How the Mind Creates Opportunities

Debra Maldonado 01:05

Before we begin and dive into this topic, I just want to make a quick reminder that if you are watching us on YouTube and would like to subscribe to our channel, just click on the button here in the corner. If you are listening to our podcast on one of the podcast services, we invite you to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode. Today, we’re talking about how the mind creates opportunities, how opportunities are created in our life. Where did they come from? How does that work with the mind?

Robert Maldonado 01:38

Last time we talked about the idea that we can learn these skills. All the skills that psychology has identified as important for the entrepreneurial mindset are teachable, are learnable, are definitely doable.

Debra Maldonado 02:01

We have it in us, we just haven’t used that skill.

Robert Maldonado 02:05

Nobody teaches us these things unless we seek them out, unless we study them. It’s important to understand that the entrepreneur, the successful person is not necessarily born but they’re made. They’re cultivated and developed. Let’s dive into this idea of where do opportunities come from? Why do some people appear to have more opportunities than others?

Debra Maldonado 02:41

Some people say they have good luck, it was like a lucky break.

Robert Maldonado 02:47

There’s definitely something to that, of course. If you’re born into a wealthy family, you go to the right schools, and have the right connections, of course, it helps you out. But we’re talking about the level playing field where we all start off going to public schools, finding our way through these meaningless jobs, things that we have to do as we’re growing up. Then we start to wake up and get this idea that maybe I want to work for myself.

Debra Maldonado 03:21

Or I want to do something different, this is not something I really want to do. A good example of this is a friend of mine, we worked in an ad agency. Her husband was a high-tech guy, computer programmer. He was like “I don’t want to do this.” He left his high-paying job to become a teacher. It was low pay but he was so excited. That’s not very entrepreneurial but he was thinking “I want to do something”, leaving the traditional, rational thing and doing what he loved. I thought that was so brave of him to do.

Robert Maldonado 03:52

That’s definitely a part of it. Also, a lot of people don’t think of artists, writers, painters, filmmakers as entrepreneurs, but that’s really what they are. They’re entrepreneurs, they’re making their own way in the world.

Debra Maldonado 04:09

Even actors, celebrities. Their celebrity is a company in a way where they have income and a brand.

Robert Maldonado 04:19

They create their own opportunities. That’s the creative mindset. Let’s back up a little bit and look at the playing field, not the social playing field, not a political playing field, but just this idea what this world is made out of. It’s important to back up that far because if we don’t understand how the universe works, or we don’t have a good model of it, then we’re always on the wrong track. We’re wasting our energy, we’re thinking that we’re failing because of reasons that aren’t really there or don’t exist. Understanding the field we’re playing in is important. At the most fundamental level, the universe is an infinite universe. If you’re scientists, check it out, look at what physics and quantum mechanics say about the universe. It appears to be infinite essentially, there are no limitations.

Debra Maldonado 05:38

The Webb telescope is showing us parts of our physical reality that are really beyond mind-blowing, billions of galaxies. The idea of expansiveness, if that is what’s happening out there, there’s also parts that we can’t see, that are beyond the senses, that are there too, but most people can’t see them.

Robert Maldonado 06:11

That’s looking outward. Looking inward, we know from consciousness studies, from ancient wisdom traditions, it’s the same thing. It’s an infinite inward space, inward mind, or consciousness. It has no limits, it’s infinite. We are playing in this infinite space. What does that mean for an entrepreneur in practical terms? People always ask us “Tell me something practical.” This is actually very practical. Again, if you don’t understand the playing field, you’re playing with the wrong rules. You’re assuming the rules are different. In an infinite universe, what is possible? Anything that you are able to hold steady in your mind, the vision you can create and hold on to in your mind, is what’s possible for you.

Debra Maldonado 07:16

The fact that you have the vision, where does that come from? It comes from a deeper part of ourselves. It’s not coming from outside, it’s coming from within you, the desire for something. When we say we live in this infinite universe, for most of us, we don’t really feel like we’re living in an abundant universe. We feel like there’s rules, we have bills to pay, there’s only a certain amount of people we can match up with romantically, what our body limitations are as far as aging, how much money we can make because we’re in a certain social class or education level or experience level. We have all these rules that tell us the opposite of this idea that things are infinite. You and I were talking earlier, it’s as if we live in a bubble of our own conditioned mind that all that covers up the infinity. We see just our own limitations. Instead of rose-colored glasses, we have dark-colored glasses on. We’re only seeing very small pieces of what’s possible because we retrained our mind to prune everything in and just focus on what we need to survive in the world. That’s the way we were designed to survive. It’s a natural process to be like that. But that’s not the end of our story. But most people think that’s the end of their story.

Robert Maldonado 08:55

That’s a good way to put it. What we perceive as individuals is really our own assumptions that we’ve gathered through our personal experiences. In all practical purposes, we are seeing our own reflection when we look at the world.

Debra Maldonado 09:15

When we see limitation out there, we’re actually seeing the bubble, the edge. It’s a mirror versus there’s an absolute out there. It’s mirroring what we believe in. Most of the time we’re not even conscious of our limitations.

Robert Maldonado 09:32

Look at your current situation and try to identify the opportunities available to you. If those opportunities appear to be limited, small, nonexistent, maybe that’s reflecting your deepest assumptions about who you are and what your reality is. The good news is you can change that. We’re not set in that mindset of the conditioned mind. It serves a purpose because it helps us survive, it helps us fit in socially. But it’s not reality. It’s essentially our default reality.

Debra Maldonado 10:26

It’s like a herd mentality. Our culture, our family, our environment shapes us as we grow up and tells us what is possible for us. What’s possible as a woman, a certain race, in a certain income level, with a certain education level, whether you’re attractive or not, or how smart you are. We’re told or we think we are a certain way. We get a lot of influence from the people around us. A lot of our assumptions aren’t things we made up, they’re things we absorbed from our environment. It’s not to blame yourself, it’s the natural way we’re conditioned as human beings. The first step is to see that all the limitations in the world out there are arising from me. If we could start at not blaming yourself but saying “If they’re arising from me, it means I have an opportunity to change it” versus “It’s their fault, it’s not my fault.”

INTERMISSION 11:34

Are you looking for a satisfying career as a life coach? If you are seeking a deeper path of training and growth, CreativeMind University offers an ICF accredited life coach training program that goes beyond surface positive thinking and into a powerful process of real transformation. You can start your new career as a certified life coach trained in a unique methodology based on Jungian theory, Eastern spirituality, and social neuroscience. Get the tools to become your true self, change your life and the lives of others. Visit creativemindlife.com, click on Apply and speak with one of our team members today to discuss your future and possibilities of becoming a certified life coach. That’s creativemindlife.com.

Robert Maldonado 12:27

When we talk about individuation, that’s what we mean. Individuation is the process of breaking through the barriers of self, of limited, mental conditioning. It’s the psychological process that allows you to see what’s in your limited mindset. As we take people through the individuation process, they start to see opportunities really have always been there because again, the universe exists as these opportunities, these potentialities for us, but we don’t perceive them until we start to see what’s really there.

Debra Maldonado 13:20

They’re there right now. If you’re sitting next to the love of your life, if you’re not open to receive that, you wouldn’t even notice that person, you wouldn’t have any feeling. I knew a woman back in the day, during my book signing in Denver for my first book. She had been friends with a guy for 20 years. She says she read my book, and it opened up her mind. She was like “The love of my life has been next to me.” Your mind needs to purify itself from the past conditioning to be able to see those opportunities. It’s like a thin veil, the things you want and the things you want to create and the opportunities. It’s like a very thin veil, think of the thinnest, most sheer curtain. Your mind is blocking you from seeing it because you’re basing it on old assumptions. What I love about the individuation process is that the more you individuate, the more you’ll be able to create opportunities. The more you stay stuck in your old patterns, the more limited your life will be. It’s a simple choice. Do you want to grow or do you want to stay stagnant in old beliefs, old ideas, old limitations? We’re not even talking about what you think. It’s really who you are. It’s not changing the way you think or feel as much as changing who the person that’s creating it is. Am I the ego? Or am I something greater? Individuation is not identifying as the ego anymore, throw the curtain, and start to see things as they truly are.

Robert Maldonado 14:57

It’s interesting that you brought up the idea of relationships in a conversation about entrepreneurship. There was a famous millionaire recently that said something similar. He said the most important choice you will make that plays into whether you’re successful or not, is who you marry.

Debra Maldonado 15:19

Warren Buffett said that, one of the richest men in the world. He said “The most important decision you’ll make in your life is the person you choose to marry.” It’s that partnership. I was a solopreneur, then you and I started working together, things started to shift in a bigger way because it’s a creative process. So how do we start seeing these possibilities if the shades are on? Rumi says “Why do you cover your eyes and cry that it’s dark?” We’re covering our own eyes. How do we start to see outside of the bubble? One of the things about the bubble that’s interesting is that it’s also reflective of our collective nature. It shows possibilities but it shows them in other people. Every possibility, there’s more than what we can see. If you look at the world, there’s successful people, there’s unsuccessful people, there’s people that have great relationships, there’s people that have bad relationships, there’s people that are healthy and people that aren’t. We’re seeing a variety, all of them are reflections of what’s possible for us. When I first started thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, the first thing is choose someone who is influential in your life. I used to read self help books, go to workshops, some of my friends were doing workshops and healing, and I was like “This is really cool that you can do this for a living.” They planted the seed for me in my mind. I didn’t think I was a teacher, I was more of a student. I had to start with “If they can do it, maybe I can do it too.” Look at someone in your life that has the things you want, they are a piece of that potential. You could probably even reach higher potentials than that person. It’s easy just to find someone that you can look up to, a mentor or someone that you feel like “I’d love to change the world like this person.” That is in you already. That’s a part of the way you start piercing the veil and seeing your identity beyond what you personally experienced. You start to feel connected. If these other people can experience it, I have that too. I am just like them.

Robert Maldonado 17:58

That’s a good way to start, whether you’re young and starting out, or you’ve reached the point where you’ve decided to start your own business, your own practice, etc. It’s a good idea to find mentors and to choose who your influences are.

Debra Maldonado 18:21

A mentor is different than a coach, though it can be the same. A mentor is someone who has the experience you want to have, maybe gone a couple of steps through the challenges, that can help you like a tour guide that takes you on a beautiful tour of a jungle. You want someone who’s been there before versus you trying to figure it out on your own.

Robert Maldonado 18:45

Choosing of your influences is an important piece because you’re literally now starting to create and consciously choose who you are going to be, how you’re going to show up for your life. That requires some thinking. If you talk to any successful person in any field that you’re interested in, there’s some common denominators. One of them is that they actively study, they actively read, they actively seek out what it means to be successful in my field, they understand exactly what they need to do.

Debra Maldonado 19:30

They’re hungry for it and they enjoy learning about it. They’re not learning just enough to get just enough. The process of learning itself is powerful. When I was I first started out, I didn’t have a lot of females that were executives, that had careers. They were mostly secretaries or nurses, that were our choices back in the 80s for me and my society where I lived, kind of family I grew up in. When I started working in New York City, I started seeing all these women executives, my boss was the senior vice president, corner office, and I thought “Women can take these roles.” When I was younger it was all the men in the offices and all the women doing the secretarial work. When we start to step into that power, we represent something and can shine a light for people, even give them permission to go for their dreams. If we all stay stagnant and all feel like it’s not enough, stay in our little bubbles, no one grows. Our growth, if we escaped the bubble, even the bubble of friends, you might have to escape that bubble to go for your dreams, you are inspiring the people around you, you’re lighting the light for them. I think about all the influences in my life, it’s different from putting them on a pedestal. You don’t want to project too much onto them. But you want to see “They’re showing me the way, I know I can do that too.” Not “They’re so great, I need to follow them like a guru.” It’s more “They’re showing me how to do it.” How would you talk about that, Rob? Like not projecting your own power onto that other person as if they’re greater than you, you want to see them as yourself.

Robert Maldonado 21:36

There is an identification with these individuals, you see them as being role models for you. Just the way they’re doing their life and their art, science, whatever they’re doing, you can do it as well. Your aim is to emulate that. Newton said, “I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.” That’s what we’re doing, we’re finding these giants so that we can say “They’re going to prop me up; their example is a way for me to create my own life, my own business, my own path.”

Debra Maldonado 22:25

Maybe you don’t even do it exactly their way. But you see the possibility because if no woman ever had run a company, if we were back in the early days, very few women ran companies, I would never think of becoming a businesswoman, it wouldn’t enter my mind. If no one was an entrepreneur, everyone would just assume you get a job. That’s just what you do. When you step out and do something different, new, creative, you are giving other people that inspiration. The third element of this mindset and opportunity is what’s outside, beyond the bubble.

Robert Maldonado 23:14

Once you start to get become successful, or step into that success mindset, entrepreneurial mindset, what starts to happen is that you’re drawing inspiration in a very literal way from what Jung called the collective unconscious. We can think of it as the source of creativity, the source of important ideas that come and become what we call culture, it becomes what we call human society. They are derived from the unconscious mind, from this deeper well of inspiration that is the collective unconscious.

Debra Maldonado 24:02

How do people tap into that?

Robert Maldonado 24:07

Very carefully. We need guides, we need teachers, we need coaches to help us do that. What it is, it’s finding your own source of creativity, of inspiration. That has to come from within. In the beginning, when you’re in that stage where you’re finding mentors and emulating people, that’s fine. But what is happening is that you’re learning to observe that they are original thinkers, they are finding their own inspiration from within themselves. Now you have to do that, you have to find the source within you. That requires introspection, self-reflection, the ability to dive deep within you. That’s the process of getting in touch with collective unconscious. We do it through dreams, through visualization, through vision, through writing, through journaling, through yoga, many ways that we see individuals tap into the source. But it’s something that’s very human. It’s something that has existed since the beginning of time, any culture you study, any period of time you study, there were always individuals who were able to do this, to bring forth the important ideas that transform their cultures, their societies for the better.

Debra Maldonado 25:51

The biggest takeaway for today is to think that we live in an infinite universe. The reason why we don’t experience that in our life and have a lot of setbacks or perceived limitations, is because we have this bubble of our conditioning that’s clouding our perception based on our assumptions of what is there. In the last episode, we talked about cognitive bias, we can’t even see it. There’s actually a psychological study where they had a guy in a bear suit or something ran across and no one noticed it until someone pointed it out. These things are right there but we can’t see them. This is based on scientific research. They know we’re not perceiving the world as detailed and fully as we think we are. We’re seeing bits and pieces. The more we individuate, the more we step out of our old conditioned patterns where we stop identifying with our ego and start really waking up to who we really are, that’s when we’re going to start to enable access to the collective unconscious and work through it. We have the tools of universal forces to help us create in ways that we can’t even imagine. This isn’t about becoming a millionaire or achieving some big goals, getting an award. This is about you getting in touch with your own creative nature, the whole idea of the joy of creating and not feeling confined anymore. Like an artist being able to draw what they want or see what they want. It’s you want to create the life that fills you with joy, it’s not about manifesting money or manifesting things. It’s about the joy of creating as you really are.

Robert Maldonado 27:54

Join us next time because we’re going to be talking more about the personality traits that make up a successful creative entrepreneur.

Debra Maldonado 28:05

We’ll see you next time. Don’t forget to subscribe and talk to you soon.