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Welcome to American Heritage School's Patriot Podcast, hosted by the students of the podcast class at the AHS campus in downtown Salt Lake City. Each episode features students interviewing professionals, experts, and inspiring guests to explore real-world experiences through the lens of The Seven Principles of Personal and Civil Liberty. These conversations are designed to uplift, educate, and spark meaningful dialogue within the family.
Tune in with your family each week to learn together, reflect on the values that matter most, and be inspired to live with greater purpose and principle.
Learn more about The Seven Principles of Personal and Civil Liberty here: https://slc.americanheritageschool.org/the-seven-principles
What's up? What's up? What's up? We're here at American Heritage School
Morgan:in Salt Lake City, and this is the Patriot Podcast
Speaker 1:where we get to talk to different professionals
Eduardo:about their awesome jobs. At AHS, we strive to live
Speaker 1:the seven principles of personal and civil liberty.
Morgan:So we'll be talking to each professional
Bruce DeCaster:about how they apply
Morgan:these principles each day.
Bruce DeCaster:Let's dive right in.
Morgan:Let's dive right in.
Eduardo:Let's dive right in. Hello. I'm Eduardo, and welcome to the American Heritage School Patriot podcast.
Morgan:I'm Morgan, and today we are privileged to get to talk with mister Bruce DeCaster. Mister DeCaster is a distinguished leader in international human resources, earning recognition across multiple industries. Currently, mister Decaster serves as the Latin American HR leader for Hexagon, a global engineering firm, which while also holding the position of president and CEO of Crescentia Global Talent Solutions and international HR firm specializing in health care and transportation industries. Mister DeCastro is a writer having published numerous articles and a couple of books and is fluent in five languages, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and his native language, Papiamento. Mister DeCaster, we look forward to hearing from you today.
Bruce DeCaster:My pleasure to be here.
Eduardo:Yeah. Thank you. Mister DeCaster, will you please give our listeners a brief self introduction, including your education and career track? How did you get to where you are now professionally?
Bruce DeCaster:Certainly. So I was born and raised in the island of Caribbean called Curacao, hence my native language, Papimento. And Curacao is a Dutch colony, so that's why I speak Dutch as well. And because it's so close to Venezuela, I grew up speaking Spanish as well. And since I'm fluent in three languages, it was a lot easier for me to pick up Portuguese as well and German a little bit as well.
Bruce DeCaster:And so I went to Brigham Young University. That's where I got my degree in health and human performance. After that, I moved to Germany where I oversaw a merger between two companies. And while I was there, I noticed that I was lacking more finance skills. And so I decided to go get an MBA after that.
Bruce DeCaster:I went to Thunderbird. Thunderbird is an international business school and I got my degree in global management. And then after that, I was able to launch my career in international human resources. So most companies nowadays, they're expanding or leaving some countries, and so they need someone that can help them understand talent. If I'm going to enter a country, how much how many talent how many employees am I going to need?
Bruce DeCaster:Or if I'm going to exit a country, how many employees do we need to lay off? So you need someone that can understand talent, but not only that, but also understand how businesses work. And that's where my function comes into place. I'm the bridge between business and human capital and how you're able to understand it but more in an international global framework. So that's me in a nutshell.
Eduardo:Wow. That's cool. Yeah.
Morgan:At American Heritage School, we try to live by the principles of personal and civil liberty. Which of these principles has most guided your career, and will you share a personal experience showing how this principle has helped you?
Bruce DeCaster:Last week, actually, I was in Peru where I was giving training to leaders from Brazil, Colombia, United States, Peru, and Chile. And I shared with them this story. Many years ago, there was a farmer that was raising all these chickens. And a scientist passed by and noticed that among his chickens, he had an eagle. And he told the farmer, hey.
Bruce DeCaster:Do you realize that you're raising an eagle amongst your chickens? And the farmer said, yes. You know, I found it. I didn't know how to raise eagles, and I treated it as a chicken because I'm a chicken farmer, that's how I raised it.
Morgan:Mhmm.
Bruce DeCaster:And the scientist said, well, do you mind if I come tomorrow and take this eagle with me? He said, yeah. Sure. I mean, I can eat it. I it doesn't produce any eggs.
Bruce DeCaster:It's just eating all my resources. So the following morning, very, very early, the scientists came, took the eagle up in the mountain, waited for the sunrise. And when the sun came up, it took the hood off, and the eagle for the first time saw the valley and realized that it's an eagle and was able to soar and fly away. One of your your values is divine identity and purpose. And this is what has helped me throughout my career to remember that I'm not a chicken.
Bruce DeCaster:I'm an eagle. There is so much more that can be done with my experience and background once they realize that I am a son of God. There's so much more that I can do. And so what when I shared this story with these leaders, I told them, throughout your life, someone was treating you as a chicken. And you will notice as a youth, when you go into the workforce, you're gonna get managers that will treat you as if you're a chicken.
Bruce DeCaster:But you have to always remember, you are much more than that. You are a son and a daughter of heavenly beings that have endowed you with the ability to soar. An entire value is yours. You can become whatever you want if you're able to put your mind to it. When I came to this country, I was a custodian.
Bruce DeCaster:I did the best I could, and I was excited to be a custodian. I remember when my boss came to me and gave me my check, said to him, Hey, I want to be honest. I think you overpaid me. And he said, No, no, no. It's it's $6.45 per hour.
Bruce DeCaster:I was like, Wait a minute. You pay $6.45 per hour? I thought it was $6.45 per day. Oh. I was the richest Kustodian you can find.
Bruce DeCaster:And so I said to myself, this is exciting. This is awesome. And I was the best toilet cleaner in that building. And I'm not afraid or not embarrassed to say that I was a toilet cleaner. Yes, I was a toilet cleaner, and I was the best one in the building.
Bruce DeCaster:Someone noticed, and they said, Hey, you know what, Bruce? You should be a lead student. You should be leading all their custodians and teach them how to properly do these bathrooms. And I said, yeah, I'm going to. And they be they made me a lead.
Bruce DeCaster:And then after that, I was such a good lead. At 03:00 in the morning, I would come excited, I would dance, I would motivate everybody to come and clean these bathrooms with me, and I would get everybody riled up to come. And they said, You know what? Let's make you building supervisor. And I was like, Yes, let's do it.
Bruce DeCaster:I was the best passionate building supervisor you can find. Well, guess what? My boss was having a barbecue and was telling them there's this crazy guy that's so excited about his And this lady that was at the barbecue said, you know what? I wish my employees were like that. I want to meet this guy.
Bruce DeCaster:And so they invited me for an interview. And they said to me, hey, what makes you so passionate about your job? And I was telling them how excited I was. And he said to me, well, do you know how to work computers? I said, no.
Bruce DeCaster:But I will learn. You don't even need to pay me. I will do it for free. I just want to learn. I learned to work with computers.
Bruce DeCaster:I learned to do what what I can. Today, I do all these programming and things like that, but the point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't matter what you do, someone will notice. As long as you bring the passion and excitement to do your job, someone is going to notice. Remember your divine potential and and your divine identity, and remember that you are an eagle. You're not a chicken.
Bruce DeCaster:And don't forget, someone is going to treat you like a chicken. So make sure you find a mentor that's willing to take you up the mountain and show you the valley. But you will notice that the scientist didn't throw the eagle up the mountain. It just showed the eagle the valley and the eagle had to soar. So you're gonna have to make the decision that you know what?
Bruce DeCaster:I'm going to soar. And I'm gonna do it, but you have to make that decision. Did that answer your question?
Morgan:Yes. I love that.
Eduardo:That's a really important principle that everyone has to know nowadays because some people don't realize it. What interests or skills should a student develop now to succeed within your area of expertise? And why would you recommend a high school student explore professional similar to yours?
Bruce DeCaster:So the first thing you need to start learning now is to build your brand, build your reputation of who you are as an individual. It has been twenty plus years that I've left high school. Until today, people remember who I was in high school, and they're going to remember who you're going to be in the workplace. When I was in business school, we had a gentleman that did not have a good reputation. And guess what?
Bruce DeCaster:Now, once we left business school, we all remember his reputation and who he was and what he did. Your reputation stays with you. Many times, we have the tendency, especially in the as youth, of posting stuff online. Isn't that fun? We love to post stuff online.
Bruce DeCaster:Well, did you know that people like me, before I hire you, I Google you? Oh. Yes. I Google you to make sure that whatever you have in the outside life, it's going to carry into the workplace. And so there have been many people that before I hired them, once I Google them, I'm like, maybe this is not the right person to bring into the workplace.
Bruce DeCaster:Be very careful with what you post online because whatever you post online is going to follow you for the rest of your life. Even when you're old, there's going to be a picture of you being doing silly something and it's going to follow you. So build your brand now. Build your reputation now.
Morgan:Okay.
Bruce DeCaster:And the second thing that I would say is to develop a work ethic. If you're going to to say you're gonna do something, do it. If you commit and make an agreement that you're going to turn in a homework at that day and that time, do it. If you know you're going to be late, make some arrangements that you can make sure that you fulfill that assignment or that commitment that you made. I've seen so many students that come into the workplace, and they're not able to keep a commitment.
Bruce DeCaster:And, unfortunately, I have to fire them. Yeah. As international HR, I have to hire, but many times, I have to fire. And I I remember once I was called because there was a a young man that was playing video games on the company's computer, and he was caught. And I had to terminate him.
Bruce DeCaster:As I was taking him out the parking lot, he turns to me and he said, mister DeCaster, you have no heart. You are such a cold person. I'm going through a divorce. My son has cancer. I have all these health problems and all these health issues, and you're firing me.
Bruce DeCaster:And I said to him, Wait a minute. You're telling me that I have a cold heart? Why were you playing video games on these people's computer? If you truly cared for your family, you should have been doing your job. I cannot care more for your family than you should be caring for your own family.
Bruce DeCaster:So hurry up and pick up that box because I got stuff to do. So you need to develop a work ethic and don't make excuses. I have a saying in our family: Excuses are like armpits. We all have them and they all stink. Don't make excuses for yourself, and especially don't put those excuses on other people.
Bruce DeCaster:Mhmm. The last thing I'm gonna tell you and is actually I should have started with this one, but it's actually the most important one is to have the Lord in your life. Whether you believe in God or not doesn't matter. He believes in you. So have the Lord in your in your life.
Bruce DeCaster:Let me give you one example that illustrates this. When I was in business school, we were given a huge project. This project involved building an airport and having a logistics process to it. It was a very complicated process. And there were several teams of 10 to 15 students that came together to build this project.
Bruce DeCaster:But something told me, you know what? This is not gonna work. So I had only two students in my team. Besides me, we were three. The other one was my wife at that time, Erica.
Bruce DeCaster:And the other one was another student that wasn't really putting up his weight, so I ended up firing him from the team. But I remember this was such a complex project that I was sitting at the library for three hours and they could not figure out how to do it. And then I started praying. Please help me. I'm competing against teams with fifteen, ten students, and I don't know how to build this airport.
Bruce DeCaster:And at that moment, I had a revelation on how exactly I had to make some movements of some of the formulas, and then suddenly everything fell in fell into place. I I was wow. I was static. I submitted it. I was mocked by some of the students with, you know, big groups because they're like, oh, it's just Bruce and Erica.
Bruce DeCaster:They can't do it. We scored the highest score. It was it was the highest score that they had seen. 48 out of 50 points. Wow.
Bruce DeCaster:They had never seen anything like that. My fame came about. Everyone was talking about Bruce. Can you believe this guy? He was able to really beat this project.
Bruce DeCaster:And he had the highest score they had ever seen in the years. Well, you know what happened? I was eating up that fame. I was like, Yeah, I did this. And they forgot that the Lord had inspired me.
Bruce DeCaster:The next semester came, and my fame was still around the entire school. So students that were now gonna start that project asked for my if I can come and and do a class and and teach them how to do it. I waited until all the students went into the room. There was about 50 students. And then they as soon as I opened the door to walk in, everyone began to clap.
Bruce DeCaster:Bruce walked in. Alright. I put up the computer. I looked at my problem and how I made the project so I can show them. And I looked at it, and I couldn't understand any of it.
Bruce DeCaster:Nothing. The students were like, well, didn't you build this? I was like, yeah, but I don't I don't I don't I don't know how I did it. And that was a learning lesson for me that the Lord wanted to remind me, hey, Bruce. You prayed for this, but it wasn't you.
Bruce DeCaster:When you are working on a homework or when you are working on an assignment, bring in the Lord. And remember, as long as you keep the commandments, which is one of them is keeping the Sabbath day holy, if you keep the Sabbath day holy, I promise you, you will make have miracles happen in your life throughout the week. My I did the business school with my wife, and everybody wanted to be part of our team because we had a rule that we don't do schoolwork on Sunday. And many students would come to us and say, we wish we were part of your team because somehow you guys are being efficient. I said to them, Well, it's because because we don't work on Sunday, we have to be extra efficient during the week, and we have to go on dates.
Bruce DeCaster:It's very important. You've got to go on dates on Fridays. But in order to go on dates and keep the Sabbath day holy, you have to be more efficient and the Lord will help you. Long, long answer, but to summarize, make sure you bring in the Lord into your life. You will be able to develop that work ethic for you to be successful.
Morgan:K. I love that. We ask every person we interview to share a joke with us. So before we finish our interview, will you share your favorite joke with us?
Bruce DeCaster:Yeah. This is this joke was given to me by my six year old. Why did the chicken cross the street?
Speaker 1:Why? Because.
Bruce DeCaster:That's it.
Morgan:I love it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, mister DeCastner. It's my pleasure.
Eduardo:Very nice to meet you.
Morgan:Thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.
Bruce DeCaster:Absolutely. Thank you, guys.
Eduardo:Thank you.
Speaker 1:We hope you enjoyed listening to our podcast. Special thanks to our guest today. Our music was generously provided by the Lyceum Orchestra.
Eduardo:That's it for American Heritage School Patriot Podcast. See you next time.