We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emiliano Castanon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Emiliano, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
Using the old theory of the glass half full, I tend to look at odds the same way. I’ll read an article about the slim chances of becoming a successful entrepreneur, or hear a relative tell me how only a very small percentage achieve the success they’ve always dreamed of. My immediate reaction is to think who is this successful 10%? Or in some cases 1%? They are just another human and the first step to standing apart from the other 99% is deciding you want to do so, believing you can do so. I am a firm believer that everything in life is absolutely possible, do you want to become an Astronaut? Maybe achieve your dream physique? Or even binge-watch your favorite TV Show’s 10 seasons in a row? All of them are very feasible, perhaps some harder than others, but you make them 100% impossible if you don’t believe in yourself, or at least attempt to achieve whatever success you want for your life. And I do not want to live thinking some numbers will limit my optimism, so if we do have free will then there is no reason to feel restrained, and always dream bigger.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
After trying all sorts of business ideas, moving from 3 countries, and completely re-inventing myself after the darkest moment of my 23-year-old life. Empirian was born, an agency that wants to unleash brand’s true potential, we offer what we call marketing alchemy since I’ve always thrived on the idea of being unique, I wanted to offer the highest quality marketing strategy & content creation services with a tailored approach, reasonable pricing, and the utmost desire to make the brands we work with stand out. My business partner, Alejandro, fortunately, has the same principles as I do and believes the current market in Miami is always trying to squeeze the clients for more money and deliver the minimum results, so Empirian is the solution for those disruptive businesses looking to edge their competitors with a team they can fully trust.
The idea of aesthetics combined with business psychology is so fascinating to me, and I personally hold myself to such a high standard when delivering for our clients that if I do not feel 100% satisfied with what we create at Empirian then we prefer re-doing everything, or not accepting payment until both parties feel completely fulfilled.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Optimism, discipline, and self-accountability. Many people often sell the idea that they hold the recipe for success, but one day I realized there is no recipe for success, everyone has a different way of achieving whatever definition of success they have in mind. You can see the most important people in history, the wealthiest people, or the greatest athletes. None have walked the exact same path, they all have different stories and backgrounds that make whoever sells this “recipe for success” sounds delusional. However, I’ve come to realize there is in fact a set of ingredients you absolutely can’t miss for whatever recipe you desire, some of these ingredients are optimism, discipline, and self-accountability, at least for me those are non-negotiables I need to cook my recipe of success. Every person is so different that it’s hard to know what’s the best recipe for you, but success in whatever form you desire always demands ingredients like hard work, sacrifice, and discipline.
I heavily use optimism to drive me on a daily basis, perhaps you can call it faith, or even hope, but the idea of believing in yourself and your purpose is like knowing you are hungry. Maybe you have absolutely no idea how to cook, or what do you want to eat, but if you stay hungry long enough you will begin to look for food anywhere you can, maybe even end up eating bugs just because you found nothing else. But that itself will also teach you something about yourself, and for me success is just like that, only that you mostly eat to survive while instead you chase your dreams to feel alive.
“Some people die at 25 but aren’t buried until 75” – Benjamin Franklin
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is like my bible, it’s a book I keep on my nightstand and constantly re-read excerps whenever I seek guidance. This book is unlike any other I’ve encountered, even if it’s not a hidden gem people don’t know about, reading the unfiltered wisdom from one of the greatest Roman emperors is priceless. Yet, the way he conveys his message seems so accurate to what anyone might feel almost 2000 years apart is phenomenal. I do recommend the Hays translation, but whatever version of this book anyone reads is guaranteed to at least question a couple of your thoughts, and hopefully, help you re-invent yourself into a better person. Overall reading is like a cheat code, it’s the notion is using a person’s knowledge or experiences he might have taken all his life to acquire, and summarizing the most important elements into a couple hundred pieces of paper for you to read. Nothing quite like it unless someone invents time travel and we can go have tea (or bring him coffee from the future) with Marcus Aurelius.
Contact Info:
- Website: empirian.io
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