The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unyielding Hope: Victoria Carrera’s Journey from Chaos to Empowerment

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Starting point is 00:00:23 Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education role. coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm host here from the Chris Foss Show.com. The latest you on the early season that makes official welcome to the book show. As always, for 16 years, 27-9 episodes, we've been bringing you the top 1%

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Starting point is 00:01:12 reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we're joined by Victoria Carrera. She was born and raised in the heart of New York City, a place of endless possibilities, but also a battleground for those to find to escape, the cycle of poverty and despair. From the moment she took her first breast, the odds were stacked against her. She grew up in a home filled with chaos, neglect, and pain, where addiction had taken uproot like an unshakable curse, leaving devastation in its week. She saw the people she saw loved, trapped in its grip, losing themselves to substances

Starting point is 00:01:46 that numb their suffering, but deepen their wounds. She was at an early age, forced to navigate a world where survival was a daily struggle. She experienced the cruelty of abuse, the sting of abandonment, and the crushing weight of hopelessness. society expected her to follow the same path as those before her to become other statistics, another lost soul swallowed by our environment, but something within her refused to surrender that fate. She knew there must be more to life than pain. Joins us on the show now.

Starting point is 00:02:12 Welcome to the show Victoria. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks so much, Chris, for having me on. I'm just honored to be on your show. And, yeah, I mean, I'm here. Well, we're honored to have you as well. So give us any dot-com social media.

Starting point is 00:02:29 Where do you want people to find out more about you on the interwebs? I mean, I'm on social media. I mainly use my Instagram. I'm not really into Facebook except for the nonprofit that I started, which is God's love. But you can find me on Instagram under 111-1-11, and then I have my, it's my boxing media company that I started, which is called The Boxing Grind,

Starting point is 00:02:51 and that's also on Instagram under the Boxing Grind. It's all lowercase letters. So give us a 30,000 of you. What's in your new book? So in the new book, it's called The Devil's Playbook. And it's really an analysis on the book of Job and how modern-day society has put God on the worldly level. And we try to justify our actions by saying that God will understand, which, yes, in reality, God does understand the wrong things that we're doing. But that doesn't mean that it's the right thing.

Starting point is 00:03:24 to be doing. It was definitely different than my first book, which my first book was really just based off of my life story and all of the challenges that I had to overcome and how I went from sleeping on cardboard and not having food or clothing to doing every possible thing that nobody in my family had ever accomplished before, which included, you know, graduating from school and getting a house and getting a car. None of those things were ever even thought about in my family. Wow. Well, and you help people break out of that cycle. You run a charity. Tell us about your charity that you have. Yeah, it's called God's Love, and it's a youth program that's in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and what it's designed to do is help the youth to get life skills. What I've noticed

Starting point is 00:04:14 is, well, not only, you know, I want to be the person that I needed, but what I'm also noticing now is that the youth are really just reliant on technology. They don't actually have skills. They don't know how to write a resume. They can't spell words properly anymore. Everything is done through, you know, hey, ask chat GPT or ask,

Starting point is 00:04:34 you know, wing AI. And nobody's actually, you know, thinking for themselves anymore. So it's designed to help them create a resume, get them ready for job interview preparation. You know, and there's a high poverty rate out here also. So I help them get job interview clothing. We offer certifications for different office software,

Starting point is 00:04:55 such as Microsoft Word and Excel, just things that really are becoming, I don't know about stagnant, but we're really not focusing on those things anymore. And out here, there are a lot of teens that have criminal records, and they just don't have the job skills needed. And also, I've been working with some companies out here that are willing to give these teens a chance,

Starting point is 00:05:18 because sometimes, you know, you have a criminal record and they, you know, a lot of times people will lie on the job application and then they'll get a job. And then three weeks later, it's like, oh, sorry, you know, background check came back. Get the hell out of here. You know, so I've been working with companies and just trying to, you know, these kids just need a chance. Everybody just needs one chance. And, you know, of course, you get the people that will, you know, they joke around and they're like, well, what if I have, you know, like seven, you know, major criminal activity things. And I'm like, you know, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about like if you, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:56 executed your whole family type of thing. I'm talking about, you know, the kids out here that may be robbed a car or something like that. And no justification in the crime, but we need to help them. You know, it's interesting. Tell us about your life because I think, I think that will shape, in your words, that will shape kind of the narrative of, you know, those type of people you're trying to save. And you're, in essence, trying to save yourself, as it were, from your childhood. Yeah, I mean, from birth, you know, my mother was a prostitute.

Starting point is 00:06:26 So there were different men all the time. I was left alone pretty much most of the time. I survived off of eating pieces of my, I had a blanket. You know, at 18 months old, I was found in the gutter. I was about to be run over by a Mack truck. I was naked as a baby. I, nobody was watching me. There was a little shoe maker store.

Starting point is 00:06:50 This man saved my life, and he picked me up and brought me over to where my mother was. Everybody knew who my mother was. And, you know, I just remember there was not even like an expression of like, are you okay, child? Like she put me back down on the floor and, you know, that was it. Like I ate pills at four years old thinking they were food. I still remember having my stomach pumped. They were trying to save my life. You know, it was just.

Starting point is 00:07:16 event after event, and she also had kept me away from my father. My father was a Vietnam vet. He came home from Vietnam, addicted to heroin, the times that I was able to see him. I don't care what anybody says. That man protected me. I mean, I had to watch him shoot up, but he protected me. That was the only shield that I had. And, you know, and even with that, there was trauma because, you know, he burned the house down one night. Holy crap. It was just like. That's a bit of trauma, yeah. It's like, I mean, Chris, I'm talking about trauma after trauma. And, you know, thankfully, I can laugh about it now because sometimes I just take a look at every single event. And I'm like, damn, I can't even believe that I'm still here.

Starting point is 00:07:59 Like, I just can't even believe it. And I never had anybody. And when I, when I became a teenager, I got into trouble because I didn't have any guidance. I was fist fighting on the street. I started even from a young age, I was like stealing food from stores. Wow. Just really just trying to survive. And I just find that, you know, I needed a lot of help.

Starting point is 00:08:21 And there was nobody there for me. So I tried my best to be there for anybody who needs help, especially young people. And especially now, I mean, we have a lot more broken homes than when I was growing up. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. No, but it's great that you give back. You haven't forgotten your roots and all that sort of stuff. You know, that's really important.

Starting point is 00:08:45 you're giving back, you're showing other people that can wait, because a lot of people will give up, right? They'll give up and they'll just go, yeah, I don't, you know, I don't see any hope, yada, yada, yada, right? I will never give up. And one of the things that I wanted to bring up was, like, youth boxing because I started boxing when I was 16 years old. And even though I still had, I still had my issues,

Starting point is 00:09:10 I was still scuffling around on the streets, you know, boxing actually gave me the discipline and it gave me the desire to keep pushing through. You know, it really put me around a bunch of people that I felt were struggling with things that they weren't speaking about. It was like you go into the boxing gym and everybody in there has something going on within them and they're communicating it onto the bag. So youth boxing for me really is something that I care deeply about. I mean, boxing in general, but we have something, we have a lot of youth clubs, and we have a lot of boxing clubs out here, and there's one that's called House of Aces boxing, and they're a small club, but, you know, the coach is really great with the kids, and I'm really trying to help, you know, promote that through God's love and looking for, like, donation equipment and things like that. And, you know, I mean, I have a lot of, of connections in the boxing world, but, you know, getting it out there, you know, never know who's going to come forward and say, hey, we want to help out, you know. Yeah. Is there a way that people can help out or contribute to the charity and things like that?

Starting point is 00:10:21 They can actually email info at 505godslove.com, and I can go with them from there, or they can even just get me on social media and message me, or even my regular email, which is V. Carrera 1119 at Gmail. I mean, I'm very responsive. So, you know, if somebody wants to have. help out, we can use the help. Definitely, definitely. It sounds like an excellent cause for people to do stuff. And, you know, what do you feel boxing does? Like, I found, you know, I used always think about going the gym, like, oh, you go to the gym, you're trying to press other people, you're trying to look good and strut around, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I realized that that's not what going the gym is about.

Starting point is 00:11:04 It's about discipline. It's an inner, it's a battle within. It's not a battle. It gives a shit whatever else is doing. They're not me. And I'm not them. I should probably stick to what I knew. But it's, you know, the showing up every day, the discipline, even when you don't feel good, you know, you still try and go and work out. What is the, what do you feel that, you know, really cultivates inside of you and some of the youth you give charity to that makes the difference for them in that activity?

Starting point is 00:11:35 You know, I find that not only does it help you give you belief back in yourself, like when you, when you accomplish something and you have the coach there that's saying like, hey, great job, like you did this, it makes you feel good about yourself, especially because a lot of kids when they're boxing, maybe they come from an environment that they didn't have anybody telling them, hey, good job, or like, hey, you can do it. You know, I came from an environment that had nobody around me. And just to be around people that I felt were, were like actually paying attention. It's a community when you walk in and everybody saying, hey, what's up? How are you doing? You know, it's a little bit different than the regular gym setting because, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:14 you have a whole bunch of different types of people in the gym. Some people will say, what's up? Some people look at you like they want to kill you. So, like, you don't know what you're going to get there. But in the boxing gym, it's really just, you know, you see the same people over and over again. You get to work closely with them doing drills. You know, you have one coach and maybe like,

Starting point is 00:12:35 an assistant, but all in all, it's a tight-knit community. And, you know, even if you... I think we lost your sound there, Victoria? Victoria? I think we lost your sound. Did maybe your mute mic change or anything something? Yeah, I don't know what happened there. I'm not sure. Sometimes computers have a mind of their own. Did you hear me? The last bit, I didn't hear. Okay. Okay. So what I was saying was you got a little bit of a different vibe. with regular fitness than when you're in the boxing gym. Because in the boxing gym, everybody's there for the same specific thing. And you get to do drills.

Starting point is 00:13:20 And, you know, you have a coach working closely with you. And it's kind of like a universal thing. So when you go like anywhere else and you say, oh, are you into boxing and somebody else is that they're into boxing, it's an automatic connection. Ah. You know, it's all about that, what would you just say, you know, discipline. organization, you know, stick-to-itiveness, you know, and boxing is hard, you know. It's a challenge. You're going to sweat. You're going to, your muscles are going to be sore.

Starting point is 00:13:51 You might, you know, pull a thing here or there. You know, it's a challenge, but you're trying to overcome and improve on yourself and make yourself better. And I think that's a real testament to what you did. You know, you didn't give up. You, as you mentioned, the bio, you know, probably all the reasons you had in the world to just quit and give up and, you know, end up living in the streets. But you, you focused on yourself. You built yourself. I knew. I knew from a young age, I said, I'm never going to give up.

Starting point is 00:14:20 I am never going to give up. And that's how you have to be because otherwise you give up and then you really lose. Well, I mean, look at it, you know, look at it. I know, I know people that have given up. I know people that, you know, have given up. And unfortunately, they are living in misery. They're my age and they've never really accomplished anything with life. Talk to us about the other thing we want to promote as well.

Starting point is 00:14:45 I forget. I think it was, I know you have some books and stuff. Yeah. So I started a, it's a television show. It's going to be on true TV. And it's called Split Decision Boxing TV. And it's myself and a co-host. The co-host is actually in New York.

Starting point is 00:15:03 city and we give fight analysis, fight prediction, and we have fighters come on to the show and really just talk about the whole boxing world, boxing drama, boxing gossip, you know, talking fresh.

Starting point is 00:15:17 It's a boxing sports show. Who's daddy? Who's none? Exactly. And then I have my media, my own boxing media, which is called the boxing grind. And I've just,

Starting point is 00:15:29 I absolutely love boxing. So I go and I, I interview, you know, top boxers, top boxing prospects. I go to the fights and I do like the photography, the videography, and I have sit down interviews with them for my podcast. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful.

Starting point is 00:15:50 That's good work. And so you got to, and what's the name of your podcast again? I think I didn't catch it. It's the boxing grind. The boxing grind. So folks, you can check that. Is it on iTunes? YouTube?

Starting point is 00:15:58 It's on iTunes. Yes, it is. It's actually on multiple, multiple. platform, Spotify. I mean, there's a whole bunch. If you look up the boxing grind, it'll pop up. Ah, the boxing grind. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:12 And so you have all these different things you're working on and stuff. And then I don't know if you want to plug the books or anything else before we go. The first book that's out is called The Daughter of the King. And it's on Amazon already. And then the second book is going to be released. It's called The Devil's Play's. book. It's going to be released. I actually was going to release it when I was in Thailand. I went to Thailand and was working as an investigator for sex trafficking. Oh, wow. Yeah, I know. I know. I do a lot,

Starting point is 00:16:47 Chris. You do a lot. You got a lot on your play. I'm sitting around here going, I just ate bonbons and I'm going to go out of school. Listen, I may have eaten bonbons too, okay? Okay, well, I don't they have bobo over there? Boba drinks? Yeah. So, but it was supposed to be released then, but I actually got really caught up in mission work when I was there. So I was like, you know what? I let me, I don't want to rush anything. I didn't want to rush releasing the book. So I'm hoping that it will be released in March.

Starting point is 00:17:19 Hmm. Well, it'll be exciting to see that and stuff. Yeah. So, I mean, you're really passionate, I guess, from what I can really tell in your actions. You're really passionate about helping people, saving people, giving people, giving people, hope uplifting them. And what a great effort that is that he can do to make the world a better place and lift it.

Starting point is 00:17:40 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, my life is not mine. I realize that after everything that I've been through that, you know, God has been with me through the entire thing. And, you know, he has me here for a reason. He doesn't have me here just to sit here. So, I mean, just go out into the world and, you know, and like I have, I've tried.

Starting point is 00:18:02 I've traveled all over the world, and I've done a lot of medical mission work and just, you know, giving back. In any way that I can give back, I try to give back, whether that's with my time, with, you know, money or, you know, however I see fit is how I'll do it. Well, I'm glad you do stuff like that. I mean, how did things work out for your family? Did they recover from some of the issues they're having when you were growing up? her. So, I mean, both of my parents passed away a long time ago. And actually, like, my father wound up getting cancer from Agent Orange, which was the herbicide warfare. Yeah. You know, he passed away. And then my mother, you know, she passed away. And I have, I have two siblings that I don't see. I only saw one, maybe twice in my life. And then I have another sibling that we are just not close. She, older than me and you know sometimes people it's like we've discussed when they go through something they know they don't get over it and unfortunately she did not get over it and so for myself i couldn't

Starting point is 00:19:16 i i i can only be a light but i can't help you if you don't want to help yourself yeah you know so we had to you know we we live two totally separate lives and i mean maybe Maybe a text for, you know, Merry Christmas, but other than that, nothing. Oh. Well, you're doing good work, helping people and all that good stuff. What are some other aspects of things that you do that we should talk about on the show? Well, I do. I am a child advocate.

Starting point is 00:19:50 I work for the state of New Mexico as a, like, a court-appointed advocate for children that are in foster care. Right? So I make sure that the foster children that I'm assigned to that they're actually get being taken care of that if I go and I do the home visit that you know the home is livable I get to communicate with them and make sure that you know they're they're feeling safe because that was something else that I went through because people did call child protective services on my mother but I would be coached I was coached like they would ring the doorbell and she would threaten me.

Starting point is 00:20:30 or say like, she would never let them in the house. And they were able, she was able to get away with it all. Wow. So I make sure, like, I know what to look for.

Starting point is 00:20:42 I know when I go into that house, what I'm looking for, what looks suspicious. And then like going, like, combined with that, I actually wound up becoming, like,

Starting point is 00:20:56 certified in child sex trafficking and human trafficking, you know, like investigating in the deep web and trying to help law enforcement track down people who are trafficking children. That was one of the things that I did when I went to Thailand. But, you know, fear in the United States, the trafficking is out of control.

Starting point is 00:21:21 I mean, it's happening right underneath our noses. Some major hospital, not hospital, some major hotel chains are trafficking. Oh, really? They're trafficking, yeah. And, like, we're using these hotels for our own, you know, going on vacation and things like that. But they're trafficking, you know, and like just trying to really, like, we have the Renewed Hope Act, which is with the Tim Tebow Foundation. I don't know if you're aware of.

Starting point is 00:21:49 Oh, yeah, Tim Tebow. Yeah. So the Tim Tebow Foundation, he had the Renewed Hope Act, which is the bill that we're trying to pass. and I was actually going to go down to the congressional hearing because as a, you know, a citizen, you're able to go down there. And I actually have a whole thing written out if they would allow me to speak.

Starting point is 00:22:11 And, you know, what the Renewed Hope Act would do would enable stricter policy for the Internet and what children are able to access because, like, in these video games that you play online, anybody can access them with the chats online. And a lot of children are being kidnapped and trafficked through meeting from those online chats. And we need to have stricter regulations in what the child can access and not, you know, because like if a child tries to access something, they can just make up a birth date.

Starting point is 00:22:52 Yeah. You know, they can make up their birthday. Okay, I'm 18. No, you're not. you're 12. So we need to have stricter regulations. And the parents, nobody's even paying attention anymore. You know, most of the time, parents really don't know what their kids are doing online.

Starting point is 00:23:08 And there are so many hidden, there are so many hidden chat apps that, you know, as an investigator, we go through the whole list and we look for things on the deep web. I mean, they have full access to the children here. and it's not just here obviously in this country but in Europe, in Africa, I mean, in the Middle East, Middle East trafficking is huge. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy.

Starting point is 00:23:39 I mean, some of those things they do over in Dubai and other places are kind of crazy too. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I mean, I traveled. I mean, I traveled through some Middle Eastern countries and I mean, it's very out in the open. I mean, Thailand, Thailand, was when I was there and asking people if they wanted help when they were being trafficked or like the sex trade is so common there that they were looking at me like I was crazy they were like what do you talk I'm going to work I'm going to work what do you mean and I'm like no you don't understand you don't understand you don't need to be doing this so but you know it's it's we need to start with here right I mean I go out and I do provide medical care and

Starting point is 00:24:24 other countries. But, like, as far as the trafficking here, like El Basel, Texas, Phoenix, Arizona, Dallas, Dallas is huge for trafficking. And, you know, really just taking the time to investigate and, you know, the investigations are going on for years. Yeah. It's not just a one, two, three thing. And you also have to be safe because I'm an outsider. I need to know what my boundary is, you know, when can, when should I stop?

Starting point is 00:24:53 When does this all need to be reported? And, you know, you've got to take care of yourself. Okay. Yeah, definitely it's important to make sure you're not putting any danger. Yada, yada, yada. Let's see. Give me, as we go out, final thoughts, pitch out for people to get organized, your stuff, et cetera, et cetera.

Starting point is 00:25:14 You know, just my final thoughts is, you know, I'm trying really hard to get some things up and running for Albuquerque, New Mexico. And like with the job program, with the youth boxing. And if anybody is interested in hearing more information, please contact me. We can have a poll, and I would be happy to speak with you. And really just, you know, at the end of the day, it's, it's, our purpose here is how much of a difference we can make in someone else's life. Yeah, most definitely, very important. You know, making a difference in this world, making it better.

Starting point is 00:25:53 improving the quality of people's lives. I mean, all that stuff is just wonderful. So thank you very much for engaging that and doing that work and sharing it with other people. Thanks to my, we got your dot-coms and all the websites we want to check you out at. Okay. Thanks so much.

Starting point is 00:26:11 Thank you. Okay, take care. Thank you. And thanks for us for tuning in. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss, one on the TikTok, and all those other crazy places they internet.

Starting point is 00:26:22 Be good to each other. safe. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walshow podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain lead. All right, Victoria, so this will be up in about two or three days.

The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unyielding Hope: Victoria Carrera’s Journey from Chaos to Empowerment

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