Meet Nicolás García Mayor—an entrepreneur and, truly, an ingénue—who took years of experience in industrial design and channeled it into something far greater. From the start, he knew he was meant to do more for his fellow human beings. Transitioning from corporate design to humanitarian development, Nico applied his engineering and design background to improve communities around the world.
We sat down with Nicolás to talk about his journey—from the world of commercial innovation to dedicating his life to helping others. Our conversation begins with Nico sharing his philosophy on life and the deep sense of purpose he felt from a young age—a calling only intensified by a personal tragedy later in life. He moved across the globe, barely speaking English, and overcame countless barriers in pursuit of bringing a transformative idea to life.
Rejecting society’s conventional definitions of success, Nico followed his heart. That journey led to the creation of the CMAX System—an industrial-scale housing solution with multi-purpose applications such as emergency shelters and mobile clinics. It has been deployed in war zones, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in humanitarian crises across the globe, providing critical infrastructure and safety in times of need.
Nico also opens up about the extraordinary logistical challenges he and his team have faced—and continue to face—when delivering aid to the most vulnerable. But for him, the mission is clear: never give up when it comes to improving the lives of others.
Throughout our conversation, Nico challenges us to consider the legacy we want to leave. What kind of impact do we want to have during our short time on this earth? What kind of life do we want to live—and are we wasting any of it?
We know this episode will leave you reflecting on these questions and filled with the same hope and inspiration that Nico sparked in us.
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Listen to the podcast here
From Innovation To Impact: Nicolás García Mayor’s Mission To Help The World
In this episode, we have Nicolás García Mayor or Nico. He’s from Argentina. He is an entrepreneur and industrial designer focused on humanitarian development, social innovation, and environmental preservation. Nico worked and lived in Europe, conducting various architectural and innovation design projects. Since 2000, he’s been working as an industrial humanitarian designer, identifying, designing, developing, and implementing innovative solutions in countries in South America and abroad, including Haiti, Mexico, the US, China, Austria, Spain, France, UAE, and Ukraine.
Now, his designs travel around the globe and have been showcased in many countries. Among other recognitions, in 2014, Nico was awarded by JCI with Ten Outstanding Young Person of the World for his contribution to children, world peace, and humanitarian rights. With his humanitarian innovation called CMAX System, he was invited to present at the 68 United Nations General Assembly in New York. He was also invited to the Vatican City by Pope Francis, who blessed his project for the humanitarian work on refugees.
The government of Argentina honored him with one of the country’s highest awards, Ambassador of Argentina Country Brand, and the Senate of Argentina Nation bestowed the Latin American Development Leadership award. In 2016, the US government gave him permanent residency status for his extraordinary ability and brilliant talent.
As a social entrepreneur, he has given multiple TED Talks around the globe. He’s contributed to and been at many conferences around the world. He was also selected by consultant Marcus Evans to join the World Industrial Design Summit in Cannes and Berlin as a consultant to leaders such as Bentley, BMW, Audi, Google, and Facebook, among other companies. Welcome, Nico.
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Nico, Bonnie, and I are excited. I know we’ve been trying to get you to this show for a while now, and you travel a lot with all the work you’ve been doing all over the world. I met you a few years ago. It was an event that GW was hosting with Bruce Lipton at that time. Do you remember that?
I remember. I’m so happy to be there and to meet you.
That was the moment when I remember I was showing Bruce how to find the restroom, and I think you’re coming out of the restroom, and the two of you met and you gave this most beautiful hug, which I took a picture of that moment. Bonnie, it was amazing. I saw these two people hugging each other, and it was the energy. Something shifted. I went and I said hello to Nico. I had met him. We knew each other. I saw the two of you starting to talk, and I said, “When did you guys meet? How did you know each other?” Nico said, “No, we just met.”
Yes. It’s aligned with this show. We are one humanity, and that is the thing. This is why everything looks like we are familiar. We are friends. We don’t need to know each other for a long time to recognize that we are part of the same family. That is something that I have lived all over the world with many people. Bruce, for me, is a special person due to I was listening to a lot of podcasts and reading his book. He changed a lot the way we see our health and life, and he made a little bit of science that surrounded our spiritual vision of life.
A Philosophy Of Helping: Investing In Humanity
Talk a little bit about that because you too have been living with these principles. You are guided by this way of life. Tell us a little bit more about your philosophy of living and being.
From the field that I come from, it’s a little bit hard because I come from the engineering field and industrial designer from Argentina. My whole life, I have been designing things, producing, and being involved in factories, in materials, and it’s always my part to be close to the people who are suffering. It was something always in my heart, in my vision. I’m trying, with my profession, to make something better for the others. That has always been my goal, even when I was a child. I wanted to help my neighbors, my parents, my friends. Every single time that I had a problem in my school defending a friend or being part of something. I was feeling that thing.
I had to improve the life condition of the other. With my life, doing something for the other that will help their situation, their life be a little bit lighter. I see that as a real opportunity. Many times, we are seeing opportunities in terms of investment. If I say, “I found this opportunity to buy this stock or to invest in that company,” but when you have the chance to invest in the life of another and change their lives, that investment is something that you don’t have to take care of. If you had to pay taxes, someone would take it away from you. It’s something that will be in your heart and your mind for the rest of your life. It is the best investment, investing in our humanity.
The Power Of Vision: Answering The Call
I saw you made a post on LinkedIn about the hospitals that you guys have all delivered to Ukraine. I call them popups. I’m not an engineer, but it seems like these shelters that you make pop up. I was thinking about the scope of your business and how many places and different communities you’ve reached in your work. I’m curious how you start with such a simple and beautiful idea, hold that vision, and move it to the very large implemented vision that you have now.
I think the real answer to that is that vision is connected with love because there are many ways to define love. Many people say, “I love you,” and then sometimes it’s not a good thing. When you feel something very strong, there is no vision. There is a mission there. I feel it, and then I can say what I’m seeing because it’s bigger than what I can see or what I can plan. It’s a mission that I feel in the bottom of my heart, and I follow in that. It’s a huge power to something that I can describe with words because every single time I feel the call and I answer it, which is many times, how difficult is it to answer that call? I think at the end of the day, it’s a little bit more difficult to not take that call.
To follow another cultural thing, what the society is telling you that is the way to be a successful person or to be a businessman or whatever. The thing is to put in your mind, I feel this call and I will answer it. I will put my life and everything that I have into following what I am feeling right now. When you feel that you could change someone’s life, it’s not easy. It’s very difficult.
When you are talking about Ukraine, I was in that scenario with many challenges. I was in earthquake after earthquake. I was in floating areas. I was in many natural disaster zones but in a war zone, it’s different because the most important value that we have, which is life, is something that is, all the time, with minutes or seconds to lose that value all the time.
We lost the value of the life. We are losing it all the time in a war area because, in a natural disaster area, you try to help people, to find people, and try to rescue people. In a war zone, you are trying to kill people. There is no stop for that. It wasn’t easy when I was there because I saw things that shocked me a lot. Not only the war scenario but the situation that you had to be all the time worried about your life and taking care of everything. When I tried to move the hospital to Ukraine, I was finding what is the best way. First of all, in a war zone, the logistics are very difficult because the only way to enter Ukraine is through the highways.
There is no way to put it by boats or aircraft, only by the street. We packed off many trucks of many things, and was very difficult to enter Ukraine to help. At the same time, I was seeing a lot of brand new cars with big trucks, with a lot of brand new cars entering Ukraine and saying, “Why are people buying brand new cars in a war area?” It was because the roads were packed with these trucks. They don’t have taxes, and it’s the best way to get a car right now without taxes.
This is why there are these two sides. There is the business, and there is the part of the human that wants to make something better, and on that planet, we should try to do our best. This is the real challenge. When you see this conflict of interest, these two visions of life, taking advantage when you are in a very difficult situation or taking the opportunity to improve the life of others.
It’s interesting. It’s like an image that you had of everything, this tension between almost ignoring that there is a problem in the world versus working and responding hard to the problem in the world.
Redefining Success: A Vision Of Connection
This is why everything depends on how you see the life. This is why we should start from that point. Depending on how you see life is the way that you are going to live, but many people are with that program. Many people do similar things, thinking that this is the way to be a successful person. We are fighting, we are trying to compete with each other instead of saying this is a humanity that we should see as family, as people. We have to share our experiences to share what we have and to leave this instant, in a huge time that the planet is here, and we have a few single times that are very short. When you think the opportunity to live in this life is very short, it’s instant, everything will change.
Your vision of success is only to be breathing because the rest of the thing evaporates. It’s nothing. We are crazy about running to get another degree, another company, and another house. This is my house dream. I don’t dream of houses. I don’t dream of titles. I don’t dream with more, I don’t know, things. I dream of the opportunity to share life with people, to know new people, to connect with life as much as I can, with animals, with the trees, with the water, with everything that is part of our lives.
That vision from a business person is weird. It’s hard because when you have to go in front of venture capital and raise funds for your company, they say, “I need a projection of how much money you are going to make for the next five years,” it’s very difficult. They feel very comfortable when you share a good business plan with many things. The most important thing is our life. I can’t guarantee one day more, or one minute more, but you need the guarantee that everything that you are doing is successful, everything will be incredible. You will make a lot of money. I don’t know, but we should change the way that we see this time and this opportunity on earth from my point of view.
Life depends on how you see it. How you see life is how you live; many are programmed to follow others, thinking that’s success.
Yeah, a prediction control and flow. It’s how you balance and stay within those and work with those, stay in the flow while you’re in a structure that wants to predict and control and no reality in a very different way. Nico, you talked about you answering the call, that that’s the way you see flow through life. What was one of your very earliest times when you answered the call?
Answering The Call: Life’s Big Question
I think the call started when my older brother passed away. That was a strong call because I have had a call since I was born. This is Nico. This is what I was coming to do here and what I want to do. When you see the life and the final and the end of our life in that way, my brother passed away in my arms and I was with him up to his last breath.
He passed away when he was 36 years old, and he has a one-year-old son. When you see life in that way and I saw it and I tried to do something to change that situation with my brother, and I had to only flow with life, I understood that this is the life. That moment was a very important moment in my life. I had to adjust many things after that because my brother gave me the biggest learning and lesson that someone could learn. They are going to vaporize.
Everything that we are doing, our everything, our friends, our family, our children, and everything will disappear. What do you want to do with this short period of time of your life? This is the very most important conversation that we have to have by ourselves, within us. You had to take a coffee with life and go in front of the sea and say, “I want to take a coffee with you, life. We should have a great conversation because right now, I understand.”
Right now, I see, and right now, I want to proceed with answering that thing that was in my heart, that was why I am here. I see what my mother wanted for me, or what society wanted for me, or what, as an industrial designer, I have to do. No, this universe, God, whatever you feel comfortable with, it’s that call that I feel connected with everything, but at the same time, with the knowledge that I am here in this life with humans, we are all human.
Some people with a certain amount of consciousness, and other people with another consciousness. Some people want to take more and others want to live with a very lightweight and a nomadic life. What life do you want to live? It doesn’t matter what the people want for you. I don’t see too many people answering that question, which is, that is the real call. What do you want to do with this? It is an instant. In my case, many people say, “Nico, in your company right now, how many units are you selling? How much money are you making?”
With everything that you are doing, you are in prime time in the biggest TV shows around the globe, documentaries in China, whatever. No, it’s not easy because we are making something different in the world. Sometimes, the results are different than what you are seeing. I will do it. It’s a matter of time because I came to this life to do this. If the company doesn’t work, you have to try one year more and then, okay, next company.
I say, “No, there is no next company. This is my mission. I will do this. I will go through this life with my vision and mission to make something better for the people affected by natural disasters in an emergency. I want to make something better. It doesn’t matter if it will take me 20 years, 30 years, 60 years, or my entire life. It doesn’t matter if I’m making money or if I’m not making money. I will do everything that I need to improve that situation in our humanity, and I will do it.
Overcoming Obstacles: The Journey To Ukraine
Have you ever had a moment where there were so many challenges that for a moment you lost that vision or you felt that “This is too big for me, I can’t do this?”
All the time.
What do you do about that?
I go for a run. I try to make a meal to cook something in the barbecue. I listen to a podcast or connect with nature. I go to the basics. Why am I here? I’m here for this. Many times I say, “This is impossible.” I was in Peru, building the last prototype of CMAX in 2022, at the beginning of the war between Ukraine and Russia. I started to get calls from all over the world but from Ukraine. People who know me said, “Nico, we need your shelter. We need help for the people who are in the city right now. We need doctors. We need support.”
I say, “How can I do that?” I was using my entire savings to produce the last prototype, and I did not have much money to make the next step. I was like, “What is the way to move the unit to Ukraine?” I started to talk with someone and then with an airline. I said, “How much money do I have to pay to send ten units?” For the situation that we are living in, we had to pay $150,000 for the shipping, only for the shipping. I had to find a way to raise like $200,000. I didn’t have that money at that time, but I started to put that in my mind and my heart. I said, “I will do it.”
I was talking with one airline and another airline. One airline said, “Nico, I love what you are doing. I will send the unit for free.” Okay, great. First step, minus $150,000. Now, I need the next level. I need someone that can help us to donate units and see how we going to do that because they say, “I will send the unit from Peru to Miami, Miami to Amsterdam. The final location will be Warsaw.”
I had to find trucks from Amsterdam to Warsaw, and then from Warsaw to Kyiv. You can see my English is not perfect. Imagine being there talking in Polish or a different language. I said, “I will do it.” It was very hard and was almost impossible. Right now, you see the pictures of CMAX with the soldiers in Ukraine, but everything that was behind the scenes was almost impossible. All that was impossible. How did you make it? How did you do it?
You decided to do it. That’s what’s so incredible.
I decided, but there is something bigger than us. You had to take the courage to go through the process and it isn’t easy. When I came here to the US, it was so difficult for me. I came with a tourist visa and I said, “I don’t want to be illegal here.” I have an incredible company in Argentina. I didn’t come for the American dream. I came for the universal dream because I wanted to help many countries, but I had a great life. I have houses, trucks, cars, and everything in Argentina, and I left everything to come here.
I did the opposite of what people are doing when coming to the US. I sold everything that I had to put into the company, to start this company here. Immediately, in one month, the government gave me a green card as a brilliant talent. I said, “This is a signal.” People say, “Right now, you have a green card. You should go and find a place to work and make some money.” No, I will sell everything that I have, and I will put in this, and I will work for what I’m here for and what I want to do. I don’t want to go find a shop here. I spend all my money, everything that I have. I was in my underwear almost.
The Birth Of CMAX: From Abandoned Hospital To Global Impact
Nico, how did this dream of the CMAX start? What was the seed of that?
It started in a very crazy place because I was in Argentina. I come from a low-income family. I am the only one who went to university. I had to travel to another city to be an industrial designer. During the last year of my career, I lived in an abandoned hospital because I didn’t have the money to pay rent. My family can’t support me in that way. I did CMAX as my final work to get my degree. I was living in an abandoned hospital, without anything. In that place, with the support that I have, I did CMAX because I said, “This is my final work. I will be a professional after this, and I want to make something different.”
I don’t want to design an electric car. I don’t want to design furniture. I want to design to improve the quality of life of people. I found this. In 2001, we didn’t have the social media. We didn’t have the capacity from Argentina to understand what happened with refugees, with displaced people. In Argentina, we don’t have that kind of stuff. Why did I decide to do that?
It was very hard because it was a very different problem. At that time, I didn’t have any chance to research and see what we had at that time. It’s only tents, and we still have tents, but that was a call because there is no way for someone living in that situation to make an innovation that 20 years after that or 25 years after that is still an innovation. We are selling in thirteen countries. I was talking to a new distributor in Germany and Japan. How can this guy in an abandoned hospital design this stuff?
If you look at the story of our humanity, you will see that the very big things start from nothing. We don’t have excuses to say, “I didn’t have enough money. I don’t have this, I don’t have that thing. I don’t have the family to support it.” You have to have strong courage to go through the process to be what you had to be, and to follow the steps.
The happiness and the feeling of peace that I have within me are incredible. It wasn’t just because I was meditating. It’s because I had the courage to connect with the thing that I feel I came to this life to do. Of course, I’m facing challenges all the time. For me, this conversation in another language is a challenge. I came here with zero English. I had to build a new company, a new foundation. Right now, we are part of the consultative status of the United Nations. I was without any friends or family in the US. How?
Your heart is your friend, for sure.
The Mystery Of The Christmas Holly: Connecting With The Child Within
Among other things, I know that you also published a book. I have it right here. I had to show you the book. I read it. It’s called The Mystery of the Christmas Holly. The book is so delicious. I have another story I’ll share with you later because I’m writing something, which is very in the same lines. This is about your book now. Bonnie, I know you haven’t looked at it yet, but it’s beautiful. I know that you wrote this book to nourish the child within. I know what you’ve been talking about, how you’re answering the call, and how you show up for life. I felt in this book how little Charlie goes through the forest and how he engages with the holly. Say a little bit more about the story.
I’m shocked because I didn’t expect to talk about my book, and I forgot about that. I did it in three weeks, and it was unexpected. I was here in the middle of the winter, and I had to travel to China, and I had a problem. I lost my passport with the Chinese visa and everything. It was crazy. I have traveled to around 100 countries, and I have never had that situation. I can’t believe it. I was so angry with me. I live here in the middle of nature, and I went to the park and I started to connect. I was like, “Relax. There is a reason why you have to stay here and you’ll see.”
I started to see the holly tree in the middle of nowhere, with all the other trees almost dead. I see the holly tree there is shining. I said, “How do you survive the winter?” I started to talk with the holly tree and asked a question. I had a great conversation for a long period of time. I came back to my home and said, “I had to express everything that I was talking with him.” I started to write from 5:00 PM to 7:00 AM. I was writing for almost 12 to 15 hours without stopping. I don’t know why, but this is what I want to do because I have many children following my accounts.
I was in different schools. I said, “I had to connect with them,” but not with the children but the children within us because when you connect with that, your life changes. We are wearing the clothes of adult people, but we are still that human. I think the essence of who we are is in our childhood. We have to reprogram everything that probably comes from the outside and start to live from inside to outside. There are many things that I wanted to share with that book. I started to write another book.
Our essence is in childhood; we must reprogram ourselves from the inside out.
I know Bonnie had a question, but I’m curious. Do you remember when you started writing the book? What was the date?
It was probably December.
December what? I’m curious.
I have to see.
You can tell me later. I’ll tell you a story about it. I’m curious when, and it’s pretty. There’s this little page here. What you’re talking about are these little seedlings and how we’re planting that core, how are we that core, and how we emerge from the core of us if we cultivate it or if we answer the call.
The Power Of Seeds: Nurturing Our Inner Potential
I fell in love with seeds because that is the biggest analogy of our opportunity in this life. That’s seed. That very small little thing, inside of that is the power to have a huge tree. You have to nurture. Unfortunately, many times, we have nurtured that seed with things that do not make any sense.
We stunt the growth of the tree because we don’t nurture it.
We nurture things that do not make sense. “I want to grow, but I want to grow to have more things and more of that.” If you think about it, a tree only wants to be as big as it can to connect with humanity, to connect with the planet, to bring shade, and to nurture other plants. You are growing to help, to connect, to be big within you. How many branches do I have in comparison with another tree? No, they are beautiful in themselves. What happens if you work on yourself? I say, “I will make my own beauty.” I don’t need any comparison. I don’t feel bigger or smaller. I am who I am. I don’t need any recipe for that. It’s within me.
You have it here in your book. It says, “In every tree, in every leaf, in every step, the universe whispers that the answers you seek are already within you.” You’re such a dreamer, Nico. I appreciate your capacity to look inside and have this very clear vision and image that you want to bring into the world. To do it is courage, but it’s also the will to keep going. That’s beautiful.
Being The Message: Choice, Freedom, And Joy
Yes, it’s beautiful. It’s hard, but it isn’t something that is easy. It’s hard. You have to go through many processes because if you compare with the rest of the people, I’m a little bit of a weird guy. I don’t have my own family, I don’t have children, but I have small friends all over the world, in Colombia and in many places. I lived with indigenous communities, I was always playing with the children.
I’m another kid if you compare with the typical person, and I’m here. I’m living in a place in front of the sea, in the middle of the forest, without my own family, traveling around the globe. My mother and everyone say, “Why do you want to be alone? You have to have your family. You have to have your children.” Yes, of course, I want that. Right now, it’s not that call. Right now, I have another call, and I have to go through that thing. I am very different from the rest of my friends.
Of course, I love it when I see my friends with family, with their own children having vacations or whatever. It is fine. This is my life. This is who I am, and I’m building my life in this way. I live this experience and other people live another experience. It’s fine. I don’t have to be in this way to look like a normal person. I came to this life to do what I’m doing and with these things as happily as I can. All the time, I feel blessed only with the chance to have another day.
I am conscious that I am in great health and I work hard for that. I try to take care of my food and everything else because it’s the way to love creation. Take care of myself, of my body, of my relationship, of how I connect with people. As more conscious that you become, you become more focused on your health, which is another way to see life.
I don’t go to the doctor. For more than twenty years, I haven’t gone to a doctor or taken a pill. Zero. My medicine is to live the life that I had to live and that I feel to live. That is my medicine every single day. The relationship that I am choosing is my medicine. The biggest power that a human could have in this world is the choice.
The greatest power a human could have in this world is choice.
This is the real bigger power that you could have, a choice, because there are people who are millionaires, billionaires, with a lot of money, but they don’t have a choice. They had to follow this thing to save taxes, to pay that, to take care of everything that they had. I can’t believe it. They don’t have a choice.
Right now, if I want to take a flight and go to Thailand, I could do it, and that freedom and be free to choose. What do you want? To be successful. That opportunity to wake up every single day and feel blessed with everything that is surrounded by you. Everything. The coffee that you want to drink, smell it first. What a coffee. Go outside and say, “What a day. Thank you.” If you live in that way, I can tell you it’s enough. You don’t need too many things. You don’t need to use your credit card for that stuff.
I love how you said that this way of being and living is my medicine. Nico, this conversation has been such a gift. Thank you for answering your call every day, for showing up, and for being who you are.
Thank you so much. I have a friend who said, “Nico, the thing is you are not making a message. You are the message.” I love that because there are a lot of speakers and a lot of people who are trying to say, “These are the three steps to be a successful person. The five steps to become a millionaire.” You are the message. You are the change that you want to see in the world. I love that statement and I want to be that change that I want to see in the world.
Beautiful closing. Thank you, Nico. Thank you again.
Thank you so much.
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About Nicolás García Mayor
Nicolas Garcia Mayor is an Argentine entrepreneur and industrial designer recognized globally for his humanitarian innovations, particularly the Cmax System, which earned him accolades from the United Nations and Pope Francis. He’s dedicated his career to developing sustainable and impactful solutions for social and environmental challenges, working with organizations like Médecins Sans Frontières and the United Nations, and consulting for major corporations. Honored with awards such as the JCI TOYP and “Ambassador of Argentina Country Brand,” and granted U.S. permanent residency for “Extraordinary Ability,” Garcia Mayor is a sought-after speaker and consultant, driving innovation in humanitarian development and environmental preservation across continents.