Living Authentically: A Journey of Self-Discovery and Storytelling with Fede Vargas
From the rat race to living boldly, Fede shares his transformational journey into podcasting
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Fede Vargas came up to me at a podcasting conference in Las Vegas and asked if he knew me. Which is pretty impressive for someone you’ve only met for a few minutes over Zoom. What followed was a blossoming friendship over our shared love of helping people unlearn their own toxic behaviors and tear down the barriers we each create around, among other things, our comfort zones.
That led to a podcast collaboration and now this conversation. You can also check out my spot on his show, where we talked more deeply about being childfree and what that means in Latinidad.
Back to La Vida Más Chévere, in this first (of three) parts of our conversation, Fede takes us through his own full-circle moment that culminated in our happenstance rendezvous in Las Vegas. And what returning to the City of Second Chances meant for him:
Paulette: I'm so excited to talk to you because we met kind of randomly, right?
Fede: Yes, that's right. I remember the first time we met and it was like, I really wanna stay in touch with this lady. And I was new to the whole podcast collab thing, and then we just kind of like lost touch. But fate brought us back together.
Paulette: In Las Vegas of all places. Do you like Vegas?
Fede: You know what? It was my first time there in 14 years and talk about things coming full circle. When I started in my previous life as I referred to it, I used to work in the media and entertainment industry for over 15 years. At the early start of my sales career, I had a convention there and it was a kind of like a career defining convention.
And I didn't do to the, the Grand Canyon that time because I thought the convention was going to be there every year. And then they switched it up to Miami. So I ended up going to Miami for years. So this was my very first time going back now wearing my podcasting hat. And it was good to be back.
Symbolically, it was kind of like coming full circle in a way. Starting all over again from scratch, but with 15 years experience.
Paulette: I totally get that because I feel the same way. The last time before this I was in Vegas was for a massive citywide conference that I was on the planning team for, so it was exhausting. And I have 13 years experience in that industry.
So coming back to just be an attendee in a world that I'm relatively new to too, podcasting, was definitely one of those “the world is weird” [moments] but here we are. Because in between we've all been locked down. We haven't really been interacting with people. I don't know about you, but I'm still a little awkward. I still feel a little weird talking to people.
Fede: Yes, absolutely. I was catching up with a friend from my previous life earlier today and haven't seen him in the flesh in close to four years because of the pandemic. And I described it to him as kind of coming out of my bunker after the apocalypse and the dust. I moved to Mexico two years ago. Two years later, it feels like the dust is still settling. And coming out for fresh air.
Paulette: It definitely does feel like, “oh wait, is this safe? Am I allowed out?” Yeah, it's like a whole new world and I'm still figuring out how to navigate it.
Fede: Yeah, I completely agree with you. There's still things that feel awkward for sure.
The one thing that didn't change with 14 years apart was that the first time I was there for a sales convention, I was booked back to back. I was relatively new in my career. So I was doing everything plus having a full schedule of meetings. I didn't see daylight for like the week that we were there because you know, you go through the casino to go to the meetings. And then I went out for dinners and stuff or shows at night, but it was all at nighttime.
And similarly, this time I found, because I was doing all of the sessions, as many sessions as I could to soak it all up. And one day, like I went to, I saw sunrise.
Paulette: Wow, good for you! Yeah, I didn't really leave the hotel except for the conference event. So Fede and I are talking about the Podcast Movement Evolutions that we joined up at. And we looked at each other, we're like, “wait, we know each other!”
And then it turns out we are both child free Latinos. Fede has his own podcast called My Most Authentic Life. Which goes hand in hand with La Vida Más Chévere.
Fede: You get to be cool. I get to be authentic. I'm not sure which one's better.
Paulette: Um, you can be both! They're one and this same.
I was listening to your episode where you like looked back on your podcasting journey and you pulled so much good stuff from the people that you interviewed, like the volcano! The actual volcano sounds and just how awesome and awe-inspiring that must have been to witness.
That actually kind of gave me chills. You do good work, dude.
Fede: Oh, thank you! That episode, it's funny because it's episode three, very early on into this journey. Obviously we're always learning, but that's like a dream episode for me to work on because it combined everything. It was an actual experience I'd done, raw audio from the actual volcano climb.
It happened at a very important part on my transformational journey. It was kind of a right in the middle of it, and I knew I had changed radically as a person. And I was doing it with a really dear friend that I had met as part of my new life. When you open your heart and you open your mind, amazing people come into your life.
So everything about that producing that episode for me was really special.
Paulette: Yeah, it definitely gave it life and depth to what you were experiencing, so that was really cool to hear. So for all of you listeners [and readers], start with the volcano episode and go from there when you go listen to Fede's podcast.
From Fede’s instagram:
Origin Story
On his podcast, Fede and I talked about how storytelling is critical to our species. That storytelling is how we've passed on traditions since the dawn of time through oral language, long before we had a written language. And how that tradition is something we're both carrying forward as podcasters.
For a similar episode about the importance of storytelling, check out my interview with Talia Molé titled Storytelling is Medicine.
Everyone loves a good story and we're about to drop in on Fede's as the pandemic begins, and he moves from Europe to Mexico. Also, a little later, he's gonna disagree that he's living his best life—his vida más chévere—in favor of calling it his most authentic life. I truly believe that in order to live your best life, it's also gotta be true to who you are.
At the time of this interview, Fede was still living in Mexico, the country where he was born. Since then he has moved back to Canada, the country where he was raised.
Paulette: What inspired you to even start podcasting?
Fede: It really does go way back in a way, but talking about life coming full circle and every experience that you've had all coming together. In university, my first year of university was audio production.
Back then, I think it was called radio still, and the entire first year was devoted to audio and we produced a weekly radio show and I loved every aspect of it. And then I went to the film center to do screenwriting. So storytelling and audio together for me were always a passion. And I ended up staying in the same industry, but the business side. The corporate business side paid well and was kind of like a fun lifestyle and that pulled me away.
But cut to the pandemic [and a] perfect storm of factors. After 15 plus years my whole life imploded all at once. Everything that you could think about just upended, including my job. I got laid off.
So I came to Mexico for what was to be a four-week vacation. Escaping the pandemic in Europe, where I was living at the time, and ready to jump back on the hamster wheel, ready to get back into the rat race. I had my CV polished and potential jobs.
And then I arrived in Mexico and I was like, wow. I was like, my life just completely changed. I just don't know exactly, but it was a feeling. So I hired a life transformational coach, and those four weeks have now turned into two years! But I worked with her for about a year and a half.
And through that experience I had disappeared off LinkedIn and Facebook cuz it's healthy to disappear, right? But then Instagram was kind of like my social media platform of choice and I loved it because it's creative too and you can do fun stuff. And people would see all my stories and posts of me on the Caribbean and in pools and they're like, “wow, you're living your best life.”
And genuinely [these] were people I care about. And I don't mind that term, best life. I'll use it too. But at that point it didn't feel like that's what I was living. I'm like, no, no, no. It's not my best life.
And through my coaching work I was working on, revealing my true self, I was like, no, no, I'm like actually living my most authentic life. It's my most authentic life. That's what it is. It's not my best life.
And from that was born the title for the podcast.
Stay tuned for the rest of this conversation in your inbox later this week.
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To get the full show notes, and an episode transcript, go to PauletteErato.com.