mike-delgado-2020-06-04.mp3

Mike Delgado: [00:00:00] I feel that my calling at the deepest level is to help encourage and empower others in their work, whatever it is, I want to be inspiring. I want to empower. I want to encourage. So when I go into work, like what I get a kick out of and what I really enjoy in my work is that I get a chance to work with a team and think about how can I encourage this person today? How can I help elevate them in their work? How can I be a really good mirror? Because some people have grown up where they've been told horrible things about themselves. I feel like my calling my why is like, how can I make their life better? How can I be a good mirror? You shine out and recognize those people are doing really, really well and let them know that sometimes that it's hard for them to see it in themselves. Or if you recognize it and you say, oh, you're really good at that, you're really good at this particular thing, and I want you to know that.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:01:05] What's up, everyone? Welcome to another episode of the @TheArtistsOfDataScience be sure to follow the show on Instagram at @theartistsofdatascience and on Twitter at @ArtistsOfData. I'll be sharing awesome tips and wisdom on Data science, as well as clips from the show join the Free Open Mastermind selection by going to bitly.com/artistsofdatascience @TheArtistsOfDataScience. I'll keep you updated on bi OpenOffice hours. I'll be hosting for the community. I'm your host Harpreet Sahota. Let's ride this beat out into another awesome episode. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:01:52] Our guest today is a social media strategist, a speaker, a community builder, Snapchat writer, instructor, podcaster, father to two and husband one who serves as the director of social media at Experian over the last decade at Experian.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:02:06] He's developed and launched B2B and B2C digital and interactive strategies to improve their brand, reputation, social engagement, reach and customer care across all of the social. When he's not doing awesome work at Experian, he's mentoring and teaching social media strategy courses at the University of California at Irvine. Listening to hip hop, riding bikes and indulging in SheRa fanfiction with his daughter, his numerous strengths include leading with empathy, mentoring his team and driving in ambiguity. So please help me welcome our guest today, the host of Data Talk and Level Up Leadership podcast, the bravely, boldly balding Mike Delgado.

Mike Delgado: [00:02:41] I love the balding part that is so true during Covid-19 no ones talking about getting haircuts. That's one thing enough to worry about.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:02:48] I love how you're embracing it man because I'm just a little bit going here. Oh, my gosh, man, thank you so much for taking time out of schedule to do this. I really appreciate you coming on to the podcast. So can you talk to us a bit about your professional journey? Like how did you first get into the social media space and what kind of drew you to the field?

Mike Delgado: [00:03:06] That's a good question. I've always worked, I guess has to start back. When I was in college, when I first was in college, I was a television film major. I was very interested in becoming a filmmaker. And this is way back in the day when Pulp Fiction came out. Quentin Tarantino, kind of an Indie film maker movement, was kind of just starting. This is back when, like Blair Witch Project came out and I was like just graduated high school. And I was like, really excited about all the things are happening in film making and storytelling. And so I was like, I want to get involved in storytelling and film making. So I started to go to the local junior college and take classes on television production, script writing. I ended up getting an internship and then a job at a local cable station. And there I had my first mentor. His name was Rick Gale, who is just a fantastic friend. He gave me so much good advice and counsel. And while I was working with him, he was the director at the time. He was working on his own feature films. He told me he's okay Mike, you know what? Stop taking all these television film classes. Like, you're gonna to learn that stuff anyways. You need to learn about storytelling. You need to learn about how to tell a good story. That means you need to read. You need to read good stories. So he challenged me to become an English major. And I was like, what? It seems so far fetched.

Mike Delgado: [00:04:18] I was like, I really want to become a good filmmaker, which means I gotta learn how to edit properly. I need to write good scripts. And he was like telling me I go back to the basics, become a better writer, become a better communicator. That's where it starts. And so I ended up changing my major going all in on English literature, which required me to have to study languages. I took it very, very seriously. So when it was I got my degree in English lit at the time I began working for a cartoon company. So a company that created The Simpsons early on and then the rug rats and a lot of Nickelodeon shows. So I started working there and I loved it. I was like, oh man, I want to take my storytelling and work in the television, film and cartoon industry. I love cartoons and about the second year in the Rugrats franchise was ending and I was like, so bummed that all these shows that I loved were like, they have their season right. They come to the point where they end. And I was realizing that as I was planning on getting married at the time, it was such an unstable profession, like you really have to be all in to be in a television film industry. And with my kind of the way I was feeling like I really wanted stability. And I was like, oh, even though I love the art of filmmaking, like I was realizing, like, I'm not really cut out for it because I really need stability.

Mike Delgado: [00:05:26] And so that's why I made a decision to shift from filmmaking and being in television and cartooning to something else. I don't know what that thing was. So anyways, I found my way into copywriting for the very first job. I was like, well, I can write and I see this job description for copywriter. I'm not exactly sure what a copywriter is, but I'll go interview for it. Anyway, I got the job. And you know how like, sometimes you get a job and you're like, scared to death of like, oh my gosh, what do I get myself into? That's what I felt because, like, I'm not a copywriter. I you know what that means. I end up getting books. I got the job. And I mean, I went to Barnes Noble to get books. I like how to be a copywriter because I didn't know anything about it. So anyway, fast forward. I ended up like going all in on, like being a good Web writer, a blogger, getting in all aspects of digital marketing, pay per click campaigns and social media was emerging for businesses. So I started getting the companies I was out onto at the time, MySpace was huge, like back then like if you weren't on MySpace, you didn't exist. Like MySpace is everything, there was Friendster. There's all these different social networks back then because I was the digital marketing person, I was the writer that was in my job to make sure that we were on all these different places.

Mike Delgado: [00:06:33] And I was telling my companies like, oh, we should probably have a presence on these social media channels. Anyways  fast forward the company I'm at is like, hey, we're thinking about having a social media manager role. Would you be interested? You've been leading social. And I was like, thank you, but no thank you. Like, I like working at all aspects of digital marketing. I like being involved in e-mail marketing, pay per click, SEO writing blogs and social, but I don't wanna  pigeonhole myself, and I think that's sometimes a struggle for us when we're kind of developing our careers, we don't want to like it's so narrow in something. So I was very, very scared of being narrow because I felt like for job security reasons, I want to be broad. I want to do a little bit of everything. I enjoy doing everything. So I said no to that to that role. Now, it's very, very early on. Anyways, when I came to Experian, which was about nine years ago, I came in as a digital marketer and I came into work on digital marketing and SEO for the small business division. And so while I was there, like new to the role and again, like trying to understand this new industry, learning all that I can. And I was like, man, there are so many smart marketers that are already here at Experian. I mean, we're in like forty five countries. We have like twenty thousand employees. I'm like I can learn so much from other marketers that are here.

Mike Delgado: [00:07:43] And they just at that time was launching a new internal social network at the time so we can meet other people at the organization. So that came on like three months into my job and I was like finally a place where I can, like, meet other marketers. So I created really quickly, like a little like community on this little, like internal social network for Experian. And I started just like collecting tips and asking people for advice and create basically a little social network, a little community of people kind of sharing reports. So I started like my own little internal email marketing campaign to keep everyone alerted about different campaigns that are going on. And I became almost like a case study internally that hey, communities can work internally. So I get I started getting brought into these different conversations at Experian about, hey, what are you doing? How are you building this community? And I'm like, I'm just curious. Like, I just want to learn how to become a better marketer and the people that I've been doing this for a really long time. And so anyways, from that doing that internally, I got asked to hey, at the time we had agencies running social work for Experian and they said, hey, you know what, you've been doing social internally for Experian in a very short amount of time. Would you be interested in doing this externally? And so that led to like the very first kind of official social media role, which was about eight years ago.

Mike Delgado: [00:08:54] And when I found out who my boss was going to be, I was like, yes, yes. And I have the most amazing boss. I've had him for eight years now. He's been a tremendous mentor.

Mike Delgado: [00:09:04] And I think whenever I chat with people about like kind of as you choose jobs in your career, like where to go, I definitely had a lot of bosses who are good at what they did, but they weren't great at mentoring or maybe guiding me in my own career. And maybe they didn't get that training early on for themselves. And so they're just modeling what they've seen. But when I got Jerry as a boss eight years ago and I saw the way that he treated me, how he brought me and how he was mentoring me, I was like, oh, my gosh, I want to be like him. I have so much to learn about leadership. And he gave me so much freedom and trust. And so I've been with him ever since. And through it, I've been able to just build up my own team and I've grown immensely. And so I said like so it's very interesting, my path, because I never set out to be in social media or even to get into podcasting or to do the video work that I do like. It was just it just became part of what I do anyways, So that's kind of my my journey in a nutshell.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:10:03] Hey, are you an aspiring Data scientist struggling to break into the field, then check out Dsdj.co/artists for artists to reserve your spot for a free informational webinar on how you can break into the field? That's going to be filled with amazing tips that are specifically designed to help you land your first job. Check it out. Dsdj.co/artists.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:10:29] That's quite an interesting journey. And you brought me back with the Friendster - I was on Friendster back in the days. And then also the Rugrats. Like Tommy, Chucky, Phil, Lil, Angelica, the whole crew. Awesome.

Mike Delgado: [00:10:39] You are on it. 

Harpreet Sahota: [00:10:41] Yeah man! Rugrats is very much like my childhood,  love that show. So my question for you, just out of curiosity, how to build community, because I'm trying to build a community to go along with this podcast that I've created, created like a slack community where I've gotten some people to come in there and I want them to come in and share their experiences and ask questions on Data science and machine learning and the job search process, but haven't been able to get the engagement and just the activity that I would like to see in that community to have any tips for me on how I could develop that. I mean, because there's people in those two hundred people, Wow.. But it's just like it's like the Google circles.

Mike Delgado: [00:11:17] I mean, oh, Oh yeah I remember yeah, All the way no idea totally. And that's the thing. It's like community is so hard to start because there are so many distractions that are out there.

Mike Delgado: [00:11:27] There are so many other communities that we spend time in ourselves. So it takes a lot of commitment for someone to go and invest my time and resources into this new community. I've started a couple of different communities that Experian one is the credit chat community and that's on Twitter.

Mike Delgado: [00:11:42] So every single Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. Pacific, 3:00 p.m. Eastern, we have a credit chat where we're talking about really important financial topics. And that's been around for eight years. And it's been fascinating to see that seeing that community thrive and grow and there's going to be ups and downs. But like the beginning is always the hardest part. And I have I failed miserably at starting communities. I'll share with you like the very first community that I had success in, and that was the internal community at Experian. That was the one where I was very, very curious on how do I learn from others on digital marketing and how do I. I was seeking out basically mentorship, I was seeking out advice. And I knew that there are people in the organization that wanted to share advice and wanted to be mentors, but there was no platform. And so it was for me it was a lot of one on one.

Mike Delgado: [00:12:28] So I created this space. And now now you have a slack group for me. Back then it was this own little kind of forum, basically very archaic forum. This is a place where I was then posting out thoughts and questions and then I would go out email specific people. I wouldn't be back then wasn't dm'ing . Basically I would  message certain people and be like, hey, I have this question. And I posted here. I was wondering if you can respond to it. I'd love to get your take on it. And I think it provides value to others in the community. It was really a lot of me reaching out to specific people, driving them back to the question that I knew that they would probably want to share their thoughts on.

Mike Delgado: [00:13:04] They were experts in to then share their thoughts. And then once they shared that thought, I would then go out to others and flag it and let them know, hey! We're discussing this. I want to get your point of view on this. And then they add and on top of it. So basically, was that a lot of just one on one reaching out to specific people that I knew could answer it and kind of beginning a conversation and I would be the one like always following up with like, that's fascinating! I would love to learn more about this. Right? And trying to get that conversation going. And it's a lot of work. It's a lot of one on one very time consuming. That's the thing about community building. It's time consuming, It takes time to bring people over to answer a question. So you want to make it as easy as possible.You know I found that just driving people over to a page wasn't that useful, I had to give them an action. Like if I just drive them to the community, there's like all these things they can look at. There's all these different questions and comments. If you're not focused on what am I exactly doing there, then you can waste time on them and you like, So I was very direct and I'd say, like, hey! I'm trying to get this discussion going around this topic. I know you're an expert in this area. If you have any wisdom, I would love to hear your advice here. And they shared great. If they didn't share, then I will go out to somebody else. But then, like, slowly, as you're kind of focusing on one thing, one topic, and that's the other thing I would share, especially with Data science or anything like there's so many different where areas to go. But in the beginning, you want to be very niche, like focusing on one thing. And that way people are focused on that one topic and it over time it gets split off.

Mike Delgado: [00:14:29] I mean, I think about Reddit like Reddit. I love the Reddit community.When you think about over time all these really niche Reddit started up on specific topics and the people that are interested in those topics kind of gravitate to them and eventually start participating in the questions. And then once you have moderators and that's the other thing to scale community, it can't just be you. Like you're going to need other people who are who are evangelists for your community, like they like what you're doing are like, hey, I want to help out. Let me help out on these days. I'm going to come in and I'm going to help get conversation going. I'm going to like get props to people. And that's where I like having evangelists having.

Mike Delgado: [00:15:01] People who can help you in the process, upscale community, that's like the second stage, but a lot of it in the beginning is like that one on one work. And I think also it takes a lot a lot of work. And sometimes we are hard on ourselves because we're like, oh! We're focused on like we didn't get that much engagement or we didn't get as much as we wanted that week. Well, you know what? Getting one reply that week might be huge. Like someone shared a thoughtful insight. It's not just the number of interactions. It's not just the number of likes or shares or comments. It's like, what else? Like who's involved? Like who's actually taking time to give a thoughtful response. Like, to me, that can be a huge win. I've had some Twitter chats that didn't go so well that there wasn't very active. And I looked at the numbers like our engagement numbers or reached numbers. I could say like, oh, when I look at today's chat versus last chats, this one really failed. But don't you start looking qualitatively like what actually was happening, where people touched, where was like really insightful, things shared that was never shared before. So there's also the qualitative side to it as well. That's really important because just looking at the hard numbers sometimes could be depressing. Right? So it's like what other things? Like the numbers like, oh, you had two hundred plus people are in the community. That's great. Like that's like that's a huge accomplishment. And now it's like, OK, now how do we then kind of move this community to begin having discussion and thoughtful discussions around important topics that everyone's concerned about right now? So I say don't be hard on yourself.

Mike Delgado: [00:16:25] It takes time. We're all like every community, every niche is different and we're all trying to figure things out. When I started Data talk six or seven years ago, before it was a podcast, it was a tweet that failed miserably. Harp I started this tweet chat kind of like credit chat, but as Data topics, I was doing a lot of outreach. I spent a lot of time finding people who have been tweeting about a topic, forming questions, and then very little interaction was happening in the tweet shot. And so during that time, I was realizing that part of the value wasn't just the engagement. Yeah, the engagement wasn't very great. And if you were looking at the numbers, you'd say it was a failure based on previous campaigns I worked on. But I was like also the other success was the network, the people I was chatting with. Those relationships are like, I don't know how you put numbers on relationships. Right. So it's like that is huge. So I think you have to just kind of be too hard on yourself, set up metrics that matter to you, the relationships you're building, the people, the type of people that have joined your community. And then like, what are they saying? Like, how is your community different and how are people helping out differently than other communities that are out there?

Harpreet Sahota: [00:17:27] Yeah, it's really great advice as well for even just Data scientists active on LinkedIn who are trying to build their own personal brand. So thank you for sharing that because people are out there and they're posting and they're kind of hesitant to continue posting because they don't get that engagement that they're hoping to get. But that was really good advice. Thank you so much for sharing that. So you're speaking about community speaking about data scientists. Now, I'm curious, what's the working relationship like with you and the data scientists at Experian?

Mike Delgado: [00:17:54] That's a really good question. Oh, I want to say one more thing about building community really quickly.

Mike Delgado: [00:17:57] So and for those that are trying to build their influence, their community on LinkedIn, the number one thing I would say is don't focus on your own posts focus on everybody else's. So if you want people to engage with your comments on your posts, you've got to be actively engaging on others. Right. And I see, like, there's so many great people on LinkedIn, they're influential. And I've noticed the people that are influencers are the ones who are most active in engaging with others. And so that's like the number one thing I would say is don't focus on your own post, focus on everybody else's. And if you were just to chime in on, make a goal for yourself to chime in on five other people's posts that you want to talk with, like that's far more effective than creating one post. So I'll just leave it at that.

Mike Delgado: [00:18:35] Ok, so you're talking about relationships with data science at Experian. So that's a really good question. So what's interesting is that my role so I work in the social media team for Global and North America and the way that social media is held at Experian, sometimes social media is under marketing teams are companies. A lot of times that's where companies will put social media is under marketing because there is that business function of getting leads and building awareness about Experian. Social media is under public relations. Now we certainly have social media roles in different business units, but the way that we're in place is under really PR. So that's really where I sit. And I really think that that's kind of the best place for a social media person to sit is really in the PR team because you're part of building the reputation. You're helping to build connections with influencers and journalists, and that's why you're there for any part of that. Is it then being thoughtful about how do I go about to market, knowing that I have built these relationships with all these other influencers and and journalists. So to answer the question, like my relationship with Data scientists is basically what I chat with them and Data talks, So i will be emailing with them, We'll be chatting about different things and I'll be I'm there to support them on social.

Mike Delgado: [00:19:42] So when I see data scientists Experian posting things, I'm like, yes, like comment. I'm there to support them. And and I'm always keeping an eye on various Data scientists in different roles around the globe, seeing what products they're working on, things that they're allowed to talk about? And then will ask someone I love to chat with you about your journey, things you like working on and then things are working out for Experian, if you're interested, and you'll notice that Data talk like it's a mixture, like I'd say like 90 percent of those podcasts are external. It's really it's about getting that larger conversation going about what's important to the science community and not being selfish, We're just showcasing Experian talent. So I'd say 90 percent of it is external, 10 percent is internal. Yes. I don't sit with the data scientist. We have a Data lab out in Oceanside, which is about an hour away from our corporate office. And I've only been there a handful of times, but the leaders there that I've met are fantastic. We have another podcast called Level Up, which is all about our different leaders had experience and we featured two of our heads of Data Labs, one in Brazil and one here in Oceanside. And they are like fantastic guys, like amazing, amazing people.

Mike Delgado: [00:20:46] So where do you see kind of the interplay of social media and Data science kind of heading in the next couple of years and say two to five years over the last four or five years, especially with the Data talk, Twitter chat that no longer exists.

Mike Delgado: [00:20:58] And then with the podcast, my connections on LinkedIn are primarily now people who are Data scientists. And so and I've just been seeing just tremendous growth. And the people that are building community and the interactions that are happening, I don't know.

Mike Delgado: [00:21:12] I'm just seeing as far as like what I'm predicting is like more networks, more growth, more smart discussions, more niche discussions as people start to venture off into a Data ethics Data philanthropy. Right now. I just got this book called Race for Technology, which is all about like dealing with race and Data. And so like there's all these various ways that very important issues that we need to be addressing. And so I just see things continuing to grow, more discussions. And I'm really excited, like I'm really and I'm not a data scientist. So a lot of the times I'm seeing these posts. So, you know, they're talking about things, about programming languages or different things or things about machine learning. And like, I have no idea what they just said, but when I see, like, the engagement, how much passion is there, and I started to see, like, things splinter off into different really important issues like that excites me that that really excites me. And I've been watching other places like there's LinkedIn groups, there's Facebook groups. Obviously, Reddit is these great community there. And the way like when I was first doing research on where to host the Data talk community as far as social platforms, back then Slack wasn't popular. When I was first doing the investigation, my initial gut was like a LinkedIn is the place. That's where business competitions are happening. And whenever I went to LinkedIn groups, I didn't see like a lot of activity, there seemed to be some spam and I didn't really get a lot.

Mike Delgado: [00:22:32] I didn't see a lot of great engagement there. I would love to see LinkedIn change out the way they run groups and turn them into like kind of interface, like I think I'd be a smarter way to go. So LinkedIn like even though I felt like that's where people are at and I'm seeing meaningful discussions happening there, I wasn't seeing a lot of great engagement. Then I started doing investigations into Facebook and typing and things like A.I A big data analytics, I'm seeing these Facebook groups of like thirty thousand people and I'm like, What? Wow! That is fantastic. So then I started joining these groups. I'm going, man, this is a place where things are happening. And you wouldn't think in the beginning. But I was like, man, I like Facebook. People all around the world is spending time, especially in my age, demographic spending time on Facebook. And it's a place to talk. And there are fantastic Facebook groups. And so actually there's a Data talk Facebook group, and I think we have maybe eight or nine thousand people who have joined that group. And it's evolved over time. And I'm terrible with moderating. But anyway, so I want to also share with you that there's other places to create community to also kind of get the word out.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:23:26] That's awesome. Thank you for that! Yeah, I wouldn't have thought that there would be. Datascience communities that large on Facebook like i had kind of had that preconceived notion that LinkedIn would be kind of the place for data scientists, but that's really, really insightful. Thank you for sharing back. So I'm curious, what do you think some of the biggest concerns are going to be for social media and society in the next two to five years?

Mike Delgado: [00:23:48] Well, I think right now the big issue that's on everyone's mind is privacy and also the way that misinformation has spread on social networks. I think right now during Covid-19, watching the way that Twitter has responded, watching the way Youtube have responded by like basically if I upload a video around Covid-19, no one is going to be angry advertising attached to it. So that kind of reduces the amount of spam those you can't make money off of it. I think that's smart. And then there's an automatic little automatic link that YouTube puts up for people to get information from the CDC so people can get information directly from either the Center of Disease Control or the World Health Organization. Like, very smart. Right. And then they're doing manual audits, too, because they're trying to reduce the spread of false information, because if people are spreading information around here's a cure for covid, Take this household detergent or whatever it is, or take this ginger plus apple cider vinegar mixture that's going to help you. Like, obviously, there's a responsibility that we all have to fly the content, make sure it gets taken down because it can be hurtful to society. I think social networks are doing a much better job of flagging content, having the community fly content to take things down. So I think that that's one of the big areas that during covid we're trying to like how do we do a better job of policing misinformation on social media? And the other thing is around privacy and social networks are kind of giving people more ways to kind of lock down their information so those that want to be more public can and those that want to be more private can. And so I think those are two kind of big issues that I'm seeing a lot of conversation around. And they're a good conversation to be having.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:25:16] And they'll probably be around for a really long time, Yeah especially now, because you mentioned there's these really niche communities. Right. And in a sense, you know, I have been thinking about this. We have citizenship based on where we live. But now that the world is becoming virtual digital, we also hold citizenship in these communities. So virtual citizens of these communities, what can we do to make sure that we're being better citizens in whatever virtual community that we're a part of?

Harpreet Sahota: [00:25:41] Ais actually a question we need to always be asking ourselves. Like, that's the question, how can I do a better job of serving the communities that I'm in? How can I be a better help? Like we should always be asking that question? That's a very, very good question.

Mike Delgado: [00:25:55] And to me, it's like, how am I helping to encourage people? What am I doing to support the right voices in the community? Sometimes it shouldn't be my voice. You know, right now, when I look at everything going on with the Black Lives Matter movement, I'm like, my voice does not need to be amplified here. There are a lot more important voices that need to be amplified. So I'm using my social media to just re tweet share out important voices. When I saw Barack Obama's comment that he tweeted out like I took that. I just share that on LinkedIn right now and is using my platform to share other voices. I think that being part of a community means like knowing when to be quiet, knowing when to elevate other people's voices that are more important than yours. And then also how do I encourage the right types of discussion? And then also the hard thing sometimes is knowing when to how do you protect your community from misinformation, from bullies, from those who are tearing people down. I think Reddit has really nice policies in there, subreddits its around. A lot of moderators take things very, very seriously. They're trying to reduce hate speech, reduce bullying. They want people to be focus on the topics. It's OK to challenge ideas. That's what community is about. It was challenge ideas. Let's discuss ideas but don't tear down the people.

Mike Delgado: [00:27:05] And so that's where being a good community manager is super important is like, how do I encourage the right conversations? How do I steer the community to be talking about other issues that we need to be talking about, bringing awareness to things? So that means like we need to be always educating ourselves on what are the issues right now in Data science? I need to be paying attention to what are the complaints, what are the challenges, what are the things we need to be talking about? And then how do we also handle those people who are maybe trying to make it difficult or silence important voices? Unfortunately, there's trolling. There's people who are just there to tear people down. And I don't put up with bullying if I start to see that. I mean, I have in my communities, I have very clear guidelines reach out to people, even though I'm all about transparency and everything. Like if I see something that is like totally hate speech and bullying, I will contact that person, I'll delete their post, explain why and give them another opportunity. Like, look, we need to have civil discussions and your opinion matters, but they aren't the right way to share your opinion. But if you're going to clog it with profanity, to be hateful, to be spiteful, be hurtful, which can then silence other people other and because people see that, it's like, why would I want to speak up? Because I know that there's going be someone is going to be like all over me.

Mike Delgado: [00:28:16] Like, the whole idea is like, how do I encourage a thriving community? Which means like, yes, part of any sort of community and building relationships means there's going to be conflict. Of course there is! People are going to disagree, I think about me and my wife. We've been married for like 18 years. And we still we love each other. We're united. We agree on so many different things. But there are issues that we disagree on. And it's about like how do we work through those issues together and being thoughtful and loving towards each other. And like that's the same type of attitude to have when you're in a community is like have empathy, try to look at it from their perspective. And that's on both sides. That's on whatever political spectrum you're on. Empathy, like try to understand the other viewpoint, if you can come at it from that and be growing in compassion and empathy and educating yourselves on all sides, all the different perspectives, including the middle perspectives. That's a healthy way to approach it. But yeah, being a community manager and trying to elevate community means, like knowing when to get involved and having to stop the bullying.

Mike Delgado: [00:29:16] Very beautiful message. Thank you so much for sharing that. So I came across one of your old podcasts on SoundCloud and it was a podcast that you're recording in your car. I really like the content that you're putting out on that and the things that that really resonated with me. One of them in particular was you had tips on how to find your way!(hmmm). So I was wondering if you can kind of speak to that. How can somebody find their way?

Mike Delgado: [00:29:39] Oh my gosh. Harpeet do you like you like Dugin..Hahaha If I old podcasts, I'll say that's a part of working in marketing and podcasting has been experimentation. So that podcast, which I called it downshifting, was basically how do I improve my public speaking? How do I become a better communicator? Well, one way I can do it is by in my hour long commute. Sit. And record a podcast, and so I would just like put an entry recorder on and just record a show,hahaha, So every day I was kind of coming up with a new topic. I never really knew what I was going to get into. So it's funny, I don't even remember me talking about finding your life. hahaha, I think there's I think about that now because I think sometimes our answers change over time. And if you're asking me that, obviously you're asking that right now.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:30:25] I mean, this part of evolution, part of personal growth rate is like our answers to certain things will change because we have like a new perspective on things. Yeah, definitely.

Mike Delgado: [00:30:33] I'd love to hear you in the moment. Yeah. So I'll tell you that part of my. Why is that? I feel that my calling at the deepest level is to help encourage and empower others in their work. Whatever it is, I want to be inspiring. I want to empower. I want to encourage. So when I go to work like that, I get a kick out of it. And what I really enjoy in my work is that I get a chance to work with a team and think about how can I encourage this person today? How can I help elevate them in their work? How can I be a really good mirror? Because some people are grown up where they've been told horrible things about themselves. They've been discouraged, they've been mistreated by bullies. Maybe they were parented by a bully. And they've been told a lot of negative things I'm thinking about. I feel like my calling my wife is like, how can I make their life better or how can I be a good mirror and shine out and recognize those people are doing really, really well. And let them know that because I find it so many people, especially people, have gone through trauma sometimes that it's hard for them to see it in themselves or if you recognize it and you say like, oh, you're really good at that, you're really good at this particular thing. And I want you to know that sometimes they'll just they'll just be like, oh, thank you for saying that. But they really don't. They're thinking like, oh, they think I'm really smart, but I'm really not like I must have fooled them because that's self-doubt comes in.

Mike Delgado: [00:31:56] And so part of my my wife is like, I want to just be known as somebody who is just loving, shining a light on people that are doing really good work, elevating those people and just elevating the really good people in my life. And this podcast that I love, the podcast, they have a level up. The whole goal of that has been like, I want to highlight the great leaders that I've met, that Experian, like, these are people who I think should be role models for everybody. And so that particular podcast is people that are employees that Experian that have nominated people leaders and said they're a good leader. We should recognize that person is a level up, is definitely that. It's all about like, how are we I want to I want to showcase the good in different people. Not to say that we don't all have problems. We all have areas that we can improve on. And that's part of being a good mentor and leader is address those things. But I want to be known for like shining a light on the good stuff and getting more that good stuff out is a part of me as being a good dad. Like my wife is like I love my kids and I want them to grow. I want them to succeed, I want them to be creative and I want them to be grow up to be loving, compassionate people. And so that means that if I want my kids to be like that, I need to model that here and what I'm doing, I need a model that as I'm with my wife, like how my showing my wife compassion and love, I want my kids to see that.

Mike Delgado: [00:33:13] And when I deal with them, I want them to know that that's the way I'm with them. So I think, like finding your wife? It takes time and the Y can change.Right? Your why change over time. And I think that it just takes introspection. It takes a while sometimes to figure out like what you feel your calling is. But once you kind of know the light turns on and you're like, oh my gosh, like, how can I be like for me? I'm like, how can I be a better, better husband today? Like, how can I be encouraging my wife today? How can I be a better dad today? How can I be a better boss today? How can I be a better colleague? I'm thinking about those questions. And so I hope that kind of answer. That's what I'm kind of thinking about my wife, like, how do I help right now with with the Black Lives Matter movement? I'm like, how can I be an ally? How can I be a better ally? Right now I'm realizing, like, dude, I have not done the research. I have not spent time reading the stats on police brutality on our black communities, getting killed by police officers and unarmed black men and women getting killed. I mean, I was like, I have so much work to do. And so, like part of this, like growing and becoming better people is like for me, my wife is like, how can I be better? How can I continue to uplift others around me?

Harpreet Sahota: [00:34:18] It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. I like that point that you put in there by introspection. You need to take time to just search inside yourself and just be by yourself. No externals. Just go with yourself, with the thoughts and really distill down what it is that you actually want and pursue it. Yeah. So I'm curious, you've mentioned you've been able to speak to a number of great leaders through your Level of leadership podcast. What do you think are some of the key qualities of a good leader? Like what is it that makes a good leader from what you've been able to observe and how could somebody cultivate those qualities within themselves?

Mike Delgado: [00:34:54] That's a really good question. I'm just jotting down stand up to me. I think about some of these leaders. I think they're.

Mike Delgado: [00:35:00] One good quality that I find really important that not a lot of people do, but I find it really important is compassion like a caring leader? That's a very important quality to me. It's usually not in the list. If you look at the list, like what makes a good leader, it's generally not in the top five, but compassion, like actually caring about the team. The projects like, that is super important to me. And I means like empathy, like empathy is got to be there. And and that means like along with that means like humility, like realizing you keep asking questions, realizing that we don't know everything. We need to be asking questions of our colleagues, checking in on them.

Mike Delgado: [00:35:41] I think compassion and empathy are like really huge qualities. That is something that you don't learn in school. Right. Like you go to school and you learn the hard skills. You can learn the math, you can learn the coding for me, you can learn. And I wasn't in that world. I was in the English lit humanities. Like, I can go and take the tests and learn about how to answer certain things. And I could be skilled in certain hard skills. But when it comes to IQ and empathy and compassion, there isn't like, oh, you can take that class. And now I'm now I have empathy. Right? Those are traits that sometimes come over time. And I have found that I have learned the most from, unfortunately, the tragic moments in life. I found that in my own failing, in my own my own mistakes that I have grown the most. Empathy and compassion has taken me a while and I'm still going to be keibler like this is the thing like empathy and compassion should be one of the things that constantly grows like there's never enough.

Mike Delgado: [00:36:33] And so I feel like that's a huge thing that I find is super important for leadership. Obviously, honesty is huge. Authenticity is huge. Like, how do you trust somebody if you can't, that they've lied to you? And then I think another important thing for leaders and for all of us is like, how do we how do we adapt? Right? I think about right now, as we've all like adapted to working from home, we're adapting to this new normal for this period of time.

Mike Delgado: [00:36:58] We talk about like, oh, yeah, sometimes you put our bios on resumes is like quick to adapt.Right? That's like a thing to say. It's another thing to actually do it. And right now we're seeing how hard it is to adapt like some of us have got have adapted very well. Others like it took me a while. I'm still adapting. I'm still figuring things out. My kids might come in through the door right now and I'm doing a podcast and you're kind of just dealing with things. So adapt, I think adapt. Learning to be able to adapt quickly is important and then to other things.

Mike Delgado: [00:37:24] I'll say a curiosity obviously is huge, like the innovative leaders that Experian that i talk to just hyper curious, like they ask really good questions, really thoughtful questions. They're always asking questions. And so I'm just I'm almost to the point where, like you might say, the person's annoying because they're asking so many questions, but like, they're really innovative. People are like always asking questions like, what can I be doing better? Is this the right way to be doing this? Is that the right project? Could we be doing something a little bit different? Right. Like always asking that question. Not ever growing complacent is super important. And so I'm always asking, like, my current thing, like it could be anything from the way that I'm looking at my email, like I'm looking at my email too much during the day.

Mike Delgado: [00:38:02] Is that really effective? Should I just be looking at email one time in the morning, once in the afternoon and once before I log off, like, is there a better way for me to be managing my time right now? Like, always asking those questions? So I think, like being curious. And the last thing they'll say is being able to laugh at yourself, I think is also super important and generally not on the list of like what what a leader is like, not taking yourself too seriously because like, seriously, life is hard. There is a lot of tragedy. There's a lot of difficult things going on. We're going to make mistakes. I'm going to get asked questions I don't know the answers to and I can't pretend to have an answer. So I need to be like, I don't know and also can't take myself too seriously because I'm not I'm a student. I'm always gonna be a student. And so I think like a lot of yourself and not take yourself too seriously is also high on my list.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:38:44] It's interesting because all those qualities are qualities that they don't teach those in books. They don't teach those in business school. They don't teach them anywhere. You have to learn them from yourself through some form of introspection or through life experience, right? Those things I feel like that cannot be taught are often the hardest things to learn. Interesting?

Mike Delgado: [00:39:01] Yeah, yeah. I see a lot of a lot for me. A lot of ways I've grown through this stuff unfortunately has been through tragic moments, through some. My own trauma is things that I've gone through and coming out of that has helped me immensely in growing and compassion and empathy, self care, the importance of introspection, being alone. Like for me, I have to be alone every morning just to process my thoughts. And each of us are on our own journeys. And so that's just how I'm kind of wired.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:39:33] I love it. You know, Data scientists tend to spend a lot of time researching coding. Things are pretty mentally intensive work. And as you mentioned, it's a new normal for everyone now. And being I think the term used that people put on their resume is quick to adapt. What do you have any tips on how we can boost our productivity and stay refreshed during these work from home days?

Mike Delgado: [00:39:56] Yeah, and that's like another one of those questions, like I'm thinking. About all the time, because that's Covid-19 came here and then even as we've been going through different issues, How do we recharge? How are we being able to stay focused on tasks when we need to be? I certainly believe there's times take breaks. I think part of being a productive, good employee, good worker means like knowing when you need to take a break. And I was actually just talking to my team this week about like take a break before you think you need a break, because sometimes by the time you think you need the break, like I need to take a mental health day to day, like that's almost too late. Try to take a break before that. Like when you start to sense, like I'm starting to get anxious, I'm starting to I need to just slow down a little bit. Like that's like the first kind of signal, like, hey, you know what? And I tell my teammates, take the Data like, please, like take care of yourself. That comes everyone. Because if you're not taking care of yourself, if you're not being compassionate to yourself, it's going to be very, very hard for you to be compassionate and loving to others. And it's also going to be hard for you to be totally in and excited about your own work.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:40:57] You're going to burn out without actually reading a book right now, it's an article of a charity called The Power of Self Compassion. So it's it's it's really cool because it's eight or rather ten courses. Each chapter is, of course, and then they have a meditative practice at the end of each course. It's really, really been helpful for me. Like blessed. I love that I was doing my research on you and I noticed that, like me, you are a early riser 4am I still for 4am in these days?

Mike Delgado: [00:41:27] I do get Harp. Yes. Yeah. I've gotten back to my 4am schedule. Yeah. hahah

Harpreet Sahota: [00:41:32] So I mean this question is totally personal just to help me out because I've noticed ever since I moved into this work from home Covid world and now I've got this newborn here. I used to have a really regimented morning for the longest time. I'm up at four a.m like you know at a time, the time I'm on the toilet. Taking a dump like that is regimented. And I go downstairs, I do my exercise, do my meditation, good for you. I generally did all that and it's great. And I was able to maintain it for a little bit of time. Maybe the first two and a half, three weeks of this work from home situation, covid situation. And then it slowly started to unravel and it's disappeared. And now through a newborn into the mix, it's almost gone. Get any tips for me on how I can kind of regain that momentum and get back into the groove of things?

Mike Delgado: [00:42:16] Yeah, and like when there's, like, big life events, like covid-19, like having a baby, like those are huge shifts where talk about adapting. Those are huge moments of anxiety, huge moments of stress. And so, of course, things are going to be thrown off and it might take a while. You have to be kind of compassion to yourself to maybe get back to your routine and maybe your routine is going to be shifted for a little bit and might be totally different for the next couple of years as your as your son. Yeah. As your son is getting older and just being compassionate with yourself, like, OK, my mom is going to look a little bit different during this period of time and then it's going to change into this. And as my kids have gotten gotten older and my daughter was born, we had a lot of medical issues and I was getting up at 3:00 a.m. during that time and we were like with my daughter like twenty four, seven. So my wife was up with her till three that I would take over from three until the afternoon. And so like we had to be very patient with ourselves when there is big changes in life and recognize that when big events happen, marriages, divorces, new relationships, weddings, new job, like all that stuff, things are going to shift for us. Now, I'll tell you, like my routine, like I would get up before covid get up at four o'clock in the morning, sometimes three in the morning, because I'm crazy and I don't even have the alarm clock.

Mike Delgado: [00:43:31] I'm just like wired like that. I'm like, I don't want to wake up that early. This is crazy. Are like this is not good enough waking up this early. But I was like, get up, go to the gym or go running on local trail and then go to take a shower change, go do some reading for about an hour at a coffee shop and then I'll go to work because I love my morning. So I would have about right now I have like three to four hours to myself every morning. OK, so that's my morning. Like, I'm very fortunate to have that time, but I get up at three or four in the morning and then I'm not really with people (hahah) about eight. Right? Eight or nine. But when it happened all of a sudden like, oh, I can't go to the gym, oh, I need to stay inside right now. I can't just head out. I don't have it actually right during the very beginning of it. Harpeet like I had no desire to even read. Like reading has been a part of my routine, like I love reading, but I was so stressed out and anxious inside, like, if you're talking to me early, like four or five weeks ago, if you ask me how things are going about things are great, like I'm just totally like I'm fine, I'm working and everything is fine.

Mike Delgado: [00:44:34] But inside, like I wasn't OK, like I wasn't sleeping well. I was productive and getting tons of work done and working probably more than I should. But inside I was really stressed and I couldn't focus. I couldn't like read a book. I could sit down and just meditate like I couldn't do any of that. And it wasn't until actually three weeks ago we're actually was like, OK, I'm reading again, I'm journaling again. I'm going on long walks by myself again and just being in silence. And being OK with silence, because for a long time and during beginning covid, I couldn't have silence, I had to be like listening to music, listening to books like I need that distraction and I didn't want silence. The silence can be scary because it's your thoughts. And during silent moments, this is where you begin to process things and have a therapist. My therapist is like, you got to journal, you've got to be OK. I wasn't being good about processing things. And so it's actually took me a while.

Mike Delgado: [00:45:26] I mean, it was early in last three to four weeks where I actually picked up a book again and began to read and underline and begin to enjoy my books and began to enjoy my silent moments. But it took me a while. And if we have another big change, I might go back to being stressed out and needing to shift again. But I'd say be patient with yourself and build a new routine is gonna work for you right now. And maybe maybe you're you're going to do things in the evening now for a while, just kind of mix it up a little bit. But I do think that no matter what, you have to find time for yourself and your partner needs to find time for their self. So it's just it's important that you take time to like I'm glad to read the book on the power of Self Compassion or your book, because that is like super important. Like, I keep coming back to that. Like, how can we be expected to have empathy and compassion for others if you're not doing it to yourself? And sometimes we just like to sometimes we we will just be focused on helping others and we end up burning ourselves out because we're not taking care of ourselves. And the best way to help others is by taking care of yourself first, energizing, powering up. And if you do that right now, you can help so many more people.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:46:28] Yeah, definitely. Just spending some time trying to understand your own mind. Right. Even like not even in the kind of esoteric sense. Understand your mind, but like the physiological processes of the human brain. Right. Spend some time to understand that and hack that and then use that to your advantage to then be compassionate, right? Like there's the part of the brain, the reticular activating system or whatever it is. That predominant thinking, the thoughts in your head tend to dominate everything. It's the reason why we see the car. We just thought everywhere because that reticular activating system, likewise the thoughts you think you are going to continually perpetuate that as you go about your head. Thank you for sharing that advice.

Mike Delgado: [00:47:04] And there's a book about called The Body Keeps Score, which is all about like mind body and how anxiety trauma impacts us. It goes into the science of it. So just what you're talking about, that's an excellent book that kind of talks about therapy. It can be really important and time alone and journaling and stuff to check the book out.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:47:21] And the things that they had to get back to is my journaling, I'm stuck. I had my journal right here. I'm scared to open it to see when I last wrote because I haven't had time to sit down and just process things. But it's been at least a month and a half and in this thing. So I've got to get got to get back to the put it here instead of off Harp, by the way, because you like doing podcasting.

Mike Delgado: [00:47:40] Another thing that I do, too, sometimes I have no desire to write by hand, so sometimes I'll type it. But then because I got into the whole podcasting in my car with downshifting, which was kind of an experiment, like I was sometimes just turn on a mic and just talk about something or I'll go on a walk and just talk it out. And I found that not only helpful to process things, but also as you're working on, like, how do I become a better communicator? Like, well, I could practice by talking about my feelings alone in the car like that is I found that to be super helpful because I go when I go to therapy, like that's what I'm doing. I'm talking out loud about my feelings and I got enough therapy that I know questions they're going to be asked to me.(hahah) I'm like responding to those questions.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:48:20] Yeah, That's actually really good in terms of just thinking about questions that you could possibly be asked to prepare to answer them. So I know we're running along the time to still have a few minutes. I'm all good. Yeah, I'm all good. I just want to ask a last question before we jump into a lightning round. And that's what's the one thing you want people to learn from your story.

Mike Delgado: [00:48:37] Dude, how do you like the questions, man? That's a shesh. That's a really big question. Think about that. My story. I think right now, my answer would be that I want to I want people to be encouraged through. I guess what I would say is that I'm reading this book on this right now. So this is why it's coming to me, is that life is very, very hard and tragic and there is trauma that is done to us. We might inflict trauma on others. And how do we rise from that? How do we come out of that to become healers? I think maybe my answer would be that there are people all around us that are hurting. And when those people come into your life, how can we be an encouragement and love to that person? And there are people in our lives right now that haven't told us they're having a hard time. And the only way you're going to find out is by spending time getting to know them and building that relationship and that trust. And over time and over building that trust relationship, people might begin to open up about how they're feeling and everyone has something to share. Everyone has a hard thing they've gone through or are going through or they will go through in the future. And if you can be that person that they can go to because they trust you, like, how can we be good healers? How can we be good, helpful people to those that are hurting? I'm trying to be that.

Mike Delgado: [00:50:00] To be that right now, and I hope that that's what I continue to do, is like how am I helping others that are hurting? And so for me right now, like I said it earlier, like I'm right now, my thing is like I'm taking care of my family. I'm taking care of the people that are on my team, the people that I'm interacting with, my friends, like that's my circle. And so that's at the bare minimum, I should be taking care of those people that are in my own community. And then and then I should also be thinking about, OK, there are all these other issues that are out there that are also super important. I'm thinking about the pride movement. I'm thinking about Black Lives Matter, all these other really important issues, too. And I'm like, OK, these are all really important to and I need to also be investing my time in educating myself so that when I encounter people that are part of different communities that are hurting, that I can also be helpful in carrying in the right way. But I think it starts with yourself. Right. And then your your community around you, your group and then like and then looking outward like, how can I get involved? And and I think that you have to be careful. Those like there are so many things that we can get involved with and like focusing in on, OK, what are those really key areas where I can really, I think, make an impact.

Mike Delgado: [00:51:06] So I know I'm just like I spoke all over the place Harpeet so you can edit however you see fit that statement that I got me right here, man, through the.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:51:14] Thank you for sharing that. I think it's a beautiful message to share whoever is listening, the ten people that are subscribe to the podcast. Thank you for sharing that, Mike. So go ahead and jump into the lightning round. What's your super power?

Mike Delgado: [00:51:26] Super. OK, so how many questions are in the lightning around this? There's just a few like, OK, yeah, some power making mistakes.(laugh) I make lots of mistakes. I learn and I try to learn from them.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:51:39] What's the number one book you'd recommend? Fiction, nonfiction, or if you want to pick one from each that you would recommend our audience read and your most impactful away from it.

Mike Delgado: [00:51:47] Oh, my gosh. All right. So the book that has meant a lot to me lately, it's a book by Richard Raw and it's called Falling Upward. And I read it. I got introduced to Richard Warfrom a podcast, and then I was doing some research on Amazon. I found that book.

Mike Delgado: [00:52:03] It was like highly rated and I don't know, a thousand reviews, five stars. And so, oh, there must be something to it. And it's all about basically like this idea of like we're all going to go through hard times and some of these moments are going to be very, very dark, hard moments. And it's basically kind of a map like this is coming. If you haven't already gone through it, it's coming. Be aware of it. And then kind of like but here's a way out. Here's a way to come out of these really tragic traumatic experiences and grow in love and compassion. And hopefully we can move in that direction because the other direction we can go in oftentimes and I've been there, you go through something traumatic, hard time. There could be a death in the family. You go through a sickness. It's very easy to grow bitter. It's very easy to grow angry. And that's a very justified response. In many cases, you go through something tragic. Traumatic anger can be the right response. Bitterness can be the right result.

Mike Delgado: [00:52:58] You can feel all that stuff. Richard saying like hopefully after those things pass, we can grow in love and empathy down the line. And that's kind of the ultimate goal for us, that we can move in that direction and not stay in a place of bitterness and anger, because that's not going to be helpful to us in the long run. But what's going to be helpful to us in the long run is moving to a place of empathy, compassion, and how do we then help others that are in those moments?

Mike Delgado: [00:53:24] So, again, like it's all falling upward. I found it. You can tell in today's podcast I've been talking a lot about compassion and empathy, but a lot of that is from like Richard's words and reading falling upward and also just from going through my own experiences, I find out to be a very helpful book. I wish I read it earlier in life. I mean, I'm forty five. I wish I read it in my thirties because it talks about things that I not to say that I would have understood everything. And there is a lot of metaphore in the book, a lot of spiritual language. I don't catch everything, but it would have been a helpful guide for me. But I find it to be a great, great book.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:53:55] I mean, I definitely glad that the show knows. How do you spell your last name is. Ah, just like raw.

Mike Delgado: [00:54:00] It's called our our budget.Okay, We're losing the book again. It's called a Falling Upward. He has a lot of books that that book is probably one of his most popular. And like I said, I was like it's been one of those books that I've had. I probably read certain chapters a hundred times, like literally it's been one of those books I've had by my nightstand.

Mike Delgado: [00:54:19] I carried on my backpack all the time. It's been like a nice and it talks. It's not like comfortable reading. You're reading about things, about hard times. And he has chapters called like the Shadowlands and Necessary Stumbling and Dark Nights of the Soul, or like a theme that he covers. And it's like so it's like heavy stuff. Yeah. But it's like me.

Mike Delgado: [00:54:37] It's like meat. It's like so nourishing to read about this and reading about how others ahead of us have gone through difficult seasons and how they've gone through them. I feel very empowered by those types of books. I love biographies like reading about how people have overcome adversity. I feel very I love reading those stories. They'll speak to me.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:54:56] It's awesome. Yeah, I like those type of books as well. Actually, I've been reading the. Out of books from the Stoics like Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, I was reminded, based on what you just said, about how we respond to things that happen to us. A stoic way of thinking is there's the event and then there's the after event, the reaction. But in between, that is our judgment and our perception of what it is that occurred. You can make a choice how you respond to whatever event happens to you, whether it's good, tragic or anything in between. The choice is still yours, how you respond to it so that I don't know if that message was anywhere in that book that you're talking about, but it seems like there might be some alignment between those type of ideas. So, yeah. Yeah. So if we could somehow get a magic telephone that allowed us to contact 18 year old Mike, what would you tell him? Well, first of all, Mike, where where was he? Where was he at? What was he doing? What would you tell him?

Mike Delgado: [00:55:48] Oh, man. That's another really good question. The young my 18 year old Mike, I probably tell him this is actually a picture that I saw basically about hard times. And it was a picture of like my future self talking to my younger self in the hard time, basically saying, like, you're going to get through this. I think that one of my messages would be that you're going to have some big things are going to happen, some very painful things are going to happen coming up. And you may not handle them great. But you will get through this and you will become a better person because of it. But just know it's coming. The goal is to pursue love, compassion and empathy on yourself and others.

[00:56:25] That's what I would say my younger self probably be like, huh? What are we talking about?(laugh) So what song do you currently have on repeat right now? Oh my gosh. So I'll tell you, I'm on Spotify, like Spotify. And so I as you know, I love hip hop. I I've been a huge fan for a really, really long time. And a new artist and actually not a new artist has been around for a while and I've never listened to. But I'm totally into the new album is the weekend have you heard about the weekend. Yeah. So his new album, like someone said, oh, my dentist offered me that was like, you got to listen to the new weekend. I was like, oh, what's that? I never listen to the weekend. He's like, you have in like all the new stuff is like stranger things and kind of vibe eight 'Ates kind of vibe. And I was like, oh, really? I'm into I like hip hop. I like punk rock. And so I've never really listened too much to kind of that style of music at all. And so anyways, so the new album from the weekend is one of those. And I've listened to probably like 30 times like the entire thing, which is really rare for me because generally I listen to the album and I'll listen to like one or two songs over and over again. But you find those one songs. I always keep playing them for some reason. I just play the weekend and do my work and I play it again and I play it again and I'll go on bike rides and listen to the entire album. So it's very unusual because not really my style of music, but now it is. I absolutely love. And a song called Snow Child is like one of my favorites on the album.

Mike Delgado: [00:57:44] So that's that's that's fantastic. One of my favorites. Oh, by the way, the new Be Sad, but I'm a big fan of Malone too. And he did a YouTube live event where he covered Nirvana like for a full set. And I'm a huge Nirvana fan to their came out when I was in high school. So I just like fell in love with them anyway. Post Malone covered Nirvana for like an hour and a half. He did a Youtube live. You can watch it on YouTube. The injustice. It's fantastic! I was not expecting I mean, I love Post Malone and I was expecting I was like, I think you'll do this. I've seen him do like acoustic sets and stuff. He's a very good musician. So I was like expecting him to do a decent job. He did a great job and he covered, like, great songs and not like typical songs you would expect, just like really good songs that I listen to. Like I really like I was in high school, like these are songs that I really loved. It weren't even popular on the radio, so much like he did. He obviously covers the popular ones. But I was surprised with the setlist. Really good. What a couple of ones that stood out to you, that Frances Farmer song, which is like I love that one.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:58:39] Frances Farmer will have a revenge.

Mike Delgado: [00:58:41] Yeah. Yeah. And he opens with that one. I was like, dude, this is going to be a good set. And he just he did such a great song. It is such a great job.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:58:48] That's awesome man And yeah, I love Nirvana too back in the days. So Mike, how can people connect with you. Where can they find you.

Mike Delgado: [00:58:54] So are you on LinkedIn yet @Mike Delgado on Twitter @Mike Delgado. Those are probably the two places. I think LinkedIn is probably the best. And I have a website like Mikedelgado.org, but I think LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to message me.

Harpreet Sahota: [00:59:06] Michael, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to sit and chat with me today. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Mike Delgado: [00:59:13] Thank you Harpreet. These were great questions. That was a lot of fun, thank you.