Mental Health within the Latinx Community

Hi, everyone. My name is Alexandra Logan. I'm the head of business development for LATAM and Canada here at Cloudflare. And here with me, we have today Jose Ramirez, who is the technical program manager for storage at Cloudflare 2, and Pabel Martinez, who's our special guest for a company called Plural. So as you may know, this month we're celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. And to do so, to celebrate, that ends on the 15th of October, by the way. And to celebrate, we have done a number of sessions with the LATAM Flare community here at Cloudflare. We have done some team lunch and we had mariachis next week. To wrap it up, we're going to have a happy hour here in Austin with some very exciting surprises as well. So as you know, we're here to talk today about mental health. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to Jose. Jose, take it away. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you very much, Alex, for that introduction. And saying hello here from our beautiful Austin office, our special guest, yes, Pabel Martinez. He's the founder of a company called Plural, and it specializes in supporting mental health. So I'm going to tell us a little bit about yourself, Pabel, and a little bit about Plural. Yeah, for sure. So Pabel Martinez over here coming from New York, and as they said, founder and CEO of Plural. So Plural is essentially if Grammarly and your therapist had a baby. Just like Grammarly, you can type it on an email and it checks for spelling mistakes or tone of voice. We will check your journals and let you know when you're jumping to conclusions. So you share a journal entry, one click of a button, and we'll tell you the limiting beliefs that you're displaying. Now, we can talk about the limiting beliefs, I'm sure today, around like, that are facing our community, and I can talk about my own experience. But as a whole, if you look at humans as a whole, 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% of them are repetitive. So things like self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and all these sort of negative thought spirals are extremely common, which is why we built that app to help you identify them but also help you overcome them as well. And that's fantastic, Pabel, but thank you so much for that. And being as it is Hispanic Heritage Month, can you share with us how do you see mental health within the Latinx community, please? Well, I think one of the biggest triggers and sort of, yeah, see, I think one of the biggest triggers that are impacting our community when it comes to mental health is our ability to be our most authentic selves at work. If you look at the data, 76% of Latinos at work, so around eight out of 10 of us, fake it in some way. We hide parts and suppress parts of our identities in order to be aligned really to white traditional male standards. And it's not something that only us do. You hear women all the time talk about binge -watching SportsCenter for the idea of joining in on conversations. But this idea of faking it at work, for me, led to a mental health crisis because instead of doing my job, I also took on the additional role of being an actor. I would literally binge-watch and study white popular American culture on any time that I had off just for the idea that people would be able to accept me. But like, I think this idea of not being ourselves often leads to some sort of mental health crisis. Wow. So it is true what they say, fake it until you make it. That is the idea. But I think we should be doing the opposite. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But at the same time, it's like, I learned to fake it at home. Like, I learned to fake it from mentors. So as much as people think it's like a cultural divide, I think it's more of like an age and generational divide when it comes to like, how we should behave at work. But like all these, how we should behave and all these like, unspoken rules, like they're not really rules. They're just like beliefs that we've just accepted as society. And what would be some examples of people trying to fit in, especially the Latino community? Oh, my God. I'll give you an example. Like, my mom used to tell me not to go to happy hours with my co-workers, because she thought that it was just like a plot to get me drunk and like, me expose my secrets to my co-workers or something like that. I don't know, right? Like, I have had people tell me that they, that their family told them not to look their white superiors in the eyes, because it's a form of disrespect. Right? There's a lot of these like, traditional things. Or for example, like, I remember, there's a common phrase that is often said, callaita se ve mas bonita to women. It's like, that's saying like, you look more cute, silent. So don't raise your voice, don't have a voice, don't raise your hand, don't share an opinion unless they ask for it kind of things. And a lot of these traditional standards really hold us back in these corporate environments. Absolutely. And for tips, so what would you what tips would you give our clever Latinx and clever TV viewers about mental health and how to overcome these challenges? Yeah, well, I think again, it all goes back to this idea of authenticity. Like oftentimes, like I've worked in tech for 10 plus years before launching this company. And for example, when I was working at Facebook, one of the values was like, bring your most authentic self to work. But what the hell does that mean? Right? Authenticity is such a buzzword. Yet what I found in my research is that it means something different to everybody. And it's often linked to some sort of childhood trauma. I'll give you an example, right? Your first parent teacher conference, think back to like, how did that go? Well, it was like, Oh, Pavel, he's such a good student, but he's really talkative. Well, what do you what do your parents tell you shut up and do your work, right? Meanwhile, I'm just this extroverted relationship building, curious child, where it's no, no surprise that I went into sales. But at the time, I was told to not be that well, come to find out my most authentic self is the version that they've told me not to be growing up. Our authenticity is essentially us rebelling against what we've been told not to be our entire lives. I'll give you another example, men who have been on my show, who self identifies queer say that they've been told what a specific man is supposed to be. Don't show their feminine side their entire lives, right? So they say that they feel like their most authentic selves, when they can finally show that feminine side. Right? So this idea of like creating a safe environment for people to be their most authentic selves, you should ask your team, like, what does authenticity mean to them? That's like the first step. And then with that information, you can start to create a culture, whether it be internal or external around like, when people feel comfortable being themselves, an insight that may come up, especially for external facing folks, like Cloudflare may have a phenomenal organizational culture where people feel comfortable being themselves internally, but they may be feel really uncomfortable externally. That's an insight so that you can work on that. Right. And the last thing I'll say is that, like, don't be surprised if people aren't willing and open to share that information with you, because maybe you're faking it. Right. So like, why would they feel comfortable sharing that information with you if you're not even being vulnerable with them? Right. Like it's a two way street. But that's where I recommend starting. And what you recommend, like if we are at the workplace, and if we see someone that we might perceive as might be struggling, you know, with the mental health, so how can we be supportive of them? Yeah, I mean, it's a it's tricky, but I think if you have a good relationship with that person, I think proactively bringing it up and asking them just like, how are they doing? But to be honest, like, let's face it, like, we're all struggling, right. So I think it starts with us being vulnerable and people, you'll be surprised how often they reciprocate that vulnerability. You know what I mean? It's like, hey, how are you doing? Because I'm struggling, right. And it's okay to struggle. We're all struggling in different points. But it's about like opening that dialogue and creating a space where people are comfortable sharing some of those experiences without the idea of like, oh my god, there's going to be some sort of like retaliation, or I'm going to be demoted if I share that I'm struggling. Like, so often in tech fields, we often talk about like, we encourage people to take risks. That's where like, product and product innovations come from. Well, why is risk taking only applied to like product development? Why can't a risk also be like, admit the fact that I'm struggling right now and I need support. I think that plus being sure that there are tools and resources that are culturally competent to address some of these things are also really important as well. But I think that's where it starts, just like having those open conversations and dialogue. And how do you see, how would you compare mental health within Latinx community compared to other two other groups? Again, I think some of these things are the same across, across everyone, for example, like all of us experience self doubt. Now, there are specific instances where the thing that we doubt ourselves about is going to be very different, right? Like, if you're insert whatever identity, and there aren't that many people that look like you around the office, then I think that you have limited number of people that you feel comfortable with going to and having the conversation that we were just talking about. You know what I mean? Because, you know, let's say, let's say Jose and I share a lot of similar identities. I may assume in my head that him and I share a similar experience. I may feel comfortable talking to that person. Well, imagine if there's no one in the office that looks like you or has similar experiences or whatever that, whatever that identity is, that doesn't even have to be cultural, right? It could be a mother, it could be a new mother, it could be someone that just moved to Austin, for example, I don't know, whatever it is, right? So I think it limits the number of people that you feel seen by. For example, when I was at Facebook, my manager was like, listen, Pavel, I'm never gonna know what it's like to be a black or Latino man in tech. I'm just never gonna do that. Right? So what I've learned is that also, we need to learn how to communicate our experiences beyond these cultural situations. What we need to do is learn how to communicate our experiences through emotions. Like my manager is never going to understand what I'm going through, if I'm talking cultural lens, but emotions, we've all been through it. We've all felt unheard, unsafe, unseen, unappreciated. Those are just like human things that everybody has gone through. So it's, it's both of that. It's understanding that like, not everyone is going to get your experience, but like try to find those people. But also, emotional intelligence is something that we all struggle with, like simply naming that emotional experience is really difficult. And again, it's kind of like why I created this app to help people develop a more sophisticated emotional vocabulary. And are there any particular any particular groups within the Latinx community that were mental health is more affected than others? Um, I mean, I think I think it varies. But I think the more identities that you add on top of some of these things, it sort of takes away the level of privilege that you have, you know what I mean? It's like, all right, well, being a woman, all right, that's one identity, being a Latina woman, that's another identity. Add on top of that, maybe a disability, another, you know what I mean? And it sort of like, limits the number of people that you have access to have that shared experience with. So I would say from that standpoint, particularly, but again, a lot of these experiences, you'd be surprised how many of us are going through the same thing, despite these cultural backgrounds. It's very interesting. All right. And talking a little bit more, I guess, technical on on plural. How does, how do you think how does technology help us deliver or help for better mental health solutions compared to other traditional methods? Yeah, I mean, we'll think about that idea of not having that shared experience within coworkers. If you look at the data for in the medical fields, and you know, psychiatrists, therapists, etc. There's even more of that on that side, right? So this idea of talking and sharing your thoughts with a human, there's a lot of stigmas around that, like, there's this idea, I mean, we've been taught to like, especially like a heavy, heavy Catholic household, like, share it with God, for example, right? Because he's not or she's not going to share with someone. But this idea of like sharing it with a human, oh, no, they're gonna share your business with somebody, even though like, that's literally what they've been trained not to do, right. And there's like legal proceedings on like, how therapists are not supposed to do that. But there's still a lot of that stigma. So what I've heard is that like, people are way more comfortable sharing with AI, because or like with this computer, if you will, because they don't feel like they're going to be judged, or they don't feel like their information is going to go somewhere, etc. So that's like a really big difference. Yeah. And what and what would you say that are signs that we need to look at when when we start seeing our mental health deteriorating? Like what are those signs if you can if you can share some some with us? I think we should be taking care of so I would actually take a step back and not look at mental health as a, like, break glass in case of emergency type of thing. Here's another stat. And this is from Harvard Business Review, 90% 90% of what sets high performers apart from their peers, regardless of industry, is emotional intelligence, right? At some level, let's say you're like a data analyst, well, all right, everyone knows how to pull SQL, and use these sort of programs to like pull data and pull reports. At the end of the day, what's going to set you apart is your ability to manage emotions with your cross functional team is manage your own emotions before, let's say a big presentation, be able to have that conversation around how that meeting went and how you feel about it, like, it goes down to emotional intelligence. So as much as we harp on like having these hard skills, they may help you get in the door. But it's those soft skills are going to help you really be successful in your career. So I would say that if you want to have a successful career and fulfilled life, like emotional intelligence, even as a single man in New York on dating apps, the number one thing that I see women asking for on dating profiles is emotional intelligence, at least for men, which is hilarious, right? So it's like, if you want to find love, emotional intelligence, if you want to get money, emotional intelligence, right? So I think it's more like, it's not just about like, when you're going through this crisis. Right? So I would say, like, don't start seeking mental health support, when you're going through crisis, like you should be doing these things on a daily basis. Because there's so many thoughts in your head that you just need to process. And again, most of our thoughts are negative and repetitive. So this is happening on a daily basis. Absolutely. I know there will be managers watching this, there'll be a lot of managers at Cloudflare. And for everybody out there that's watching Cloudflare TV, what would you recommend for managers? And how can they help with mental health and authenticity? Yeah, so based on the data, most of your team is faking it at work in some way. I promise you. And if it's not them, it's probably you. And I think it goes into this idea of professionalism. Like there are certain things that we think we need to do in a corporate setting or a professional setting, right? But when you look up the definition of professionalism, it's just defined as a skill or competence expected of a professional, right? Has nothing to do with how you look, how you speak, any of these things, skill and competence, right? So I would, I would think about, or ask your team, like to explore that topic of professionalism. It's like, how are we not being ourselves while trying to uphold this idea of what society deems professional or not? And then again, have that conversation with your team around like, what does authenticity mean to them? When do they feel comfortable? When do they feel uncomfortable? And as you have that dialogue, you'll start again to understand the types of environment that you want to create with your team so that they can do their best work. And it's not, it's not something as simple as like, oh, yeah, we wear t-shirts and sneakers to work. That's all I need to figure out. Like, it goes so beyond what we wear. So beyond. Like, that's just the first step of oftentimes, like how much we code switch. It's a big step. But it's, it goes so much deeper than that. Again, like people are not, and it goes back to like, it's not a social good. Like your team is not doing their best work and not operating at their full potential, because they're literally spending half of their time being an actor. It sounds dramatic, but I'm telling you, most of y'all are acting at work, and it's preventing you from doing your best work, hence driving the most revenue. That's a very good point, Pavel, for sure. And what do you think that are the most common barriers to seeking mental health treatment amongst the Latinx community? Yeah. The former US Surgeon General had this quote, and he said that stigma is the biggest killer in the world. It kills more than, you know, insert any of these diseases, because it literally prevents people, good, qualified, intelligent, all sorts of different people from seeking the support. It's like, we know we're burnt out. We know that we need to talk to somebody. But literally this idea of mental health isn't cool, or mental health is for the weak, or just work through it, like those sort of things is really prevalent in our communities in particular, and ultimately prevents us from seeking the support that we need. And oftentimes, it's kind of like when we're already burnt out and are desperate for that support is when we go find it. So I think stigma is the biggest thing. I think access to culturally competent resources and solutions is also a big thing as well, if you think about it. If products aren't being created for us specifically, then by default, we're just an afterthought, right? So I'm not going to say names of specific companies, but just think about that. If we're not being thought about as the primary target audience with the specific challenges that we're experiencing, then by default, we're not being prioritized, and we're just an afterthought. They're creating things for the quote, unquote, general market. What do we mean by general market? White people. So by default, I would think about heavily exploring products and services that are built for us specifically. I went to therapy for like three, four years, life-changing experience. I had a white woman as a therapist. She was phenomenal, but there was a lot of times where I had to spend time educating her on my experience. That could have been time dedicated for her educating me on what I needed to fix, right? And there was a level of convincing her that this was a real thing, right? So that's something else to explore as well. Do you think that there could be an element of shame, vergüenza in the Latino community when seeking for help and support? Of course. A hundred percent. Oftentimes, we don't want to tell anyone that we're struggling, or we don't even want to admit to ourselves that we're struggling because it may lead to something else. And it kind of goes back into not wanting to tell a person about it, because if we tell a person, there's this idea of what are they going to think of me, whether it be friends, family, coworkers, or definitely a manager, right? Like that manager relationship should be that trusted place to share that. But for example, when I was working at Facebook, in my first year, I had so much imposter syndrome. And the story that I was telling myself is, oh, well, if I tell them that I'm struggling, then I've only been here a year, they're going to get rid of me, and they're just going to like find somebody else, right? Like, I can't admit that I'm struggling already. I need to wait for my performance to be first, and then, you know what I mean? But at the end of the day, no one told me that. I'm just making up these stories into my head, right? Which is why I created the app, because if I were to share that journal entry, as far as what I'm going through and what's going on in my head, the app tells me, are you sure that's going to happen? Or are you trying to predict the future, assuming, like jumping to conclusions? We swear we can't predict the future, but if we could, no one would be here right now, because we'd be playing a lotto every month, right? So that shame is a huge part that goes into it, which is why I think talking to the AI, for a lot of people, will remove that barrier of shame. And for someone that might be struggling right now with mental health, so I'm aware that, you know, I recognize that I have some mental health issues, what would you recommend? What steps would you recommend in terms of recovery and how to get your mental health back on track? Yeah, I mean, shameless plug, you can try our app. We're going to remove the paywall pretty soon, but right now, you can use the code PLURALWAITLIST, capital P and plural capital W for waitlist for a free month. You will be required to include your credit card information. We're also potentially going to be launching for Cloudflare employees, a free test that extends for like three months. We're still working with the sort of rewards team to make sure that to see if that is feasible, but that's something that I'm working on. But one of the things as far as like a first step that I highly, highly, highly recommend is trying to name what you're feeling. There's a lot research and data out there that says like, once you can name it, and way beyond these like happy, sad, mad, like a little bit more of a detailed emotion, they say that your brain kind of lessens the reaction throughout your body. It almost makes it feel a little bit more tangible, and that tangibleness makes your brain think like, oh, well, if I can name it, that means that I can probably solve for this. But simply naming the emotion, like almost like calms your body. So that would be like a very first step. Like a diagnosis of? Kind of, yeah. Not a diagnosis, but just like literally saying like, I feel frustrated, I feel disappointed. Like whatever that emotion is, that as a first step is something that I would recommend. And then something I do, like I journal every day. So whether it be pen to paper, I recently started doing voice notes. So I have a wireless mic where I just record myself talking to myself. For some people, they type it out, like whatever it is, you need to be able to process your thoughts from your head to something else to transfer that energy somewhere. Yeah, sometimes saying it out loud helps. So I like the microphone idea. Yeah. And that is a really good one. And I know we have a few minutes left. Do you think that there's also like elements, cultural elements, like familismo, machismo, would they have an impact in mental health within the Latinx community? Oh, for sure. I mean, I didn't grow up with representation of people being emotional. I've never seen my mom cry. I didn't grow up with a father. So I think for her, she tried to be that father figure in the traditional sense of like the disciplinarian, the strong person. And there have been so many losses, right, family, friend losses. I've always seen her go into a room by herself and process that alone. Right. So this idea of like men sharing their feelings, that is a very real thing. And it's not something that, again, is very, is like only within our culture. But yes, definitely, I would say potentially over indexes in our culture, just along with these other. So, yes, cultural, but also in the in the corporate sense, there's a lot of microaggressions and names that are applied to people in the Latino community that I think also contribute to those things. Right. So, you know, the tropes of like, oh, I don't know if you start crying, for example, versus Jose, like you're emotional. Jose is passionate. Right. If you express your emotion in a certain tone of like, oh, she's spicy or like, oh, my God, you're doing too much. Is it like are we applying those same names and labels to other people across the board? Like those have a really big impact on how safe we feel to communicate our emotions and be vulnerable. And I think also for Latinos living in the U.S. specifically, you have the two worlds. Right. You're trying to you're trying to fit in within certain culture, but you also have a heavily family focused community, the Latino community. Right. And that might also have because I know that, you know, in the Latino community, we see that expectations on immigrants as well are very, very, very high. And that can deteriorate someone's mental health very, very, very quickly. Yeah. There's so many things that are happening outside of work that this is, again, going back to like traditional societal standards. It's like, oh, leave your emotions at the door, like leave whatever happening outside of work, leave that at the door. It's impossible. In fact. What's happening outside of work is impacting what's happening at work, so we should talk about them, we should be open about them. And yes, 100 percent. Also, when you're thinking about kind of like having these conversations with your team, it all everything starts for us as a child, everything. So a lot of a lot of how we show up at work even now started back when we were a child and what that experience was like. So if you really want to get to know your coworkers, I recommend starting there. I've done like workshops and things where we help break that down in like a safe environment. And like a lot of it is kind of like live journaling with folks, exploring a lot of those topics around authenticity and like, who were you told not to be growing up? Because again, our entire lives are rebelling against that feedback. So I can I can come back at a later point. But yeah, that's something else that I would encourage managers to do. But also, if you're not open about it, don't expect your coworkers and people you manage to be open about it. Thanks, Pavel. And finally, we only have a minute left. What words of encouragement would you give to our Latino community today to to be stronger in terms of mental health? Yeah, the most powerful thing that I can tell you is that you're not alone. Oftentimes, when we don't talk about these things openly, we feel alone. When we feel alone, we feel like we're the problem. You're not the problem. We're all going through it. Eighty percent of our thoughts are negative. Ninety five percent of them are repetitive. You are not the only one experiencing self-doubt. It's normal. OK, Pavel, with that, we only have a few seconds left. I wanted to thank you for coming and talking to our Latino community here today, our Latino community here at Klaufler. I want to thank Jose as well for taking the time to to be part of this show today that is delivered with, you know, with all the excitement and happiness as we celebrate the Hispanic Heritage Month. Thank you, everyone. And I hope you watch this this in our Klaufler TV channel.