
could just let the client go or keep the client
as they prefer.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So how do you suggest to people that they would
spot the red flags that you know it's more than
just hey, overnight, you're going to get this money? And
how do you check to see whether someone you know
really walk the walk? Are there certain I don't know
if it's words or how they hide their affiliate or
(15:01):
what is available to the common person out there looking
for podcasts or instagrams or whatever to follow. What can
they do David to prevent falling into a trap?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah, okay, I already pinpointed a few items such as
checking the creator's background, expecting overnight results with very little
effort or just overnight results, even if it's a lot
of effort. But I will say not necessarily the reflags,
but the green flags that you can focus on.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Well like that even better, I think the green flags.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And I'm saying this because I recently started a contract
with people who held English teachers have more clients. And
I like that because they were real, Like, they didn't
show me I was gonna have overnight results. They showed
me a process we're gonna sell you is we're gonna
well walk with you throughout this process. It's gonna be
(15:55):
a three month, a six month, a nine month process,
and yes, we're gonna have results. Also we're going to
have situations that we don't like. Yeah, so we're going
to have ups and downs. But this is a process
that we have tested and we have been improving with
other teachers, so you can get results. They were honest
about it. They were clear that this is a mid term,
long term process. Is that an over ninth thing. It
(16:16):
takes work, it takes evolution to achieve the results. And
also you're going to have the positives that are going
to happen gradually, and you're going to have the negatives
because sometimes and I'm sure you have work with a
lot of business and you have seen this, Marsie, even
though you do the right thing, the.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Results might not be what you expect.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
You can do everything by the book, do the thing correctly,
but the formula, even though perfect as it might look,
the market or the circumstances or whatever else that is
outside of your control is going to affect the outcome.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So they were very real about it. They were very
real about.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
The expectations, the time it takes to achieve the results,
the pros and the counts, the ups and the downs.
That's a real thing. That is a very thing. So
if you have a content creator who is showing you process,
who show you a step by step for resulting in
six months, in one year, in two years, and they
tell you like not only the pretty things but also
(17:12):
the ugly things, they always come hand in hand. If
they show you both sides of the coin, that's a
person you can trust. Of course, you have to do
the observation anyway, check the background, check everything else. But
I think that it's a huge green flag in that case.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I like that when it's possible, I like to look
for the positives so I like the idea of looking
for the green flags rather than the red flags. Before
you decided to step from education because the four month
contracts and whatever else, was this on your radar or
was this just part of an evolution that because of
the things you knew from teaching English and teaching into
(17:50):
university and whatever else that with technology the way it
went and all of that. Because you were into podcasting
and that kind of stuff before COVID, before the world
turned to the internet, you were already doing this international
in this English and this podcasting and stuff. So so
many people pivoted because of COVID because it changed what
(18:13):
their options were, and you were ahead of that curve
on everything. How early did this start looking like you
wanted to pivot in this direction?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Okay, okay, that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And your money choices and your financial code choices have
to do have a lot to do with your beliefs,
and a lot of that with their unconscious beliefs. I
never planned to be a business owner. I kind of
fell into being a business owner because the way I
was raised, Like both my parents are teachers, they are scholars,
(18:45):
and I was raised to be a teacher. So like
the type of model that works for them in their
time was you graduate from university and then you go
work at a university or school for fifty years or
for forty years until you retire, because at that time
you had that opportunity. Is like a stable contrast and
all that not a true thing anymore, sadly in many cases.
(19:07):
So I grew up with that mindset, you know, like
being an employee for an institution. For many, many years,
I never thought of having a business running a business,
but then I realized the circumstances in the present are
not the same, and there there came a moment where
there was so much uncertainty that I started exploring other
(19:28):
possibilities for income, and that all opened a whole new
world for me. It was very organic. I never planned
to be at this point.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Now I do it.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Mindfully, of course, now I do plan, but for the
like the beginning stage, it just happened, and like I
got a client, and then I got another client, and
then okay, I'm cool with this. And then at one
point I was not able to get more work or
more clients because I was so busy. So then I
hired my first employee, and then I hired a second
one and a third one and then realize, Okay, this
(20:00):
is something that is going to continue growing and I
need some structure and I need some information and education
about it. So since then I have been trying to
learn more stuff related to business, and that has also
impacted my profession as a teacher. But just I don't
see myself as a teacher for a university anymore. I
see myself as a teacher who can provide value online,
(20:24):
Like I'm not just going to provide that value to
a person in the classroom based on the conditions provided
by a particular institution. I can do it on my
terms and to a wider audience. Oh and to answer
your question, how I had was that. I think I
started back in two thousand and seventeen, so it was
(20:44):
not a COVID related thing, Luckily, it was more of
a situation derived from the lack of stability at my
job at that time.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
You bring that up, and I think that's awesome because
we talk about how circumstances are different. Parents are like, well,
at your age, I had built a house or I
was already married, and that's fine. There are a lot
of people I know that are getting married, you know,
at younger ages that are buying houses and whatever else.
(21:14):
But the financial circumstances, at least here in the US,
are different. The ratio of average income to cost of
university or to cost of house, or to all of
these other things. Time has changed. The people who are
twenty now face a different world than the people who
are twenty twenty years ago, and the people who are
(21:35):
twenty forty years ago. Their opportunities, their reality of expenses
and life and income and whatever, is totally different. There
are some opportunities that there are much more of, and
some opportunities that there are much less of. And as
an older person like myself, I have to remember that,
(21:57):
and when I am talking to people who are be
open to the fact that what my experiences were and
what their experiences are financially are different. And that means
that they have to look at things differently and make
decisions differently as they plan for their financial future.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's a tricky thing because sometimes
the way we view money is so ingrained, ingrained in
how we were raised, Like there is an emotional component
to it, like you have that loyalty to your parents
because this is what they taught you. So usually parents
are right, quote unquote right, and you have to do
as they did, and if you don't, then you're feeding
(22:40):
your parents in a way. It happens not just with
money but with everything. But it's a different world. It's
a very different world. It's not the eighties anymore. In
my case, like even though my parents exists, or for him,
the world is still like that.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
It is not like that.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
But I think becoming aware of that, bringing that from
the unconscious to the conscious mind is very important.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Right, we are a part, as I said earlier, of
the experiences we have. We learned what our parents taught
us by saying it, we learned by what we witnessed
our parents doing. Whether we understood their motivation or their
perspective when they made those decisions is a whole different issue.
But we saw and whether we realize it or not,
we're basing decisions we make now on the on the
(23:22):
things we learned. Some of them we say, because they
did this, I am not going to do this, and
others we say, because they did that, that's what I'm
going to do. And it's hard. There is there is
the loyalty and the respect, and there is the but
this is a different world I've got than what they had.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, I agree with that. Wow, I have.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Really enjoyed talking to you as I did last time
as well. I was on your podcast a couple of
years ago as well. Well, that's all I talk about.
You talk about everything. I'm Monny Marci, So that's that's
my knowledge area. Have you got anything you'd like to
share before we wrap up?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Just I appreciate what you're doing, Marsie.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I was at some point I was in a time
in my life where I was dealing with scarcity and
lack of money and making bad decisions and making stupid
decisions money decisions that brought me a lot of problems.
And thanks to creators as yourself who are giving real advice,
who are giving amazing recommendations and amazing strategies for people
(24:24):
to improve their lives, I was able to change my
financial situation for the better and improve the quality of
my life and my family life. So I really appreciate
what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Well, well, thank you. I hope I can keep spreading
this world and sharing it and getting people like you
to talk to me and share their stories. It's phenomenal
because we learn by stories. So everyone, thank you so
much for stopping and visiting with me. David Perez, I
will be posting your links in the show notes. This
(24:58):
is money, Marci, and thank you for stopping by. Marcy
Talks Money and Life. You got this, Sia, thank you
Host
Marci Grossman
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