Rafael Pimentel Pinto
0:00 – Intro & Welcome: Angie kicks off Episode 3 and introduces her guest Rafael, a fellow IT-world connector she met through Texas state agency networking events.
2:32 – Meet Rafael: Rafael shares what drives him — a lifelong restlessness, a hunger to learn, and a refusal to stay in one lane that started all the way back in school.
6:03 – Never Fitting One Box: Rafael unpacks what it felt like to float between the athletes, the musicians, and the techies growing up, and why that actually became his superpower.
8:04 – Career Transitions & Trusting Your Gut: Most of Rafael's career moves came from other people calling him because organizations needed transformation — not because he was out hunting for something new.
12:12 – The Unexpected CIO Offer at 29: He shows up to what he thinks is a casual lunch, and leaves with a C-suite role and a pile of high-stakes government problems nobody warned him about.
15:02 – Landing at the Mexican Space Agency: Rafael applied 15-20 times before a Christmas Eve phone call opened a side door — what started as a system admin gig turned into him running the whole agency.
18:44 – Forbes Mexico Digital Transformation Genius Cover: A photo shoot he tried to escape turned into a Forbes Mexico cover feature. He still can't believe it happened.
23:17 – 📚 Book Mentioned: Spartan Up by Joe De Sena — Rafael introduces the book that brought it all together, written by the founder of Spartan Race, and why he picked it up in the first place.
27:38 – What Spartan Races Teach About Life: The book flips your whole perspective on obstacles — they aren't punishment, they're preparation, and discomfort is the actual curriculum.
28:22 – The Resilience Jar Tool: Write down every hard thing you overcome and how you did it, drop it in a jar, and pull from it when life gets heavy. It's a proven record that you can do hard things.
29:11 – The Possibility List Tool: When something bad happens, make a list of what's now possible because of it. Rafael calls this the reframe that changed how he processes setbacks.
30:51 – Angie's Triathlon Story & Mindset Shift: Angie gets real about what she discovered training for her first triathlon — it wasn't her legs that gave out, it was her mind, and then she found out she could override it.
34:12 – Finding Comfort in Discomfort: Calm in the middle of chaos is the actual skill. Your brain literally cannot make good decisions when you're panicked, stressed, or angry.
35:10 – Spartan Race Austin Challenge + Wrap Up: Rafael throws down a challenge, Angie accepts, and they make a public one-year pact to run a Spartan Race together in Austin next May. Deal sealed.
