Magical Realism Meets Self-Discovery | Author Interview | Episode 120

[Music] good morning andrees welcome to the bookaholic podcast good morning how are you I'm doing great I'm doing great well today we're here to talk about your new book coming out in February 2025 Captain's wanted and uh this is your first book right it's my first book okay all right well you know you are a man of many gifts many talents many experiences so in order I think for the people to really get into more the book they have to understand who you are and so I want you to give me an autobiographical account of andrees and and to your own horn just just toot your own horn tell it all all right well I was born in New Orleans Louisiana to Argentine Jewish parents I grew up in a Colombian community and then I went and eventually got a graduate degree from Harvard Kennedy School of government and W worked at Google was one of the first 30 Airbnb employees and then um got to reach the Pinnacle of corporate capitalist America by being on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when Fiverr went public in 2019 and at some point I realized that the uh pursuit of all of those external validation things and money and climbing the ladder um didn't necessarily lead to fulfillment or my own self growth and and empowerment and so I embarked on a journey to um yeah come back to myself and my own sovereignty and Captain's wanted is an expression of that process wow okay so you named a lot of Highly commendable and successful things and I think a lot of people no matter what their age no matter what their gender or ethnic ethnicity background we all get caught up in that and for us Americans that's termed and maybe the term has been Twisted the American dream and you know um when I was younger it was you've got to go to college to be successful you know not not just all those things that you just mentioned but the Baseline was go to college you'll be successful and um I especially myself went to UNCC Chapel Hill graduated from UNCC Chapel Hill and uh that did not guarantee success I had a hard time had a hard time getting a job so you know a lot of these and and people get so hung up on these outside success steps to the ladder of success and quote unquote happiness because a lot of times people are saying success is happiness you get caught up on that and a lot of people's lives are completely wasted uh because they're they're still relying on that so with that said with that said with captains wanted which is a novel let's make sure everybody knows because it sounds like we're going down a non-fiction road but we're not Captain SW is a novel but how can this novel transform people that's on that trajectory of what Society terms as success well the book is written in second person it does start in fact with a job interview I think it's modeled after my job interview question at Google but basically this person the main character which is you arrives at this very prestigious interview and realizes that they don't have the right answers because the questions that are being asked are questions about the soul and not questions about what that person had previously accomplished and the character isn't prepared because all they have done their entire life is live their life like you said to fulfill other people's expectations or to pursue that ladder of of external validation and and along the way the character and it's not a linear process but the character stumbles and falls and goes to different ceremonies and spiritual has different spiritual experiences interacts with nature which is very important and and sort of starts to determine to to to come up with some discernment between who's really captaining the ship and at first it might seem like the brain or the mind is captaining the ship and at some point the main character hopefully figures out how to um feel into their heart and and to and to walk from there yes yes yes so quick Sid trck did the Google interview focus on the spirit and the Soul no it didn't the question that is in the book is a question that I asked over 4,000 times when I was hiring people at Airbnb oh so I actually used that question to really identify who I wanted to work with and and who I thought was going to get across the message of um hospitality and warmth and opening up their homes to strangers um that even on the employee side I was asking that question all like almost every day multiple times wow wow that that's really good to hear I wish a lot of I haven't been on an interview myself since way before 2005 because I've been a business owner since then but I'm hoping I'm hoping those who are hiring are asking some of those types of questions because that would give you a better um representation of who you might like to work with that's very interesting and I'm I I love that I love that answer um so so with um Captain's wanted why did you want to write such a book and why did why did you choose to write it as a novel instead of nonfiction right right well first of all my best friend in college passed away from terminal brain cancer and his last words on this planet were I am the captain of this ship so as I was going through my own journey to come back to myself and my own empowerment and and and whatnot I kept having those words resonate in my mind over and over again and in a way the book captains wanted is an homage to him and and homage to what those words may have meant and because so much of my own Journey has been around separating who's actually in charge you know you talked about how um often an immigrant or minority communities were pushed to succeed in a certain way and a lot of that comes from survival mode mentality and it's it's completely understood however we also kind of fall victim to the survival mode realities of the past and can sometimes recreate those very same fears over and over again if we're not careful and I think I think I was doing that and I didn't want to write a book where well the thinking was that the reader could potentially give away their power to another external force in their life like an author or a main character and I wanted to create an experience that would put the reader in the position of the main character yes yes yes yes very brilliant a very brilliant idea and you know you yourself I I see that you've been through some traumatic um events um were you robbed in somewhere the some who robbed you the drug lords drugged and robbed in Colombia it probably was I had those are two two separate experiences in one case I was held captive by gorillas in Colombia and in another case in Colombia it was uh I was drugged and robbed on a date and um I was yeah I was given a drug called um Scopolamine or burundanga on the street and it makes you this willing zombie in someone's criminal activity so I gave away all of my passwords to my crypto accounts and they were wiped out but yeah and it was it was awful it was definitely traumatic but at the same time I have to say that at that time I was over identifying with money I was very much susceptible to what had happened because I was not um I was I was numbing hard and difficult emotions I wasn't really looking at my self-worth stuff that had been kind of Brewing underneath the surface for a long time and and while I don't wish that traumatic event on me or anyone else I have to recognize that it has been a great lesson right right right it's kind of like you were worshiping money I was say so to speak and then you had this experience I will tie this into coming from a Christian background I had a picture of a boy I was a teenager I was like 12 or 13 I had a picture of a boy he gave it gave it to me he was a football player he was very handsome and I just kept that picture close to my heart you know and I just loved it and one day I couldn't find it and lo and behold I had put it in the pocket of some of my jeans my mother washed the jeans and it came out and she said and it was faded and my mother looked at me you know you shouldn't worship things I guess she was just waiting to tell me that because she she saw me clutching that picture of that boy and when it got fed out you know so you know I don't know I believe in a lot of elements of the universe and the universe comes to teach us different things and unfortunately that was one of yours for holding on to money as a worship was mine holding on to a boy's picture worshiping it sot and and I'm I'm so thankful that like maybe it's and because of my upbringing or something in my makeup made it so that it didn't break my faith in humanity that it inspired me to keep putting out work and Creative Expressions out into the world and um I'm thankful that I I took the time to let that experience sink in I went home to New Orleans I I cried in my mom's arms at at 38 I still needed her and uh and I did a lot of yoga that like helped me really embody the experience and not and I didn't want to numb because I knew the numbing was part of the reason that had gotten me there so I really took time to to be in that in the difficulty of that situation and to then come out of that stronger exactly and you know you speak of something I think that is very critical really important to our mental health is the numbing a lot of people don't want to feel pain and uh but we all go through pain of some type just about all the time if it's not physical pain it's some type of challenge or mental pain that we're going through and people are AR strong enough maybe I'm using the wrong word or willing enough to and to embrace it and to be in that space and to find out to question why or how can I deal with this better or you know so it takes a very brave soul a very brave heart to face the challenges before us and not numb ourselves up with whatever avoidance denials alcohol drugs whatever so definitely that that is definitely something that more people ought to come into that space and and you have to face face the facts now speaking of drugs it mentions that uh plant-based medicines and psychedelics make an important appearance in Captain's wanted so tell us about that and why why did you incorporate that yeah they they've had an important um role in my own healing Journey Only in so much as that these experiences often gave me a really like visceral Body Connection to what it feels like to feel unity and connection to Spirit and I think if I didn't have those experiences I'd be operating more in the space of just faith and it's really nice and really important to feel the presence of spirit and of something greater than yourself to then know that you're moving towards that um in your life and towards your higher self or towards the towards Unity or whatever it is that you believe in but I do think sometimes along the way we need little ways to really feel the the connection to God or Spirit or Unity rather than just have faith right right exactly I I agree 100% now I'm going to read a little bit of a snippet out of the book this is from the very beginning um but first the map okay so it seems people want to believe there are secrets Keys gurus principles values affirmations lessons or other short list that become foolproof recipes for Success whatever that word is supposed to mean we're told to live out our passions we're told to follow our dreams we're told that the rent is going up and that being alive is expensive that being sick is expensive that even dying isn't affordable for this reason most of us are imprisoned pushed and pulled by a sense of scarcity we're not operating from the heart the heart we're told isn't good for business but the heart is good for life it is life and it and life as it turns out is good for everything that's a lot and that's only on the second or third page that's a lot to take in and I didn't read the entire block of quote that's a lot so let's work ourselves through what you wrote here and um um because true a a lot of you know people want to believe that there's some key um some like you said some affirmation some vision board uh that could lead to a key for success and uh and then you say whatever success is supposed to mean uh live out our passions blah blah you know the quote you wrote that so tell us about that break it down into pieces because it's a lot yeah it is a lot it's a lot of high value but it's a lot I think often our we're really as humans suscepti a to fear we're we're sold constantly that we're going to die that we're not going to have enough money that we're that the the fires are going to take over and that the the elected off officials are going to do this and the elect officials are going to do that and that um someone else is going to solve your problems all you need to do is X Y and Z and if you don't do it then you're not going anyway there's so many ways in which fear is thrown into the world around us yes and if we're not careful then that fear then runs the show right and you add on top of that um one of the most strongest systems that I think exist especially in the United States and that's the whole Capital capitalist corporate part of our our society and that's a system that specifically um prays upon fear in order to maintain hierarchy yes and part of that maintaining of the hierarchy requires people not to have any connection to their emotions or their heart because that's a threat to the system and to the hierarchy because if my employee that is reporting to me actually believes that something is wrong or they have certain feelings well that might reflect poorly on me so it's not in my incentive to have the person who is below me have any feelings or thoughts wow yes so so then the next logical jump from that is well if we're giving away our power to fear and if we have a whole system that really values um taking away people's emotions well what is the alternative that allows us to live a life that is on our own terms that and that that is connected to something greater deeper something meaningful that comes from inside and and I believe that at that point and this is where the connection to everything comes is that that's the point where we will care for one another in the planet it's not that individual journey into finding your own self and your own connection to your heart is an individual Journey it's just at the outcome of that we come into un and connection with each other and the planet yes yes yes yes yes beautiful now I've been thinking for the last few weeks because I I pick award for the year and my word for this year is introspection introspection and so um I've been thinking about the Ancients and when you look at the pyramids and then think you know I've been blessed to go go to the lou twice in my life hope to go back many more times but when you go through the Lou and you look at those ancient Greek and Roman statues and they are amazing and beautiful and had have stood the test of time and I was like you know can we could could anybody in our society create such a thing now a lot of people think that may be technology but I think those people at those times even though uh Hebrew slaves buil helped to build the pyramids but the fact that those ancient people they had presence of Mind in order to create such things and I don't think because of sometimes technology our phones scrolling through our phones controlling them people this is a book Channel there's a lot of people don't read um we we don't have the presence of mind or the introspection or the soul or you know the heart as you're expressing to even create such things anymore what's your thoughts on this this is a Sidetrack question yeah I mean I can only really speak for my own creative process and I am very keenly aware that when I'm going down really unhealthy path say with my phone or with social media I sense that I'm not in the right State of Mind to receive the inspiration that I think is necessary when I'm in my most creative flow right and I think I've come to realize that what happens is I'm actually using these different Technologies like the phone or social media as a way to numb and I'm numbing away in many ways my ability to tolerate discomfort and if I were to allow myself to sit in the discomfort and to build up my tolerance to it I would then allow for emotions to flow through me because actually when you don't attach too much to your emotions but you allow them and welcome them and accept them and love them even if they're uncomfortable they don't last too long inside of you they kind of like move through you I I I think they last a maximum of seven seconds if we really weren't attach to them right right right and when I am in a state where emotions can flow through me like there's an energetic flow that is happening through me I feel like from that place that is when I'm in my most receptive state to be able to receive a creative inspiration that is great and most Connected To Source right right exactly exactly wow wonderfully said beautifully said I challenge everyone to pick up a copy of Captain's wanted it is a great novel that will take you on your self-discovery journey wonderful thank you so much Andre we'll have a uh Link in the description box below where you can pick up the book Thank you so Andre thank you so much for joining me today thank you so much for having me