Finding Your True Path In Career And In Life With Bernie Borges
We all start on a path thinking that we will become "this thing" one day, but life doesn't work like that. We switch career paths on the fly because that is what we do as humans. Do we regret some decisions? Sure. But we got to live with those decisions and carry on in our path. This is the story of Bernie Borges. Bernie is the Chief Customer Officer of Vengreso. He is also a podcast host and a voice-over actor. Join Chad Burmeister as he talks with his friend, Bernie Borges, about Bernie’s life—throughout his many career options, his regrettable moments, and more.
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Finding Your True Path In Career And In Life With Bernie Borges
I am here with Bernie Borges who's a good friend. I've known Bernie for several years. The last time that we were able to hang out was in the Reno area or Lake Tahoe at one of those cool events and got to spend some time there. I'm excited to have Bernie on the show. He's been the Chief Customer Officer of Vengreso for a very long time. He had a couple of different roles there and wore a few hats. He's in transition to move to a new company in the coming days. Bernie, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about where you're headed.
Thanks, Chad. It’s great to be with you. I have fond memories of our time together in Reno several years ago. I'm in transition at the time of this interview, so by the time your folks are reading this, I'll be in my new role. At Vengreso I was the Chief Marketing Officer through July of 2020 and then moved into the Chief Customer Officer role. It was an interesting transition because I was able to bring all of my marketing mindset into that role to lead the team on the delivery of our training and coaching services and do it with that marketing lens. I'm moving into a new role with a company called iQor, a very large company in the BPO space, essentially the customer call center space. I'll be Vice President of Global Content Marketing for iQor. I'm excited about that.
I like to set the context of where you're at professionally because when we dig into Living A Better Story, getting in alignment with your God-given talents or what your unique fingerprint in this world is, it's always fun to share with our readers how that happens. Sometimes it doesn't just happen overnight. You have to grind the gears a little bit through life to figure out what gets you up in the morning and excites you. With that, let's rewind the tape and go back to 6, 7, 8, 9 where you have some of your first memories as a kid. What was your passion or what did you love to do when you were younger?
If I go back to that age, mostly what I love to do was mess around with my friends in sports. Playing football and hockey in the streets. That’s when I fell in love with hockey as a kid. In terms of my career, probably not around age 6 but still as a youngster, I do remember that I always wanted to be a product manager. For some reason, that was something that got stuck in my head. I want to be someone who manages the launch and the ongoing support of a product. Once I started to look into what does that looks like, what's the responsibility, what's the educational requirements, then I got to think about its most big companies. You think of companies like Procter & Gamble, and all their product portfolio which are consumer products.
The irony is even though I did think of them, I've never spent a day in the B2C industry. I've spent my entire career in B2B. Even though I wanted to do that and I went to college and got my marketing degree, I went straight into sales right after college. I've never ever done a product manager role within my career, although I did transition into marketing. I did still love marketing from my college years and there's a whole story there. I don't know where you want to go next, but I’ll leave that up to you as the interviewer.
Sports, playing with friends, that's a pretty similar answer. There's usually a fork in the road at some point where you end up going a different direction. At some point, you said, “I want to manage a product.” I wonder if you can tie together the interest in sports and interest in playing with friends. What do you think about that level of your passion in your life comes through to now. Why do you think you're in the kinds of jobs you're in now based on what you'd love to do as a kid?
It comes down to one thing. That is getting the most out of the people around you, getting the best out of them. Much of that has to do with helping those people around you. In my case, my friends when I was a kid. As I progressed in my career, just helping people understand their own God-given talents and helping them have the confidence that they deserve to have. I find that a lot of people don't know that they're as good as they are in whatever they're good at. The connection dating back to when I played street hockey as a kid, and then going through my high school and college years and getting into my career is that passion for, “What do I see in Chad that I can pull the best out of him and have him help me in my role, have it be good for Chad and his career, and have it be a confidence builder for him? How do I do that?” It's something that has been a long journey for me. I don't think that I did it all that well when I was young, but over time as we mature, we get a little wiser. It becomes a little bit more conscious competence instead of just trying to wing it and figure it out.
Someone said that within the last few days, and that's the first time that I'd ever heard that. If I think back to a friend of mine from high school, Sean Melius, he's on my board and he's a successful CEO of a $5 million company. In one-quarter of March of 2019, we dipped from $200,000 in a month to $20,000 in sales. Usually, that's the time I say, “Dad, can I have a check for $30,000 just to get me through the month?” I called dad and I said, “Do you want to help me? Because I didn't want to go tap my IRA. I know you have some liquid capital.” He said, “No.” I was like, “Dad, I don't want to tap my IRA.” Sean said, “Let's go get a cocktail.”
We went to a local place and he said, “Chad, on the back of a napkin, show me your business model,” I was like, “Here you go.” I go, “Look, I've got plenty of opportunities that are $100,000 each. I just need a month or two of capital.” He said, “How much do you need?” “$50,000.” He wrote me a check for $50,000. He looked me in the eye and he said, “I believe in you, no doubt about it.” I was just like, “Now I've got a big responsibility.” I made it worth his while. I gave him a pretty nice commission on top of the loan because I'd rather give it to him than my IRA or something else. Even as a CEO, and I feel like I'm pretty good at what I do, but we get knocked down from time to time as humans. It's important that you can recognize that. It doesn't matter what their role or title in life, anybody can use that. That's pretty deep.
You nailed it. No one is immune from that. No matter where they are in life.
You see celebrities who hit a wall all of a sudden and you're like, “That guy's worth $80 million. What are you talking about?” One of the questions I like to ask is the painful stuff, something that you face at the time that you’re like, “That's the size of Mount Everest. How am I getting over and around that?” Fast forward the tape and you look back and you go, “That made me who I am now.” Most of us have dozens, but are there any that you're comfortable sharing that you can now look back on and say, “Here's how I got around the mountain or this is what happened and here's how I dealt with it.”
Career Path: When you give the pat, you're telling people that's enough, and that's a big deal.
Do you mean a personal pain or business?
It could be anything. Sometimes family divorce is a big deal and that sticks with you. Other people have shared about their business that went out of business. They're like, “I'm devastated. I lost my whole business.” Those things and then figuring out what are the tactics that you can share that said, “This is how I was able to find my way through that situation.”
I can probably respond to the first part of that. I'm going to struggle with the second part and you'll see why because it's deeply personal. I'm going to share it with you and your readers. Your question is what's the most painful thing. For me, it's something that haunts me. It’s when both of my parents died. They died three years apart and they were in their 90s. They lived a long, good life. They were in decline in their health, so it was not a sudden thing. They were both on their proverbial death bed three years apart. In both cases, I stepped away from the moment. In one case, I said, “I'm going to go home and come back in a few hours.” In those few hours, my mom passed and I wasn't there when she passed. Without giving you more detail than you need, the same thing that happened with my dad. I stepped away in his final hours and I came back and he had passed.
First of all, I kicked myself that I did it again. This is the first time I've shared this except with my wife. I don't know that I can connect it to my career other than to say, sometimes we just make a mistake or a decision that we regret and we just have to live with it. There's nothing I can do to undo that. I cannot go back in time. Even though it's painful, it equipped me to think hard about the big decisions that I need to make. Those are not business decisions, the story I shared with you, but I didn't realize at the time how big a decision it was to say, “I'm going to go home and come back.” I didn’t realize it. Now, I just think twice about the big decisions, even though they may not be of the same magnitude.
Moving on from Vengreso to a different opportunity. Those are the types of decisions where you have to look in the mirror and say, “What's the gravity of this?" It’s every little move. If I didn't move to California, I'd never met my wife and we'd never have our amazing kids. If I didn't meet a friend who came to Denver and introduced us, that was another little move that happened. It’s all of those little things if you think about it. I was around at the time when my grandparents decided to move on. It's interesting. I thought my grandmother was hanging on and we got to say our goodbyes. We had a trip planned to Alaska and she passed while we were in Alaska. What I put in my mind is I don't think she wanted to go to the other side while I was there in the room with her.
In both cases, both my mom and my dad, it's exactly what all the caregivers told me. That's exactly what they said. In fact, they said that it's pretty common that people who are in their final hours go when the family steps out of the room.
Put yourself in their shoes. I'm sitting there and I'm taking my breaths going, “I can see it.” I think it's a respect thing for my kids. Thank you for sharing that because I know that's one of those memories. Those are the things that everybody faces in life. Hopefully, somebody reading this someday could have that conversation with their parents while they're sitting there, “I'm going to be here with you 24/7, just so you know.” That might be a takeaway that someone could get. The next question is a look forward and that is, is there anything that if you could wave the proverbial magic wand and accomplish something? Sometimes I think we tied too many things with, “If I could just buy that house on the mountains,” and that's not really what I'm after. It's more of, what would help you feel fulfilled? What would change the playing field that you think about that you're striving for?
You asked me earlier what do I think about or what do I want to do and I shared that with you. That was generally a career path that I went down whether it was straight or not, but it wasn't a fantasy. It was a legitimate career aspiration that I chased. What I fantasized about was being an actor. I never went to acting school. I never did anything. Although over the years, I've done a little bit of community theater. It’s not a lot and I enjoyed it. I've also started to do voice acting. When I say started to do it, I mean legitimately do some that I've gotten paid for.
I've done about 25 small explainer videos, some corporate narrations, even a children's website that once I did one, she came back and done twelve for this woman that runs a children's website. I'd like to do more of that. It's incredibly fulfilling. It is acting, by the way. It's just not in front of an audience, like onstage or a camera because it's behind the microphone, but you are acting. Even if it's in a high technology company explainer video, you're still telling a story. I just want to do more of that. It's just incredibly fulfilling. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's truly fun.
Even these shows, I've done probably 100-plus over years. Some people could argue, is there a value to it? I can't come in and say, “Yes, it relates to this much pipeline or anything. Maybe, but I truly enjoy having the conversations. Now I have two shows. The AI for Sales, which talks about AI in sales. We’ve talked about that originally, but then this is my passion project because you only live once. If you can share some of those things that hit home for you like what you just shared, that to me is so compelling because somebody else gets to hear that and go, “I never would've thought of that.” Those are the moments where if you listen for them and you pay attention, there are certain things that you go. “Okay,” and that's in my memory banks.
I'll give you one. Arjun Sen is a friend of ours. Tiger Woods is a client of his. He's worked with Papa John's Pizza as marketing head and all big wig guy. He wrote a book about his daughter, Raising a Father. It’s supposed to be, how do you raise your daughter? It’s like, “No. The daughter raises the father because he learned so much from her.” One of the takeaways was he did the pat on the back like after the hug when you do the pat. She said, “Dad, when you hug your daughter, you're supposed to just hug your daughter. When you give the pat, you're telling me that's enough.” That's a big deal.
Career Path: Just be in service to others. Know that doing something to other people is always a nice thing.
Now, whenever I hug someone, I don't pat. I let them do the pat. Let me take that. Let me not be the person who does that. It's such subtlety but it's one of those life-altering experiences. Think about that. The next time you’re in a hug, make sure not to do the pat on the back. This one's very similar to the last one, but we'll use it anyway because it's slightly different. Three years from now, I have you back on the show and say, “Bernie, you've changed jobs. You started with the voice acting thing. You've done 25. What are you looking back in three years? “Chad, this was amazing. Let me tell you about the last three years.” What do you tell me?
I finally stopped thinking about it and took action to carve out time to serve some needy people. I've made a donation to a local charity here in the Tampa Bay Area that's been around for a long time and I've known of them for a long time. Even though I've made the donation, I had this little tiny sense of gratitude that I was able to make the donation and fulfillment, I still felt like that's not enough. When I'm on their website, there are so many volunteer opportunities and many other ways. If three years from now, I could say, "I was able to devote some amount of time and be able to quantify that," whatever that is, and even specifically say, "Doing X, Y and Z in a volunteer role.” I have done volunteer in the past throughout my life but not in recent years.
Do you know why? It’s because I've been too busy and I'm tired of saying that. I want to go back and do it again because I remember how awesome it felt to be in service to others. I'll tell you a very quick story. Years ago I was at church one Sunday. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and it was the parent of a child that I used to mentor. He was a few years older. This parent said to me, “I just want to thank you. Our son speaks so highly of you. You've made a great impression on him and you've helped him.” We went on to have a conversation and I just thought to myself, “Wow.” I did not see that coming. It was so gratifying. It’s not that I need to hear that, I don't want any recognition, but I do want to be in service to others.
To know that it's done something for other people is always a nice thing. We did a Living A Better Story retreat in Powder Mountain, Utah because I like to ski, so that's where we chose our first location. One of the exercises was you go through your past. You go, “At five years old, I'm this.” You act like you're five. You're like, “I'm doing this and then I'm doing that,” and you get to your current age. Later, you start going around and say, “Everybody, go grab one of the people in the room. What did you hear about that person? Summarize them.” It's like a talking mirror back to you. It's amazing how people like, “You're giving, your charitable, you're this talent.”
Sometimes we don't feel that because we don't see it as we saw in that conversation with that family. By getting a dose of this, the emotions that come to you, it's just like, “Wow.” You get to wear the suit and go, “I am who I am. I'm a good kid. I'm a good guy.” It's pretty neat when you know you can have an impact on other people like that. The last question is, you talked about churches now. It's interesting where people are in faith, religion, spirituality and universal whatever. There are all these different belief systems that are out there. Some people go to church on the weekends, other people don't, but they still have a connection in many cases. What role does faith play in your life and how does that show up?
For a long time, it played no role but at the age of 37, I got baptized by choice and accepted Jesus Christ and been a Christian since then. It's been a few years but in my first 37 years, there was no faith in my life. I did my own thing, the Frank Sinatra way. Now, I have perspective. I know that there's a bigger plan and it also gives me an awareness where like that conversation that I had at church where the parent tapped me on the shoulder, I felt like that was God's way of saying, “Bernie, you were doing okay so keep doing it,” or something like that. There was this little feedback. It's the perspective that it gives me. It's having the lens where I know that I'm not the one that's in control here, I just need to be faithful and do my part, and God's in control. Wherever He leads me, my job is to be obedient to where I'm called to go. Even with this new job, the conversation started a year ago. The doors kept opening and opening, and after a lot of prayerful consideration about it. I was convinced that it's the right thing and the right timing for me. I've learned to understand the bigger picture and be true to it.
We're about to launch an app and probably by the time this is published, it will be available. It’s 77Pray.com and there are some 7:7 Bible verses out there that are pretty interesting. One is about “Seek and you shall find” verses, “Ask and you shall receive.” The purpose of the app is an accountability thing to say, “Did you pray at night? Did you pray first thing in the morning?” There are so many people I see on these Facebook groups. They'll post and there will be 800 replies. Somebody will say, “I've had a tough week,” or “My partner left me,” all of the challenges that we face. In February, I went through a tough challenge. My son was burned in a grease fire with second and third-degree burns on his face and hands. On the first day at the hospital, you're like, "He's going to be okay because it's still a crispy shell." By day 3, 4, 5, it gets puffy. You're like, "What's happening?" By day seven, the nose is really bad. All you can do is pray.
From day one, I posted on LinkedIn. I said, “Faith.” I was like, “We just ended up in the hospital. Please pray for us.” That was my most interacted with posts on LinkedIn ever, 20,000 people. There were literally tens of thousands of people praying around the country. As a result, the surgery went amazingly well. A week after they removed the bandages, we were like, “You're back,” as if it didn't happen on his face. His hand has a little bit still, but people get Poison Ivy on their hand or whatever and their hand looks that way. The face was what my wife and I were like, “Okay, that's the piece.” I prayed. I said, “God, I've never asked you for a miracle. I'm asking you now. Give my son a miracle and make it so that there's no other way to describe it,” and then it happened. That's when you're like, “Am I living on a computer right now?” That's the key. You can have the connective path to your creator and when you have belief, physical stuff like that is super scary. The mental stuff we deal with if you just can park that and say, “Life's going to be okay. Have another fun day.” Amazing things happen.
I did not know that story, Chad. Thanks for sharing that.
That was the toughest thing I've ever dealt with in my entire life. Now he's home on the roof above me and we go work out almost every day over the summer. He's doing well. Bernie, thanks for being on the show. This is Bernie Borges. He's moving to a new company. Let's wish him the best and send him off with good prayers and thoughts. I appreciate you sharing the personal stories that you shared with us. I look forward to seeing you in Tahoe again soon.
Thank you, Chad. It’s great to be with you. I enjoyed it.
Thank you. We'll catch you on the next episode.
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About Bernie Borges
Bernie Borges is co-founder and Chief Customer Officer of Vengreso. He is host of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast and the author of Marketing 2.0, one of the first 50 books written on social media strategy. Borges is recognized by TopRank as a Top 50 Content Marketing Influencer, by Onalytica as a Top 100 Artificial Intelligence Influencer, as well as a Marketing Insider Group Top 60 Marketing Speaker. Borges is a regular contributor to Social Media Today and Business 2 Community.
