2023-May-10

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Showing Up as My Best Self with My Daughter

BY CESAR OBEDIENTE · DISTINGUISHED SALES ARCHITECT · UNITED STATES

3 MINUTE READ · 5 MINUTE LISTEN

I am blessed to work for a company that leads with a purpose-first mindset.

Throughout my 23 years at Cisco, I have been afforded the privilege of using my Time2Give hours to volunteer for a variety of causes to serve underprivileged communities. The most recent of these experiences was extremely special to me, as I was joined by my 17-year-old daughter.

Cesar and his daughter.

One of the guiding principles within my organization, the Global Enterprise Segment, is to support a purpose-driven culture.

Our leadership encourages us to pursue the causes that have meaning to us and to fuel our passions so that we can show up as our best selves.

With this in mind, my daughter and I signed up to go on a medical mission trip with the Institute for Latin American Concern (ILAC) for three days in Santiago in the Dominican Republic.

The moment we signed up, I knew this was going to be special. Experiencing this with my daughter, who is graduating from high school this year and pursuing a career in medicine, proved to be an eye-opening and educational experience for us both.

During the mission, my role was to support the IT network, educate the doctors on how to use the medical records software, be available for anything, and, most importantly, serve as a post-surgery translator.

My daughter’s role was to translate and scribe for her assigned doctor while meeting, observing, and learning from doctors.

During our three days on-site, the team treated 906 adult and pediatric patients. There were approximately 115 physical therapy treatments, 65 surgeries — many of which were general anesthesia cases — 70 ultrasounds, and many EKG’s and ECHOs performed.

Here are three lessons learned that I wanted to share with you:

Be grateful for what you have.

Once we arrived, we started to see patients arrive — the vast majority were young children having surgeries. It was a reminder of how lucky my daughter and I are to have access to excellent healthcare.

That’s when I started to realize the impact we were providing to this community. These individuals were telling me that they would drive between two to four hours just to come and receive medical attention. Some patients would even spend the night just to be first in line.

A small gesture or conversation can make a huge impact on someone’s life.

I could see the joy in children’s faces when handing them a baseball or coloring books as they were leaving the facility.

The amount of gratitude families had after their loved one had a successful surgery was humbling.

I recall one child and his mother who called me “doctor,” probably because I was wearing scrubs and that I cared for him after his surgery.

After he woke up, he smiled and thanked me. His mother was so appreciative that I was there. She asked me if it was OK to pray for me because of her son’s successful surgery.

The importance of teaching your children your native language and culture

I’m from Venezuela and my wife’s family is from Ecuador. And I am so thankful that my wife and I raised our children to appreciate their culture and speak Spanish.

I was able to see firsthand how important it was for our daughters to be bilingual. It allowed her to directly assist the doctors, serve as a translator, and interact directly with patients and form relationships.

Being bilingual has opened so many opportunities for her through community service. And it allowed her to network with other professionals in the career she’s pursuing.

This mission trip was a proud moment for me. Witnessing our hard work pay off and making an impact on the community and those around us was indescribable.

More importantly, I’m so thankful to have shared this with my daughter and witnessed firsthand how our technology and our mission to power an inclusive future for all makes a difference.

We have already signed up for the next mission in September 2023!

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