Why Ego Blocks Our Purpose

Episode Transcript

Debra Maldonado 0:00
Hello, welcome to another episode of Jung on Purpose. I’m Debra Maldonado.

Robert Maldonado 0:05
I’m Dr. Rob,

Debra Maldonado 0:06
and we’re with Creative Mind, and we are helping people find their purpose every single day, helping them individuate with Jungian psychology and Eastern spirituality, and of course that neuroscience, knowing, understanding the brain. That’s what this show is all about, and today we are going to focus on purpose. I think a lot of people misunderstand what the journey of purpose is, and we wanted to explain it and help you feel aligned with that. What living your purpose is like when you’re fully in it, how to know, and the road to get there. So before we begin, I do want to have a ask you a favor, and please subscribe to our podcast if you are listening to us on one of the podcast services. If you’re watching us on YouTube, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel, Creative Mind Channel, and there’s a ton tons of other videos there, teachings that you can download and watch anytime. So, Rob, purpose.

Robert Maldonado 1:00
Yeah, purpose. How would you define it? Yeah, what is purpose? And and I just want to preface by saying these are our opinions and are kind of based on our philosophy. In other words, they’re not just personal opinions. They’re they’re also based on, like you were saying, Eastern philosophy and neuroscience as well as psychology in general, especially young psychology, so that you want to take it for that-that it’s it’s a certain perspective, a certain point of view, a certain paradigm of considering what is the nature of life and therefore what is its purpose-and that’s what we’re talking about. for For me, it comes close to what the Upanishads teach as Dharma. Dharma being translated as the law, as spiritual duty, sacred purpose in life. Those that kind of definition comes close to the way we approach it. That it’s not a profession, and it’s not something you do for work. Although work can can be aligned with your dharma, with your purpose, and therefore serve dharma. Serve. It could be a way

Debra Maldonado 2:06
to express

Robert Maldonado 2:06
it. It can be also be a way to express it, a way to be in it, embody it in a sense.

Debra Maldonado 2:12
It’s like a beingness, wouldn’t you say?

Robert Maldonado 2:15
Very much so, like a.

Debra Maldonado 2:17
And you can have many different careers, like different types of things you do, but that purpose stays like solid. So you can be a creative person, and you could be working an advertising agency, and then you could also your purpose is to do something creative in the community, or you can do some other kind of art therapy on the side, and you know you could do a lot of different things. But the core of that expression of your divine gifts is is really what you can come in many facets.

Robert Maldonado 2:45
Yeah, and just like in the Upanishads, it’s taught as one of the four aspects of your life that you have to get together if you really want to be. What are the other

Debra Maldonado 2:57
three, Rob?

Robert Maldonado 2:58
Yeah, so the other the other three are are we can break them down into relationships. You have to get that right, and we know the research in psychology definitely shows that if you are not content in your relationships with others, there’s no way you can be whole or feel complete. There’ll always be something amiss there. So,

Debra Maldonado 3:20
and you’re not just talking about a relationship like a marriage or a partner, but more like be happy with relationships, your family, your friends, have a community.

Robert Maldonado 3:28
Yeah, your sense of connectedness to others that can be at many different levels, of course. And we know those things make us happy; they give meaning to our life, etc. So the second one is success in work. That part, I mean, a lot of people kind of balk at it. They they want to have it both way. They want to say I don’t need money or I don’t need success, but yet I need money and I need.

Debra Maldonado 3:56
Where they feel guilty about pursuing money or pursuing success because they feel like it’s not spiritual. I certainly felt that many times.

Robert Maldonado 4:03
Yeah, it’s part of kind of the contradictions that human beings have around money, success, work. So it all kind of has to do with that. Then the third one is mind body wellness, meaning if you’re not healthy, if you’re not centered, and and you’re not you don’t feel at peace, right? Illness if you have illness in your mind body system, you cannot pursue good relationships or success, and therefore, it it’s a much more foundational element of our human nature to to include that in our work. That it’s part of our duty as human beings. If we are given these bodies, these my bodies, that we have to take care of them, make sure they’re operating at full potential. And then the fourth one is dharma, meaning following the sacred law, your sacred duty, doing what like like you were saying, expressing that. Expressing the

Debra Maldonado 5:00
divine in us, you know, right? Yeah, in a

Robert Maldonado 5:03
sense, it is. Yeah, because the the definitions of enlightenment, if we think about them, it is essentially losing your own self identity as ego, and acting as the divine in the world. You become like an avatar for the divine and an avatar, the concept is interesting. It’s it’s essentially like a stand-in or a vessel that serves as a conduit for the divine. So that Krishna, for example, in the Bhagavad Gita, is considered an avatar of Vishnu, a much older deity, much broader, much kind of more holistic sense of the divine.

Debra Maldonado 5:42
So we’re like Krishna. Is that what you’re saying?

Robert Maldonado 5:44
Yeah, in essence, because as we become more self, as we move towards self realization, we are losing our ego sense, so that we’re not existing simply as individual beings, but more representative of the universal divine.

Debra Maldonado 6:01
So this ties into Jungian psychology because in the beginning of life we’re conditioned to build an ego and get go for careers, make friends, you know, get married, have kids, maybe be healthy, you know, be sexual. All you know, all the things that we do is early life, and then around 30, we are sort of hit a wall where we have chased a lot of the things. It was like a distraction, but we did accomplish a lot. But it’s not really satisfying to us because we’re basically we were doing it in service of the ego, which is very limited. It’s out of fear, out of and it’s not even our choice. Basically, we’re kind of conditioned to fall into careers that maybe our parents did, or what the society expects us to be, or even follow the crowd and what we should be doing in our 20s and in college. I mean, I’m sure a lot of people think about their college days and goes, “Wow, I did a lot of things that I was following the crowd. And then you you pursue maybe getting married because everyone in your family got married, and that’s what you should do without even thinking about is this my choice. And so we kind of like are on autopilot. And then around 30, Jung said that you know the psychology is great for building up the ego. A lot of the psychotherapies out there that do different models. But after 30, we need a new psychology. He said, and that’s where Jung psychology really, really kicks in. Not to say that people under 30 can learn and grow from Jungian psychology is amazing, but if you’re if you’re still working on building your ego after 30, it’s going to delay this emergence of your dharma or your purpose. And I don’t think many people connect that to purpose to what we’re doing in individuation, and so I think about it as we all have as children like little dreams and little visions, and we want to be an astronaut, or we want to, you know, be a superhero, or I wanted to be a singer, which I cannot sing at all, so I don’t know what the heck I was thinking, but I had these like dreams, you know, and then life kind of shrinks your you those dreams and maybe drowns them out because it’s not possible. The world is like real, and you know those things are fantasies, and and that. But we all have those little moments in our life somewhere that there’s a seed there, and that’s sort of that presence that’s in us that wants to do amazing things, that thinks anything is possible, and life kind of steals that from us in a lot of ways. I mean, very rarely do people have parents and the whole society supporting someone, doing incredible, crazy things. You know, outside of the norm, everyone’s kind of keeping everyone together. So at 30, we start to it almost like wakes us up again. It like peaks up like a little nudge, a little whisper, and we we kind of look around. I call it this time the pause because we’re rushing, rushing, rushing in our teens and 20s. Like life is going really fast, and we don’t care that life is passing by because we’re so young. And then we hit 30, and we’re like, oh, like let’s slam the brakes a little bit. Where life is really going fast, and we start to reassess. And this can happen at 30. You could plow through your 30s, and this might not happen to you to your 40. It might not happen to you to your 50. But it the initial like spark could start around 30, and then that’s where we start asking ourselves questions. And it’s an invitation. It’s an invitation to where do I go now? What do I want to be? Be with my life. What? How do I want to live my everyday? I think a lot of people during COVID had that experience. They were in their jobs commuting, and then everyone was home. And I think it made everyone just stop and reassess their life. So, so many new businesses started during COVID.

Debra Maldonado 9:35
So many entrepreneurs because people were like, “I want to just work from home. I want a side gig, and so there was a big shift, and so things like that, either externally or in your life, you just have that hit that wall of this. Not this is not making me happy anymore, and that’s like a it’s like a calling that you that for something deeper within you that’s always been there is saying it’s time for us to try something new.

Robert Maldonado 9:58
Yeah, it is a. A calling, almost like a spiritual calling, that if you heed it, it takes you away from family, from culture, from tradition. Jung says, if you’re not willing to individuate, meaning to create your own ideas, your own sense of self consciously, then you stay within this herd mentality. I always love his sense of humor. The herd mentality meaning we’re kind of just following the herd, right, like sheep, going along and doing what we need to do socially, but we’re not really being true to ourselves. So that’s what happens when we don’t heed the call is we end up just living at the social level. Now there’s nothing wrong with the social level. It’s a really important part of human nature, right? It’s what builds civilization and culture. But we we have to some of us. I think some of us that that really hear the calling and say that’s the only way to live for me. Then we have to be able to transcend our our own conditioning, our own culture, our own traditions. Even not by rejecting them. A lot of people think it’s like rejecting all that stuff. It’s not rejection. It’s simply that we understand to to grow beyond it. We have to define our own self, not take on the definitions given by the herd, by the culture.

Debra Maldonado 11:26
And in early life, we need the herd. I mean, we were talking about this this morning about moral, moral like agreements that we have in the family and in culture. Don’t brag. Don’t stand out too much. Be fair. What are some others? Tell the truth all the time. Be kind to others. Don’t cause problems. And most of us get that message to fall in line, basically. And you don’t have an individual like put your own feelings aside and keep the group, keep everyone externally. They have more power than you. You got to fit in. And so we were talking about how necessary that is because imagine a society if we did not have that foundation of collectively being able to coexist with each other. I mean, I I grew up in the East Coast on New Jersey, New York, and I worked in Manhattan, and that is a crazy place. And there’s like 1000s of different languages people speak in that two mile island, and there’s so much. It’s it feels hectic, but there’s such an order to everything. There’s the subways and and so there’s a system, and then there’s an agreement. You wait in line to get on the subway. You wait in line to get your hot dog on the stand. You let the cars go by when before you cross the street. Like we have these, we go to work and we show up, and we, you know, are are nice to the people that we work with. All those things are really important. So we don’t want to discount it as this terrible conditioning that we have. But it, we needed it at the time because when we’re young and our egos developing, we need some kind of structure. Is that what it

Robert Maldonado 12:58
is? I think that’s one way of looking at it,

Debra Maldonado 13:01
and how society sticks to you know stays together as a functioning society.

Robert Maldonado 13:05
Yeah, because there are traditions that see the whole idea of a worldly life as totally contradicting the spiritual life. For us, I mean, because we’re looking at it through a psychological lens, I don’t think it’s that clear cut. People can be they they can express a lot of their purpose through their work, through their you know expression of selflessness for others. Let’s say contributing to society, inventing new things, solving important problems. Those things are are like you say, they’re really useful in part of a learning experience. There are people that are called. Let’s say the the particular calling that they have is to to isolate themselves, perhaps not physically, but psychologically, emotionally, at least for a period of time, to where they undergo a certain transformation. Then that then they’re able to enact their purpose. It’s a way of finding themselves. Jung he talks about it as as a gestational period, almost like we’re being reborn, rehashed, and born at another level. Not a

Debra Maldonado 14:18
but we don’t get rid of the the common

Robert Maldonado 14:20
right

Debra Maldonado 14:20
moral grounds. We we just expand like we want to stay in the framework where we’re not chaotic and just robbing people, thinking it doesn’t matter. Yeah,

Robert Maldonado 14:30
but but there’s something to this because think about it. If the society is telling you what is right and wrong, are you really conscious? Are you really living from? Are

Debra Maldonado 14:41
you making that decision? Are you being a good person, or are you just following the crowd?

Robert Maldonado 14:45
Exactly, like you know, the ordinary person knows if they cross the the stop sign without stopping, they they’re in danger of getting a ticket. In other words, a punishment.

Debra Maldonado 14:56
So, would you say that then the involved people? Where the people that do wake up are like more prepared for that freedom, where some people just aren’t prepared that they they don’t have the the ego strength to se like kind of go outside of that conditioning at at a certain point. Like, are they ready to to make that change? Or

Robert Maldonado 15:16
yeah, yeah, I’m glad you brought up the ego because that’s the the best way to explain it, that when we live out of the ego, our purpose is to protect ourselves and defend ourselves, and and make sure that we survive. That’s what the ego does, and really well. From that point of view, then it makes sense to follow rules that are not injurious to myself, especially, but also secondarily, that it helps me get along, and therefore helps me survive in the society. Once you’re able to free yourself from that conditioning, though, the question is, can you decide for yourself what is right and wrong? Of course, you can. I mean, we have the capacity to do that, but you have to free yourself from your past conditioning because if you don’t, you’re still identifying as ego, as persona, as individual, and therefore you need the reference point of what does the culture say is right and wrong. Well, just think about

Debra Maldonado 16:15
religious wars. People are dying in the name of you know their religious you know beliefs and fighting over religion, and it’s like, is that like what’s the moral question? Is it okay to kill because you believe something different? You know that happens all over the world. So that’s a really good example of morality because one person’s morality is different from the other person’s morality, and and then who’s right?

Robert Maldonado 16:39
Yeah, and and then you’re not

Debra Maldonado 16:40
even making that choice, you’re not even questioning it because you’re caught up in the group’s beliefs, religious beliefs, and you’re thinking this is right, and you’re hurting people and killing people, the Crusades, right? I mean, so many examples of that throughout history. And they, the you know, the Gandhi said when the English soldiers came and they were beating on the the people. He said they thought they think what they’re doing is right. Like they believe that they’re doing something right. They don’t see themselves as being immoral, and that’s like what happens when we don’t have an individual consciousness or a self reflective waking up from our ego. We just follow the group and and then think we’re right.

Robert Maldonado 17:18
Yeah, and the group decides

Debra Maldonado 17:19
that morality, not you, yeah.

Robert Maldonado 17:22
And so, from a certain perspective, you’re right. You’re doing the right thing. You’re following the herd mentality. But Lao Tse puts it really beautifully in his Taoist philosophy, and I’m paraphrasing, but he essentially says like something like this: that if we can find that moral code in us, in other words, that it’s born from within you. You don’t have to ask the 10 Commandments or a book to tell you what is right and wrong. You’ll sense it. You’ll find it within yourself, and that’s a much higher way of being than depending on these moral codes and following them to the T. So, but that again, that’s opinion, right? Some people might argue against that and say there’s a universal code,

Debra Maldonado 18:08
you know,

Robert Maldonado 18:09
yeah, these universal codes.

Debra Maldonado 18:12
So, yeah, so we have all these reasons to stay in our what we know, right? This familiar-it’s something we’ve lived our whole whole life, 30 years or plus of our life, learning how to be, and now this purpose is is emerging from us. Is this desire and the initial response is let’s no we let’s that’s too scary to think of changing everything. Everything’s all organized. The unknown is so scary, so we tend to push those nudges away when we first feel them, or we say, “I’ll I have to deal with this right now. I’ll do this later. It’s like the ego loves to put things off. Yeah, and and so there’s never a good time to do it. So you just got to do

Robert Maldonado 18:56
it. Well, from the ego perspective, it’s a terrible thing that’s about to happen when the calling is heated. Let’s say because the calling is essentially the the bell toll for the end of the ego’s reign. It’s it’s marking its its end, its death, essentially, because the individual, as they proceed on their journey of individuation will not be the same person that they are when they identify with the persona ego. That that person will have to die. Will in some cultures they would actually have a a mock burial for the person because that’s the end of

Debra Maldonado 19:40
them. Or they’d shave their head, or change their clothes,

Robert Maldonado 19:43
change their name,

Debra Maldonado 19:45
change their name, so spiritual name, and and let that old self go. And Jung didn’t think he went to like really like completely abandon it. It’s just more like integrating and like knowing that the ego is you can’t get rid of the ego. It’s always going to be there. You have like a larger, I always call repertoire that you could play in your life. You’re not playing, you know, chopsticks on the piano. You’re playing like a concerto, you know, like something really amazing with your life. That’s what we’re capable of, and so it’s opening us up to more possibility. But the ego is frightened because it has to give up a sense of control because the ego was built on control, it built on making sure you’re live, making sure you’re safe, making sure people like you, and and and it’s it’s very exhausting. That’s why most people feel like they’re exhausted, and I think that some people feel exhausted from personal growth because they’re using that same tactic. They’re using their ego to fix their ego, and it’s like they want to control. They want to get it fixed. They want to control the outcome, and then it ends up being very frustrating-a frustrating experience. And so, letting go of control, and then letting the soul now take over and stand in, and and and and and it’s trusting in something you can’t see, you’ve never done, you don’t know what’s going where it’s going to bring you, and it’s what you know. They talk about the hero’s journey. That’s what it is. It’s like leaving the Shire and stepping out and and going on this great adventure. It’s scary. It’s scary to the ego, but it’s also the most thrilling thing you can do with your life. And it’s not about arrival anywhere, like a some kind of destination, it’s more like like I always say, using your goals to find that to use it to know and know yourself more. So, if you want to create a you know a successful coaching business, for example, a lot of our coaches want to do that. The goal isn’t to create a successful coaching business; it’s use that goal to to grow yourself, like it’s it’s a way, like it’s like a, it’s like almost like you’re placing it out there so you can grow in the in the process, and that’s the real prize, not the money that you get or the accolades you get or the best selling book or the TED talk. It’s it’s more about who you become, and to live your purpose, you have to become someone new. Yeah, yeah,

Robert Maldonado 22:02
and it’s that transformational period that people sometimes call the dark night of the soul. It is the dark night from the ego perspective because it’s we consider the ego. Jung says that the hero’s journey is like a solar myth, and so what happens to the sun in that dark night of the soul, is that it’s eclipsed the ego no longer feels the light. It no longer senses that there’s light emanating from me. It’s it’s extinguished in a sense, but that extinguishing is a necessary part of the process of growth.

Debra Maldonado 22:39
Is it the light of the ego that’s being distinguished.

Robert Maldonado 22:42
Yes, the the let’s say at least symbolically, the idea is that we have a sense that our life and we are the the hero of our lives, right? Kind of at the center of it. That our life is this awareness, this waking life, and that that’s the sun, that’s the the conscious awareness, not the consciousness, but the conscious level of our awareness, and that that that life, that light of the day is everything to us. That that’s where we’re going to live. That’s where we’re going to build our dreams. We’re going to be happy, be purposeful, all that stuff. When we individuate, we have to go into the unconscious. So this is where the hero has to go into hell, into the underworld. And going into the underworld means the light is extinguished, extinguished at least symbolically again, or at least temporarily.

Debra Maldonado 23:37
So it’s almost like if you think about a flashlight and the flashlight, or even a grayer example is the lighthouse. It points out to the sea. It’s pointing externally, and then it points toward the land. And so it’s like turning that light around and pivoting inward because the first part of life are faced outward, outward, outward, outward, and all the power and projections are all out there. And then we’re kind of reclaiming that going inward and almost like cultivating that power, which is the purpose, which is the dharma, which is really asking ourselves and deep intuitive knowledge and inner wisdom of what am I, what am I meant to do, who am I, who who am I? And I think when you strip away the ego, it’s like it’s already there. It’s not something you have to create my purpose. It’s it’s already there. It’s just the ego’s kind of covering it up, and that going inward, like turning out the light of the ego a little bit, like the external and turning inward helps us pay attention and listen more.

Robert Maldonado 24:34
Yeah, yeah, it’s a difficult task for anyone, and so people often resist the call. I mean, that’s the whole idea, right? That it’s a call, meaning there’s an internal impetus to do this, but there’s also great resistance and obstruction. Not only internally, but things that appear to us externally will also appear to obstruct that calling to take us away. Way to or to keep us in the same pattern or in the same direction. That that is also part of the journey, and a lot of people misread it as this means that God or the divine or life doesn’t want me to do this.

Debra Maldonado 25:14
It’s not meant to be.

Robert Maldonado 25:15
Yeah, there wouldn’t be so many obstructions if it was meant to be. But that’s a misreading of the situation,

Debra Maldonado 25:22
it’s like the opposite.

Robert Maldonado 25:24
Yeah, it’s that when there is resistance, that means you’re on the right track, and then if you persist through that resistance and work through it, then you come out the other side. I

Debra Maldonado 25:36
think that’s a very important point, Rob. And what comes to mind is that the rules you played in the early part of life is like avoiding avoiding discomfort, building up, you know, going toward pleasure. It’s reversed, like it’s almost like you’re reversing an undoing. It’s like an undoing of so you’re doing the opposite of what you did the first part of life. So instead of resisting or healing negative feelings or thinking positive, like ooh, let me examine this negativity. Let me see what’s there. Let me ooh, resistance. This is great. So we start to change our attitude around the things that are showing up, and we’re not applying. We’re not approaching them the same way we did before we awoken, before we were when we were an ego. It’s like you have to do the opposite of what the ego would normally do. So be like, what would the ego do? The ego would run. The ego would give up. The ego would procrastinate. Ego would say, tell you, give you great excuses to stop. It’s like, but what would my soul say? My soul would say, let’s keep going. This is awesome. There’s a lot of fun stuff happening here.

Robert Maldonado 26:40
Yeah. So any initiation rites actually stressed you out. They tested you. Can you fast for days and days? Can you be alone in the desert? Can you climb a mountain with very little preparation? Those kind of tests were essential and are essential for us. Perhaps we don’t have to do play them out kind of real holistically like we used to, but we have to test ourselves. We have to move towards discomfort, towards challenge, and that piece a lot of people misunderstand. Again, they think because it’s uncomfortable or even painful that it’s bad, that I should avoid it or that it I’m on the wrong track. But I

Debra Maldonado 27:20
think it’s really that part of it. Yeah, it’s like I remember when I first started out, and I was with a bunch of coaches like me or entrepreneurs that were just starting out, and you know, wanting to make a business out of our business, our little dream, and and it was it one of the hardest things for people is to have faith in in what they can’t see. We we trust the senses too much. Again, the ego will trust the senses. We’ll get feedback from the senses and then react. And it’s it’s a really it’s a special skill you have to develop is to step into the unknown without knowing how it’s going to work out. And it’s so antithesis to what the ego would do, and that’s what’s going to break you through. Not even what you do, but as long as you’re doing the opposite of what you did before, how your conditioning was like. Remember, I don’t know if you remember Seinfeld when George said, “I’m going to do everything the opposite, and he was like, “I’m going to do not going to do what typical George would do. I’m going to do the opposite. That’s kind of how you. The simple way to approach it is like, what would I normally do? And I think for me, early on, when I was challenged with something, I’d be like, “Oh, I usually would just pull back here. I’m going to go forward. And just the act of doing the opposite, maybe of especially in those initial stages, is starts to train you to stop listening to that ego that that’s always pulling you to the to this familiar, and that’s the hardest thing to have faith in in in your dreams when their evidence is not there, and people say you’re crazy. Why don’t you go back and get a job? And you know, do you know how many coaches there are out there, or you know how hard it is to build a business or go for your dreams like singers? You know, only one in a million people will do it, or artists. Yeah, you know that starving artist, like all the things that we love or find fascinating. People will tell us it’s not possible, but what we’re really hearing is our own ego, inner voice just expressed in these other people, showing us where our limitations are. And so, if we listen to them, we’re back in that herd mentality again and saying yes, and so it takes a lot of discipline to do this. It’s not easy. That’s why not many people do it. Most people stay in the cog, a cog in the wheel.

Robert Maldonado 29:33
I mean, if you look at the hero’s journey, the hero finds allies along the way very shortly after leaving or or undertaking the journey, the task becomes about who is going to guide me, who’s going to teach me, who’s going to give me the tools that I need to achieve my goal, and that process for let’s say in practical terms for our our journey through entrepreneurship or becoming a coach or. Starting a business, whatever you’re doing, that that process over there, that stage of growth has to do with deciding what is my discipline, what is my spiritual discipline. A lot of people neglect this; they like to pick from, you know, here and there a smorgasbord of things. That’s a lot of waste of time. Okay,

Debra Maldonado 30:20
and also you choose what’s convenient. You know, it’s not the like sitting in meditation for 20 minutes in silence. Ooh, that’s uncomfortable. I’m going to go do this magical healing trick that’ll just take my negativity out, and it’s like, ooh, that sounds better. And then what we end up doing is trying looking for quick fixes and not challenging ourselves in a deep way. And this happens not only in business where people are looking for the magical technique or cure that’s going to or the marketing tactic that’s going to get them to a million dollars or whatever, but internally too. I think people it’s the ego’s desire. It’s not a person’s conscious desire, but the ego’s desire is like go for the quick fix, go for that thing that’s not going to feel that uncomfortable, and and then you feel good. You get a little relief from your pain temporarily, but you’re still not getting anywhere.

Robert Maldonado 31:08
Yeah. So choosing your path and committing to it, doing all the steps as outlined by that process is really important. I mean, we always tell people it doesn’t matter if you don’t do it with us. Simply choose one that speaks to you and follow that.

Debra Maldonado 31:26
And I always think mentors and coaches are really-they are like the number one help for you because, especially people who’ve been there before, you know, they can guide. Like a mentor is different than a coach. A mentor actually has been there and no has been through knows all the traps along the path and knows how to help you avoid some of the mistakes they made and and then also the mentor who has had the success that you want makes you believe that they believe in you. It is kind of like you’re you’re borrowing their belief in a way temporarily so that you can take it on yourself. And I found that for myself. I mean, I I started out having a coach right in the beginning, and it’s been like only one year I didn’t have a coach, and that was the worst year because I was kind of in my head again. And as soon as I hired a coach again, it was like back on track because it’s like you said in the hero’s journey, we have allies and we have guides, and probably the if your dream is that important, you need to do it. Whether it’s private or a group of everyone doing it together, and then there’s a mentor that leads that. That is really powerful. It’s it’s it’s it’s priceless. It’s better than any like marketing strategy.

Robert Maldonado 32:34
And and those guides usually give the the person undergoing the journey, the heroic journey. These guides provide tools for them. Sometimes amulets, magic spells, which means, or it we can say we can translate it into mindset. What they’re doing is they’re teaching you how to use your mind because that’s really the secret of success. If there is a secret, I mean, it’s it’s a kind of a a secret that is hidden in plain sight because we all know everything has to go through our mind. Whatever we do, it’s our mind at work. It’s our mind that translates it, that kind of gives it its its flavor and its shape and its results. So the mindset is the ultimate discipline for the hero’s journey. I find just my mind

Debra Maldonado 33:25
every time I get lost in like figuring out like the strategy for you know the next level or launching a program. I think okay, I have to start with the mind first because you could have the best strategy or borrow it from like someone who’s like this is exactly how you should lay it out. But if your mind is your your beingness is carrying lack and doubt, and I don’t know if this can work, and your ego’s basically running those tactics, you’re not going to have results. You’re, but if your soul is helping you, and and what I find is the tactics are kind of like I don’t know, like almost like a fool’s errand in a way because you’re just kind of putting yourself out there, and you’re it’s an exercise. But the soul in us is what’s giving us the success. It’s what’s delivering us the opportunities. It’s always that our ego doesn’t have to work so hard to to do it. It needs to get out of the way, and that these things like a lot of people want that easy way. Well, the easy way is discipline your mind, and and learn what the distinction between your ego and your true self, and that’s what’s going to get you the most success.

Robert Maldonado 34:27
Yeah, the the reason people find it challenging is because our senses are designed to be overwhelmed by the sensory experience of the moment, meaning we trust in the evidence of our senses a lot more than on the higher principles, and whenever we do that, we fall into the immediacy of the moment. So that if the bank account is low, there are a few clients, we read it as disaster, as you know, and we start to imagine total failure and all that stuff. So the mind spiral. Into that lack mentality,

Debra Maldonado 35:02
and it can easily-it’s almost like falling back into an old habit because the ego’s waiting right there, going, “Hmm, when when is the bad thing going to happen? So you swoop back in. But what another thing I wanted to say about that was really interesting: is as an entrepreneur, or anytime you go to reach your purpose, it’s not a linear like just go up the ladder. It is crazy. It’s wild. It’s up and down. It’s it’s surprising. It’s you know you have the ebbs and flows and there’s cycles and there’s all these different elements that come in. It’s very messy. When you’re an ego, it’s everything’s very organized. Everything’s like do show up, punch my card in, get my paycheck every two weeks. Entrepreneurship is always, you know, kind of inviting us to be more. I feel like entrepreneurship is the greatest opportunity for personal growth. And if you’re not doing personal growth as an entrepreneur, so entrepreneurship takes makes it like presses all the boundaries of that ego. Like it forces you to let go in a way, because it’s like it can’t anymore, and so it’s like now everything’s possible. But it’s the way of thinking and the way of being to be a steady head in the chaos and be able to live in both-to live in chaos and in peace at the same time, which is mastery.

Robert Maldonado 36:16
Like that, yeah. If you look at our mind, it’s very curious. It’s designed for creativity. It’s very creative and dharma’s or purpose that challenges us that way is very gratifying because we get to use the system the way it was meant to be used for real challenges, not just make believe ones of can we reach these goals, or can we, you know, make the Knicks raise or get the promotion? These challenges appear to have more skin in the game, right? They have more urgency and more power, and therefore they they bring us to this immediacy of life that we’re living in it and we’re creating it, like we’re creating it moment by moment. I

Debra Maldonado 37:03
heard someone say that if your goals don’t scare you, they’re not big enough. All right, well, great topic on purpose. We always love this topic, of course. Namesake of our podcast, we thank you for joining us. We all would love for you to think about where you stop yourself. Are you just thinking about changing? Are you in that stop start phase where you tipped your foot in and that you’re back and hopefully this shows you a little bit of what’s happening and you want to become unstoppable. You want to have a vision that’s aligned with a higher purpose, so something that’s not feeding the ego. Not I want to be famous and have a best selling book. It’s probably an ego, probably a part ego in there. It’s more like I want to help others and like make an impact. That’s a bigger goal. But what’s stopping you? What’s stopping you from really believing that it’s possible? And you’re going to see that the senses are going to tell you that it’s not possible. And I would love for you to just sit with it and think, well, if I took the senses away. What else am I believing it’s not possible? And then you’re going to realize when you take all the senses away and your past experiences and all that, there’s nothing there. There’s only possibility.

Robert Maldonado 38:13
Yeah, I love that.

Debra Maldonado 38:14
All right. Well, Rob, let’s live our purpose. What do you think?

Robert Maldonado 38:16
It’s all about purpose, and again, we have to create it ourselves. That is the the journey that we’re on. Is through the journey, through accepting the challenges, we create our own meaning, the the meaning of our life.

Debra Maldonado 38:29
Well said. All right, we’ll see you next week on Young on Purpose, and have a great week. Take care. See you soon.