Dr. Daniel Custódio's research found that Latino professionals plan further ahead than their peers in corporate America, and that the culture they were told to leave at the door is the asset that carries them.
In this episode of The Stronger Podcast, Mike Montoya sits down with Daniel, transformation executive, professor, and author of Code Mastering, to talk about turning a dissertation into a map for the people coming behind him.
Daniel's mother immigrated from Belém do Pará and his father from Portugal. His first memory of school is a kindergarten classroom in Sleepy Hollow where he could not understand the language and did not yet know he was nearsighted, in a district with no ESL program. He got to Hamilton College as a first generation student and spent his summers working as a janitor alongside his father while classmates lined up internships. The call that got him into GE's leadership program he took from a payphone on his lunch break.
He went back for the doctorate at 45, with three daughters at home, because he wanted to leave them the research he never had. Mike sat in one of the focus groups. What came out of it is what Daniel calls identity work: being multilingual drew looks at the grocery store as a kid and later became the reason he could move through international markets.
Tune in to hear why the messages that mean the most to Daniel are from Latino professionals who buy a second copy of the book for their kids.
Chapters:
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02:22 Daniel Custódio started kindergarten unable to see or understand the class
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05:51 First generation at Hamilton with no playbook for internships or networking
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09:31 Six Sigma gave him the framework he did not have walking in
👨👧👧
20:20 Back to school at 45 to leave his daughters a map
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24:02 Planning several moves ahead as a countermeasure to discrimination at work
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26:00 Speaking Spanish drew stares as a kid and became a career superpower
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33:29 Identity work means treating your culture as an asset, not a liability
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38:34 From national slam champion to the TED stage
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41:39 The mentor he wishes he had found fifteen years earlier
Links:
Connect with Dr. Daniel Custódio on LinkedIn or visit his website to learn more about Code Mastering and the identity work behind it. His TED Talk is the six minute version, built around an orchestra in Paraguay that made its instruments out of what other people threw away.
Stay strong.
Episode 45