Heroes in Business - Eric Mulvin, Growth and Success with NBL Kai Sotto, Contact Center Cactus Chat

Episode Date: November 24, 2022

Eric sits down with Filipino-born basketball superstar Kai Sotto to go over how he overcomes failure and achieves dreams as a young athlete and entrepreneur. In this episode of Contact Center Cactus Chat.

Welcome to the Contact Center Cactus Chat Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Malvin, coming to you from sunny Phoenix, Arizona. And I'm your co-host, Jay Kayang, from Dumagiri City, Philippines. I'm a serial entrepreneur, started my first business 10 years ago, and six LLCs later, I started PacBiz Contact Center Outsourcing in 2015. Today, we have over 200 employees growing. And I'm the operations manager here in PackFist, and I've been working with Eric since 2014, and I grew as the company grew. So whether you're looking to outsource for the first time, whether you manage a contact center, or you're just looking to improve your customer experience, we'll be covering topics for you. So business managers,

operations managers, business owners, this is for you. So make sure to subscribe. operations managers business owners this is for you so make sure to subscribe welcome to another episode we're excited you're listening and this one is probably going to be one of my favorite because it's one of the biggest people i've ever gotten the interview jake you just got a chance to see the full episode and uh we're talking about kai soto so who's kai soto tell us who is um yeah i he is. Yeah, his name is very popular in the Philippines. And yeah, I thought he was 22, but he's only 27 foot 2 inches tall. That's really, really tall. and he's, I would say, the next person that's going to bring the Philippines back to the sport industry.

So this time, I think, is he the first Filipino to be in the NBA? I'm not sure. No, we got Jordan Clarkson. I think he'll be the first full Filipino. Everyone's kind of mixed, yeah. But there's Jordan Clarkson, I think Jalen Green on the Houston Rockets um so this guy he's tried to make it into the draft uh unfortunately things came up he's got a little bit of an entry story but no one's journey to the top is a straight path right everyone that tries to make it to the top has to go through some struggle has to go through

some pain and so you know we're getting a chance to talk to kai soto early on his career maybe not that many people know about him um but he's well known in the philippines he's well known amongst filipinos in the u.s and we talk about that as well yeah i mean the the energy i i saw him play several games you know the energy he energy, his fast for his height. He's really tall, and he can move that fast. And, yeah, I really hope he can make it to the NBA. Yeah, I hope so too. I'm rooting for him.

And it was really interesting because I had a chance to interview him right before they played their first NBA game. And so for those that don't know, in the NBA, the very first preseason game, it's always played against a foreign team. Typically, it's some team from Australia. And so the Suns had the privilege of hosting them in Phoenix a couple weeks ago. And before the game, the day before, we had a chance to sit down with a lot of the uh filipino chamber uh members out here in arizona for the chamber out here and actually some of the chamber

members from different parts of the southwest they were able to bring kai sutto in so before he had that game which actually uh it's not any kind of uh spoiler spoiler alert or anything but they actually went on to defeat the Phoenix Suns, and they were the very first team in modern NBA history to beat the NBA team from Australia. So it was a pretty big accomplishment, and I wish I had had a chance to ask him how it went after, but we actually got a chance to talk to him about what he's excited about,

which is pretty cool. But we actually got a chance to talk to him about what he's excited about, which is pretty cool. So at that game, he's tested to play with the caliber of the NBA players and how he went. So they won. Yeah, they ended up winning. Wow, that's something. Yeah.

And it was a really special game. They even had a Filipino halftime celebration. They brought different performers from around the Phoenix area. They showed a lot of Filipino cultural dancers, Dina Kling and different dancers. So it's pretty cool to check out. And so what we have here, though, is an interview between me and Kai Soto from the other week. And also one other thing, too, we got to talk about what it's like being a business owner, entrepreneur. So if you're a

business owner, entrepreneur listening, and you're going through some of those struggles, you know, check, check out the advice he has to say of what he went through. Because it's a lot like what we go through trying to help grow our businesses. So hopefully you guys can find some inspiration in that. So you'll want to hear his answer from that. All right. So yeah, I'm excited to hear and to watch the video. Yeah. So all right, guys.

Well, without further ado, check out Kai Soto with his exclusive interview with me, Eric Malvin of Pack Biz. And I'm here with a very special guest, Kai Soto, who already at the young age of 20 is making a name for himself around the world. So he's playing on the 36ers out of Australia. You got your first big game tomorrow. Is this the first NBA level game

that you're playing in your career? It is, it's gonna be the first one, first preseason game, so I'm very excited and can't wait for tomorrow. How big of a game is this for you considering you're playing Phoenix Suns? That's pretty big. It's pretty big. You know Phoenix Suns is a great team. They were in the finals a couple years ago so you know a lot of good players so I just can't wait. This will be will be an unforgettable experience you know the first time is always memorable so I can't

wait for tomorrow awesome and I'm curious at what age because I I know your your dad was in that the PBA right so you had that as an influence but at what age did you realize this was going to be your career that you're going to be going for the end we're going to be a basketball player shooting for the nba i mean ever since i started playing basketball i mean i started playing basketball at a young age probably five four five years old but uh probably when i started playing organized basketball at 14 that's when i realized that you know as long as i continue on just working hard and just continue on developing my strength and my skills and everything, I believe that I would, you know, I would be a good player. I could reach the highest level of basketball. So that's still

the goal and the plan for me every single day is to get better. So, yeah. every single day is to get better so and now you're you're out here in Phoenix Arizona you've got a whole bunch of people that are already fans like I'm sure everywhere you're going around the world now you've got people that are recognizing you they're like hey Kai what's that like what's it like being recognized everywhere these days it's it's a it's good actually to just to feel that you know people know you and people support you in your journey so I'm just blessed to have those people around me and I think it's just the Filipino culture you just support your fellow Filipinos and I mean the US is pretty far from the Philippines so just to see Filipinos here in the U.S.

and just to see the smile on their faces and the fact that I can make them feel a bit happier, it's a good feeling for me. Yeah, man, it's cool. There's so many Filipinos out here. And, you know, so I feel like there's a lot of crossover between sports and being at also the highest level in business. People don't realize how much work it takes to get to the top. Now, there's a lot of people that could be watching that maybe they're a kid thinking of, I want to be in the NBA one day, or maybe they're thinking of starting a business one day.

And they're going to have a lot of setbacks. They're going to have a lot of bumps on the road along the way. What do you do to overcome that? What advice would you give to those people as they hit that adversity to overcome that and keep going to that bigger goal? I mean, based on my experience, I think the biggest lesson that I've learned is to not be scared to fail. It's just to keep trying. Sometimes when I was younger, I sometimes stopped doing things because I know that I might fail. But what I learned is you just have to keep on trying. If you fail, you'll learn how to do it, how to be better.

But if you succeed, you succeed. So I think it's a win-win for me. And failure is a part of life, part of growing growing so you just have to not be afraid of fail just keep on trying and just to believe in yourself no people might not believe in you but you know you can only control what you can control so control yourself believe in yourself and put in the work nothing is impossible wow that's great advice all right well hey best of luck tomorrow best of luck we're gonna be watching you following you on your way up to the your NBA That's great advice. All right, well hey, best of luck tomorrow. Best of luck.

We're going to be watching you, following you on your way up to your NBA career. So thanks for taking some time with us today. Thank you.