In this episode, Nick speaks with Dr. Esther Zeledon to discuss the importance of purpose, mission, and vision in creating meaningful change in the world. There’s a major emphasis on listening to oneself and breaking free from societal expectations and limiting beliefs. Dr. Zeledon shares her own journey of discovering her purpose and disrupting systems that don’t align with her values and provides advice for those who want to break free from the system and live a more purposeful life.

What to listen for:

“The matrix has told us we can only choose one. But that’s not true. That’s a limiting belief.”

“I found, I interpreted my purpose to work within the system and learn the systems and advance in the American dream checklist matrix.”

“We need to teach people how to listen to themselves.”

About Dr. Esther Zeledón

Dr. Esther Zeledón is a master of making dreams work and embodies the resilient spirit of a Latina immigrant. Her rich and diverse background has been the cornerstone of her trailblazing work as a life coach, speaker, workshop facilitator, former international diplomat, and scientist. With a commitment to inclusivity, Dr. Zeledón has transformed the lives of thousands worldwide, bridging gaps across communities, corporations, and countries. Drawing from her unique experiences and insights, she has crafted a powerful formula for balanced success and brilliant productivity, empowering everyone to envision and manifest their limitless life.

Resources:

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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:02.339)
Hello, and welcome to the Mindset and Self-Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, I have Dr. Esther Zeledon. How are you doing today?

Esther Zeledon (00:14.698)
I’m doing good. I’m excited to be here.

Nick McGowan (00:17.343)
Yeah, I’m excited for you to be here. We’re shooting the breeze a little bit before we record. And you have sort of six degrees tied to this podcast already because of your partner and your husband. So I’m excited to have you on. And for us to be able to get into what we’re going to talk about, as I said to you and as everybody who listens to this show, some of these episodes will go several different ways. Sometimes they’ll be very topic driven because of how things come up organically.

But with you and I talking, this episode’s gonna mostly be about the systems, systemic thinking and disruption. And I love that you pointed out that you’re a disruptor. Hell, my title at Choose Your Calling is head of disruption. So, uh, you’re in, you’re in good company here. Uh, so before we get into the systems and all the craziness we’re going to get into with all that, why don’t you tell us, what do you do for a living? And what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre?

Esther Zeledon (01:13.05)
Yeah, so I’m in the, I like to say that I’m in the business of impacting lives. So I see it way more than a business and it’s more like a global movement. I’m trying to shift us to really listen to folks. So I have a superpower. I like to say that I know how to identify purpose, like people’s purpose. Um, what is their alignment? What is it they want to do? I can, I can help people unpack that. And then.

Nick McGowan (01:23.363)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (01:39.91)
not only unpack it that you just have it, but really like make it happen and keep it going. Right. Cause there’s a lot of that then like, okay, so what do I do with this now? And then I want to give up because the system pulls you down and we’re going to get into that. And so how do I keep it going? And so I know that’s my superpower. And then that it goes like individually that’s purpose, but with teams it’s mission and vision and team can be your family. It can be couple, it can be in the work.

Nick McGowan (01:51.411)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (02:07.15)
It could be your community, it could be a country, whatever the team is defined, where you got to come together with a mission vision for it to be sustainable, for it to work, whatever that is. And so that’s what I do. I help people unpack that purpose, mission and vision, but really to change the world. Like I’m not in the business of helping people do that just for their own, for metrics. You know, that’s why for me, like the…

Nick McGowan (02:31.309)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (02:33.438)
I don’t want it to be just so I can get a promotion so that I can make X figures now. Like it has to be like in the business and my alignment is that it’s that you are trailblazing, you wanna change the world, you wanna be part of a collective power. And those are the type of people that I help and serve.

Nick McGowan (02:47.287)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (02:51.659)
Hmm. That’s awesome. And I think as you get deeper into purpose, and you understand purpose, we as people as we understand it, it’s not just a selfish thing, it may seem selfish, like this is the thing that gets me so excited. And there’s a bit of passion to it. But purpose is really about the community. Even if you’re not in a specific community, it’s about being able to give back and add into the world. Even if you’re doing something selfishly, that’s for you and feels great.

there’s still contribution that’s into that. So I’m glad that you touched on that. And we’ll of course get into that and how that entails and how it works with systems or how fucking systems mess that up. But what’s that one thing that people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd, bizarre, let’s say a little quirky.

Esther Zeledon (03:37.118)
Yeah, I think what’s a little quirky is that when I was 13, I grew up in a paycheck to paycheck family, right? But I saved up all my money to buy this birthday book. So I’m really into spirituality. And it’s interesting because for a long time, I rejected it.

So at 13, when I was a kid, I was super into it, super into personalities. And I think it’s tied to the purpose thing, right? That we have these how-to, and so I was obsessed with this birthday book that had studied, because it was spirituality, but also backward data. And so they had studied thousands of people from different birthdays, and had brought together their themes and things that made them alike. And then I read mine, I was like, oh my God, it’s me. And then I started doing it with my friends, and I started photocopying them, and like,

Nick McGowan (03:55.223)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (04:25.034)
crossing out the date and being like, can you find yours? And everyone would find theirs. So I started bringing that always throughout my life with teams and everything. And like seeing that there are like little things that have similarities from the day you’re born. So anyways, it’s really quirky, but I love it. And for many years, I had actually like repressed that side of me. And then I’ve come back full circle, like full embrace. Yeah.

And now I love it. Now I’m like, yes, I’m the girl that has the tarot cards, that has the crystals and the birthday book. And I love all that. And I tap into my intuition and do breath work and now, but for a long time, there was a time of that. I almost silenced it. I would say. There’s a lot there.

Nick McGowan (05:06.519)
Yeah. There’s a, there’s a lot. Yeah. There’s a whole lot because I think everybody, maybe not every single person, but most everybody has something that feels like I want to do this. I’m called to do this thing. And especially when you’re in middle school, early high school, and you’re trying to figure out what do you like? What do you don’t like?

How should you be? What shouldn’t you be? And I think there are times where like your parents can get mixed in with that or the community you’re mixed in with. Like there are certain kids I went to school with that were like, I have to go to college and I have to do this and I have to do that. And then there are others that they were like, just fucking graduate. Like, I don’t care what you do, just whatever. Uh, but being able to actually not have the responsibilities like you do as an adult and being able to go, well, what am I feeling drawn to? What are my ribs just being pulled toward? But then we have to adult.

And we have to be part of this fucking system. We have to be part of whatever system we’re involved in. Either the corporate system, the education system that we were currently in, the relationship system, so many different pieces of it that then tell us what we should or should not do and start to mold us in certain ways. So it makes sense why you would kind of put that thing to the side. I love that you are not only in it, but you’re deep in it and you’re doing the things that make sense for you to do.

I also like to be able to call out the things that some people could call bullshit or like, ah, this sounds like buzzword salad. Like even with some of the stuff you’re talking about, intuition crystals and breath work, there are people that will hear that and just be like, oh my God, one of them. And no, that’s not the case. There are many of them that just kind of try those things out, but to actually put data behind things, like specifically with crystals even.

I remember people talking about crystals years ago. And if you really look at the data behind it, there are frequencies within every single thing that we do. And people like, I don’t think that works. It’s like, do you believe in radio signals? Do you believe in microwaves? Do you believe in the things that you can’t see? Then how does that not make sense? And I think that’s where I’d like us to go when we talk about the systems. Looking at the core systems that we’re a part of, but then also looking at how does it actually relate? And what are the things that

Nick McGowan (07:23.031)
have become systemic for us, that have become maybe tradition, but are really just based on trauma, or based on things that had happened way in the past. So where would you like to start with systems?

Esther Zeledon (07:38.378)
Well, that’s a good question, because I think I could start with my life. I was a system follower. So like, you know, I grew up, I immigrated to United States when I was a child. And then, I mean, this is like a interesting thing that happened to me was when I was a toddler, I almost died and was given three weeks to live. And this was in Nicaragua. And my dad, he’s not religious, but he’s spiritual.

Nick McGowan (07:43.22)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (08:06.558)
He was like, I want to play the lottery. My mom’s a lot more practical. And she was like, no, that’s crazy. She’s going to die. But he played the lotto and they win. And my life is saved. But then we immigrated to the United States because then the Civil War came. And then so they spent all the money on me. And so the United States, I grew up paycheck to paycheck. So I interpreted that because you were talking about.

Nick McGowan (08:21.635)
Mmm.

Esther Zeledon (08:31.186)
intergenerational and like, and children and trauma, right? So I interpret that second chance to mean that I didn’t deserve to discover my purpose. I took it as I got a second chance and I have to help my parents and my family become financially stable. So I found, I interpreted my purpose to work within the system and learn the systems.

Nick McGowan (08:46.083)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (08:55.958)
and advance in the American dream checklist matrix. Because I think that’s like its own system, right? It’s like, you have to get married by a certain age, you have to have a car, you have to have a house, you have to have a certain income, everything by a certain time and a certain formula and a certain position. And so I interpret it that way. So even though I had this gift of unpacking and telling everyone else, like, let me help you, let me listen to you and kind of repeat what your own intuition’s already telling you, right? I was coaching since a young age.

Nick McGowan (08:58.691)
I’m going to go ahead and turn it off.

Esther Zeledon (09:25.578)
But for myself, I felt I had to work in the system. So I was the person that you mentioned, got the straight A’s, top of my class, only studied, you know? And as much as I would read and I was drawn to these other things on intuition and callings, I saw it as, well, I have to follow the American dream template.

And then pro bono Lee, I will help everyone else follow the path they need to path. Right. But it was a duality I lived in. Right. And so I did all those things. And then I found that none of them gave me happiness. Like I remember that I, you know, I went to the college, but I still found. Like you can’t silence yourself completely. Right. And so this was talking about the systems. Right. I remember, I remember in college being like, how is it that I read this book, that climate change, environmental issues. And I’m like,

Nick McGowan (09:54.337)
Yeah.

Esther Zeledon (10:17.558)
How is it that we don’t have at that time? Now we do. Back then I’m like, how do we not have a major in environmental studies or science? And they’re like, well, no, that’s not a career, that’s not a science. And this is how it was 20 years ago. And I was like, no, it is. And I’m gonna be the first one. And I’m gonna show you guys how we can do this. But again, it was me fighting that system of going, I am going to prove that this is actually a solid science, it’s a study, it’s something that…

Nick McGowan (10:40.129)
Mm.

Esther Zeledon (10:47.038)
is going to concern us, but I was getting resistance from all sides, from the institution, from people who only studied one discipline. And then I was getting even from my own culture, right? Because they were like, that is a white field. You’re already going to do, you’re going to go look at birds, you’re going to go save trees. Like we have big problems in our communities, like unemployment, this and that. And they felt like I was wasting my education. And I said, wait, these issues are going to affect black and brown populations the most. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. This is not a…

It’s not a race ethnicity thing, this is a world problem. But I’m here fighting all these narratives that we’ve been told, and not only that, but have been washed out by generations because actually earth practices, spiritual practices are actually very indigenous. But I think we were taught with colonialism with all these things that no, they’re not. Now they belong to this social class, the rich, white, this. And I’m like, that’s a manmade narrative.

Nick McGowan (11:32.285)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (11:46.934)
that’s not that you need to study the origins, right? So I came, I went on that quest and that’s where I did find some joy, right? But it wasn’t in the pursuit of an education. It was in the system disruptor, trailblazing and changing mindsets and openness. And like you said, breaking these barriers and these narratives that we have. And then when I was in grad school, same thing. Like when I actually got my PhD.

I was kind of like, uh, kind of empty. Like I was like this certificate. Like I thought I was supposed to feel this lightning on striking on me and I didn’t, but I was very happy that I, cause I helped my dad finish his education. And I was very happy for him because that was his purpose. And I realized that during that whole time of education, what I loved was organizing groups, starting movements, bringing people together for common mission vision, for bringing in resources to underrepresented groups, right? Changing even then.

Nick McGowan (12:32.147)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (12:42.59)
my research was seen as, no, you have to just do science. And I’m like, wait, we need to go talk to people. I need to go talk to them and see if they even want this, if it’s aligned with them. Let’s go listen to those populations. Like data alone isn’t enough. We gotta like hear people’s stories and hear them out. But then I was, that was seen as radical, listening, radical. But I was like, I am going to fight and show it. So I got my own funding and did this, right? But that was what brought me.

joy, not the metric, you know? And then I, but it’s still, even then, I hadn’t recognized it. So I went on and continued this whole American dream checklist, even got married, not to my current spells before. Of course, that didn’t end well because it was just a check mark exercise rather than an alignment exercise. And when I got into the workforce as well, I couldn’t just stand back. You know, like my dad, the narratives I was taught was, you got this job, you better be grateful, put your head down and don’t make waves.

Nick McGowan (13:22.508)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (13:38.258)
And I was like, well, because, and especially they’re like, there’s very few Latinas and women. You gotta just like, just do your work and don’t get yourself in trouble. And I remember even calling him about certain issues and he was like, what did you do? I’m like, I didn’t do anything. I’m really frustrated. Cause I’m like, I’m here in this, we’re in this humanitarian, I was working at humanitarian aid, international development, but I was like, wait, when are we gonna go talk to the people? Why are the five of us sitting down and telling communities what they, designing what communities need?

Nick McGowan (13:51.473)
Mm.

Esther Zeledon (14:06.954)
We need to go listen to them. We need to go sit with them. We need to bring, like you were saying, system thinking. I’m like, we need to bring the system together, everyone that’s a part of it, and jointly decide. Is this something that everyone agrees that we want to be involved in? They’re like, oh, that takes too much time. We need to procure the money. We need to do this. And then I found myself that I couldn’t stay silent. And so there was a lot of resistance.

pushing that I was like, we need to listen and I’m going to prove it. So as I climbed the ladder, once I climbed it, I was like, okay, I’m going to go listen to communities and show you guys that it can have more impact. And I led this movement based on listening, you know, and then I was able to raise like a hundred million dollars based on this for the organization and for the community and showed it, but it was exhausting. And I think that’s what people don’t talk about. You know, everyone saw that like saw my accolades, the team growing and all these things, but I was beaten.

Nick McGowan (14:51.659)
Hm.

Esther Zeledon (15:01.298)
Like it was every time that I was like, Hey, we should go listen. Somebody would bring some reg, some things, some something why I couldn’t do it or why it didn’t make sense, even though it was the best practice for the best impact we needed to have, right? Something so simple just to go listen and spend time with these people and understand what their purpose mission vision was. So at that time though.

It’s something we don’t talk about, but like, you know, as someone who like, you know, I felt the burden of one, you know, it’s a very underrepresented, like I was in this organization where at the end it was like 2% Latino and like women, you know, very low and I’m in this leadership positions, right? So I got a lot of pressure being like, you know, I had to protect the team. I am representing whatever. And so I didn’t share everything that I was going through and all the stuff I was shielding everyone with. Right. So you suffer in silence.

Nick McGowan (15:37.513)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (15:54.775)
Mm.

Esther Zeledon (15:57.242)
And when you’re like a system disruptor, like there’s so much bullying that happens, so much people trying to bring you down, resist you, but we don’t share that enough. And it’s because we want to protect people around us, but it’s lonely. And I felt then when I decided to leave, it’s because I realized that this was a global problem, not just in this organization. Because when I would ask you, why do you resist it so much, even though you know it’s making more impact? And they’re like, well, you’re asking me.

Nick McGowan (16:08.16)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (16:27.698)
to put aside my title, everything I’ve been valued for, whether you’re an engineer, whether you’re an architect, lawyer, whatever, you’re asking me to put that aside and just go listen to them. And then only if they need my technical thing, do I bring that in? I’m like, yes. And they’re like, I can’t live with that because I don’t know who I am outside of that. And then I realized, have you ever been listened to? Has anybody ever asked you what your highest

Nick McGowan (16:42.155)
Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Esther Zeledon (16:56.254)
And that mostly answers like, no. So then I started doing research and then I’m like, wait, only 20% of people actually know their purpose. And then when I started researching some more, I realized that when we’re like at table discussions and dinner and all these things, think about what happens in our family tables. Isn’t it’s not, it’s across all cultures. What are they asking you? Did you put on weight? How’s your, how much money is your business making? Did you get a promotion? Tell me about your boyfriend, girlfriend. We’re just asking people about metrics. So when we do that, we’re making people like, we’re, we’re kind of like

Nick McGowan (17:19.847)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (17:26.018)
bringing that cycle constantly. Like you were saying, like, what are the things we need to break? We’re like propelling that we’re telling people you are just worth your metric. So it’s no surprise then when they’re, when I’m here pushing people to listen, they can’t, they can’t. It’s like, it’s like deconstructing their whole lives and then all of everybody else is reinforcing it. So I realized then that’s why I left and I started what I’m doing now with my husband, you know, we started this together because we were like, we need to teach people how to listen to themselves.

And because that way they’re going to actually be better at helping others because now they know how to listen to themselves. They can listen to others. And I really feel like that is how we’re going to solve global problems. Because if you don’t know your worth and your how to outside of your title and manmade structures, then if you don’t have that confidence that you’re more than that, you’re not going to be open to listening to someone else’s dreams and aspirations because you haven’t done that work yourself.

And so that’s when I was like, okay, this is a bigger movement and I need to lead that because I can help people with that. And, and you can also be, it ends also toxic workplaces, competition, all those things, because when you start to see everyone around you has value, you have value, everyone around you has a different value, even if you all have different titles or different things, it doesn’t matter, you’re more willing to listen to everybody in the hierarchy.

You’re willing to listen and bring in everyone together because those hierarchy structures in these systems, all it leads is the toxic competition and toxic workplaces. And we need to change that. How many people are miserable at work? It shouldn’t be like that, right? We can create positive workplaces. We can create positive communities. But it starts with all of us be willing to do that work and change these narratives that we have, like with even starting with our own families.

Nick McGowan (18:55.715)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (19:18.251)
Oh, I think even starting with ourselves, you know, it can be really difficult to really, to ask yourself those questions and not fall into the habit with that. I think it’s cool. Like our family does family dinners and we have them once a month and everybody gets together and I’m privy to that too, where someone’s like, oh, well so-and-so got a promotion or our nephew had this thing happen and they achieved this and blah, blah. And.

Esther Zeledon (19:22.639)
or ourselves. Oh, yeah.

Nick McGowan (19:46.271)
It’s interesting to think a lot of it is surface, but it is really difficult to break out of the habit of thinking like that when everything is happening around you that just keeps fueling that. It’s that system. If there’s just a system within it. So getting outside of that, even outside of ourselves to say, well, how do I feel about this? And I’m glad that you brought up how people say, well, that would go against my title and go against where I’m at. You being in a…

niche spot, working in a very small margin that you were in, and not having much wiggle room unless you like broke out of that, could really cripple people because then they’re stuck in that system. And they have to just play that game. I actually had a boss maybe 15 years ago who told me, you just got to play the game, you got to play the game. And I remember saying to him like, fuck you and fuck your game. They let me go like a month later. And that was beautiful. That had to happen.

But I think it can be really difficult for people to actually step aside of that But that awareness of being able to say alright Well, what does this actually look like and feel like for me? I have clients at different times and some people that I’ll talk to just even kind of shooting the shit with them Where when you get a little deeper and darker with them, they go. Well, what if everything has to change? Well, yeah, what if? Wouldn’t you rather know that you have to do that to be more you?

than to be stuck in kind of a matrix or an overall system. But being able to look at that, step outside of that, are two heavy, heavy steps to take. So what advice do you give somebody that they see that? Maybe they’re listening to this podcast or they just understand it and it’s been something they’ve been thinking about for a while. How do they take those two big ass heavy steps for themselves and then stepping outside of themselves and maybe…

may be breaking apart their entire lives because of the systems thinking that they’ve been a part of.

Esther Zeledon (21:53.578)
Yeah, and I think sometimes like we think it’s a lot more drastic than what it is, right? Like I get, I get clients that are like, well, uh, I don’t even want to do the exercises cause they scare me. Like when I, cause I start my first exercise I give people is like, you got to write your obituary. If you were like, Oh my God, that’s so heavy. But I give them that heavy exercise mainly because you’ll see that everything you write there has nothing to do with your title.

Nick McGowan (22:03.203)
Hehehe

Nick McGowan (22:08.486)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (22:20.99)
has nothing to do with any of the metrics that we’re taught, that that’s the only thing that you value or your whole value is placed on, right? But that’s what the purpose of that exercise is, right? It goes to your heart. Like, what is that impact you’re making, how you’re making people feel, how you’re making that? So then you, and then it’s to realize, they connect you, right? A lot of people, I like, you know, I’m a scientist, right, so I like to ground truth that, right, you’re gonna write it, you’re gonna rewrite it, we’re gonna do all that.

But then I’m going to have you text five people in your life at different stages of your life and ask them these questions that come out on the obituary. What impact have I had on you? How best memory? And you’re going to see that then you have to prove that what you wrote in that, that legacy, you would say, whatever you want to call it, legacy, obituary reflection matches. Is that a lot of times people think, Oh, well, that’s how I think of myself. Who knows if other people think, but if you choose five people throughout your whole life that don’t even know each other.

you’ve been giving value your whole life, right? So whether it’s switching to another job or a system, the thing is you’re not really switching anything really because you’re just bringing your how-to to something different. And that’s the thing, like I do a lot of that mindset work is your how-to, whatever that is. And no one answers, I have this question on like.

unlimited resources, we could even do it here. No one answers that question the same. But your how-to, when you answer that, you realize you’ve been doing that your whole life, you can apply that to a hundred different things. It’s just that the matrix has told us we can only choose one. But that’s not true. That’s a limiting belief. We could do a hundred things and apply it, even if our society started over. I find this really interesting. I have this friend of mine who’s very aligned with me. And he works for refugee camps and does the same type of purpose work. And he talks about like,

Nick McGowan (23:50.083)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (24:05.513)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (24:06.346)
You use that to then grow societies again. If our society plummeted, which it could happen, what is your how-to that you would bring to that and creating new structures, new stuff? And that’s what you realize. Then a lot of that fear goes away because then it’s like, wait, I can bring it to a lot of spaces. And then not only can I bring it to a lot of spaces, but why not find the spaces that are aligned with you, that are going to value your how-to, that are gonna be aligned with your values.

Because a lot of times we don’t do that research. We’re looking for shiny objects or we’re looking for things that look like that we think, but we don’t take that time to dig deeper. Even in my case, right, I wanted to do humanitarian work and I was like, oh, I want to do it at the largest place that I could make a difference. And I went into that, but I hadn’t taken the time to really look at the structure I was entering. I realized actually, dumb as my client works super well, but me being in the system where I’m someone who’s

Nick McGowan (25:03.681)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (25:05.282)
hyper anxious, like I like to disrupt and change things. That’s better for a consultant role than to be ingrained in the system where I’m being monitored 24 seven. That’s not in alignment with me, but I couldn’t, I didn’t take that time to analyze it, right? It could even mean just a switch within that system in a different role. And it is coming to that understanding, like where your how to and how you work and understanding yourself, what works better.

Esther Zeledon (25:34.878)
And even like sometimes my class is just that little tweak or it could be a different place, but how you market yourself is instead of using those standard, I help people think outside the box, even with resumes and CVs. Why doesn’t it have to be chronological with our jobs? Why don’t you make it about your how to, how to buckets with all your experience. It’s super clear to whoever’s hiring you or whatever business you’re starting, whatever, what’s your unique value proposition? And then you can put your whole life in that. And so that takes away that.

Nick McGowan (25:43.124)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (26:00.735)
You hear?

Esther Zeledon (26:04.546)
fear for folks that, oh, I can’t pivot. Oh, I’ve been here for 10 years. I get a lot of that. I’ve been there for 10, 20 years. I can’t pivot. I can’t take that risk. I’m gonna lose it all. I’m like, you’re not gonna lose anything because you have a lifetime of experience in this with your friends, with your family, with your job. And like, and you’ve been doing this and you already have outcomes. Remember those five people you text? I’m sure there’s actually 20. And those are all outcomes that you can put in throughout your life. But I think it’s that. It’s like,

Nick McGowan (26:10.116)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (26:33.858)
Getting like, if I had to give people advice, it’s like we need to look broader and bigger. And that’s the purpose of digging into these exercise that realize that you are more than your current job. You are more than your current title. You are a lot of amazing things. And it’s like opening our mindset to that, that you’re actually are limitless and all the limitations that exist are in our minds.

Nick McGowan (26:48.255)
Hmm. Yeah, that can sometimes be overwhelming of the amount of limitlessness of like, oh, we could do everything and anything. And there are times where I have conversations with people about purpose. And they’re like, I believe my purpose is this. And it’s really kind of a shallow level of it. And as they expand, and they start to understand their purpose starts to become this huge thing. But by huge thing, I’m not talking like the next Steve Jobs. That was his purpose. Some people’s purpose is to be a mom.

That’s their purpose. And the system they’re within is their family system. And you can still do things a bit differently. So I want us to be able to kind of expand this, but also contract it back in a sense where if your purpose is let’s just use that mom as the example in that family system, then how you do that differently from what other people have done that’s aligned with you will shape the way that your kids and everybody else around you is. So we can take that and put that into a career.

or into whatever it is. And I hear people all the time that say the same thing, like, I’ve been here for 10 years, or I’ve been in this relationship for 10 years, or I’ve been doing this thing for 10 years. I’ve been going through my own stuff, looking back at, I graduated in high school 2002, so it’s been 22 years at this point, and looking and going, wow, I was part of these systems for so long, and I played the game, and I tried to play the game, and-

You have to get to a point where you look and say, is this right for me? Is this aligned? How do I stick within this? Some people really want to be within whatever game they’re in or whatever system they’re in, like a family system. Like if you can keep the family together and it’s healthy and everybody can grow beautiful, but sometimes you just got to fucking break it apart, just like any other system you’d even mentioned about the country, the system’s got to, got to fucking break at some point. There’s no other way to put it. It just.

something has to give. But from that will come something else. And it’ll all kind of still be an ecosystem, some sort of system within that. But we get to be able to take the angle that we want to take, and not just be locked in with how we do these things. I put an episode out a while ago, it was a solo episode about shoulds and should nots, and how we’ve been taught that we need, we should do this way, life should look this sort of way.

Nick McGowan (29:11.167)
And I think that can be a thing for us where we say, I want it to look like this. I should have this sort of thing, but be open to the expanding of all of it. So when you’re working with people that are in that spot, when they’re like, oh my God, I’ve been doing this for so long. How do I break apart? How do I step outside of that? What sort of advice, with somebody that’s listening to this podcast episode that goes, you know what, I’m in that spot. How do I actually pull myself out of that, get unstuck from that so I can look at this?

without just getting instantly pulled right back into the system and going, but fuck, I’m still here. What do I do?

Esther Zeledon (29:57.642)
No, I love what you said too, right? It’s everyone’s legacies are different, right? So I think like the first thing is to understand that. Like your purpose is how you wanna show up every day, right? And then there’s questions for that, right? It’s the, that’s when you unpack your childhood dream. But the childhood dream, people think about it. I get people that are like, well, I just wanted to be a doctor. I just wanted to be a lawyer. And I’m like, okay, no, no. That’s what your brain did, like the mental models it did, right? It just attached to something. Characteristics of that dream.

Nick McGowan (30:12.372)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (30:23.937)
Yeah.

Esther Zeledon (30:26.858)
What was it? Why did you want to be a doctor? Why did you want to be a lawyer? Those were just careers that you saw, right? But what was it about it? And then when you actually unpack those characteristics, a lot of them are like, huh, those are characteristics I embodied today.

Nick McGowan (30:31.123)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (30:40.366)
And I’m like, exactly. Or if you can’t, sometimes people’s childhoods are traumatic. I mean, even Paul, who you had in your show, it took me six months to unpack his childhood dream because he was like, I don’t think I dreamed it. I was like, okay, what was your favorite TV show? And then he was like, oh, Jacques Cousteau, but it took me six months. But then he realized everything he did was to follow him. Like, he learned French, he got a red beanie, he wanted to travel the world, right? But he represented, the qualities he represented was someone who was adventurous.

Nick McGowan (30:44.844)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (30:59.991)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (31:08.738)
who is still calm under crisis, right? Like it’s really unpacking those characteristics and realizing those are things that you embody. And maybe there’s additional ones that you still have yet to embody that you want to. And that’s one part. But also like the purpose of your how-to, right? So one of the things is helping people like unpack that, right, do that legacy exercise. Do the exercise of what you wanna be sought out for because just because you’re good at something,

Nick McGowan (31:28.518)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (31:35.362)
doesn’t mean you wanna do it. And so when you mentioned those examples of feeling stuck or I wanna get out of a job, right, a lot of times it’s because they may be sought out for something that people see that they’re good at, but it drains them and they don’t wanna do anymore. So sometimes the exercise for me is make a list, let’s make three lists. What are you currently being sought out for? What, that you wanna continue? What are you things you wanna be sought out for that you want to stop?

Nick McGowan (31:42.012)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (31:59.021)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (32:03.282)
And then what are things that people don’t seek you out for that you wish they did, right? And those are, that’s a great exercise, right? Because then you go into other topics of like limits and boundaries and having communications and conversations about what you wanna be sought out for, right? And those are little tweaks, like just that question alone, right? Just start, change the conversations with your friends and be like, hey, I don’t wanna, you know, you know what I thought about? I reflected and I don’t wanna do that thing anymore.

Nick McGowan (32:28.927)
Thank you.

Esther Zeledon (32:29.918)
I want to do this new thing. So if you see opportunities in that new thing, I would love that. Did you, did you guys know that I actually can do that? You’ll be like, no way, dude, I had no idea. Like even for myself, like I, I’m really good at events and event planning, like a master, but I didn’t, I started to be sought out for all these birthday parties and events and like, you know, things, and I was like, this is not fulfilling to me, I, I like community events, bringing people together, like the breath work, like sharing and purpose.

Nick McGowan (32:43.723)
Mm.

Esther Zeledon (32:59.614)
And those I love organizing, but I don’t want to organize kids’ birthday parties. I don’t. I hate it. But at first I didn’t realize that, right? At first I was like, why am I so drained from this? And it wasn’t until I did that exercise and I’m like, wait, the thing is, is that I’m being soft for something. Yes, I’m good at, but I don’t want to do anymore. And so I needed to have that conversation with folks. Like, thank you so much for thinking of me, but I don’t, I’m, I’m now only doing events like this, but that’s like a tweet.

Nick McGowan (33:16.724)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (33:25.67)
That’s not a huge one. So when I tell people, like it’s getting people to do those little things first. Cause like you said, it can be so overwhelming when you think about huge change. But that’s because like we’re, we don’t look at five years. We look at one year and we want to pack everything in the one year. We overestimate we could do in one, but then we underestimate we can do in five. And even when I do visualization exercises with folks, which is another thing people can do, is great. After you do this legacy obituary exercise, really sit down.

Nick McGowan (33:53.248)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (33:55.078)
and visualize your life in 20, 15, and five years without metrics. What are you doing? Who are you with? What are you feeling? Where are you? And people struggle because they immediately go into metrics of like, I want to be singing on the stage or I want to be making this amount of money. I want to have 10 properties. And I’m like, without metrics. And when they, and then when they actually take that time, they’re like,

oh, I’m sitting down with this person and we’re having coffee over this conversation or I’m seeing this view. And that alone tells you where your alignment is, right? What’s that vision you wanna create that’s outside of these metrics? And what are the small changes you can make to get there? And then another thing is like, so as you like, I think there’s a lot of these questions that I have in my workbooks really need to follow. It’s like,

Nick McGowan (34:37.219)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (34:53.794)
15 minute prompts of these, and then you start to see, where is that misalignment currently in your life? What are three small steps I could take this year and next year and the year after to get me there? It doesn’t have to, there’s no race. This is your life. You don’t have to all of a sudden change your whole life one year. Everyone has different traumas. I know for my case, one of my big traumas was

Nick McGowan (35:13.923)
Okay.

Esther Zeledon (35:20.286)
a fear of losing everything I’ve built because I grew up paycheck to paycheck. So even when I exited to what I’m making now, I had to have an exit plan. I had to do it little by little, right? There’s other people who can one day to the next, right? But it’s whatever you’re comfortable with. But what matters is that the minute you start taking these actions, you already feel more in alignment because they’re more true to you. They’re more authentic to you. You’re moving towards it. You’re recruiting momentum.

Nick McGowan (35:38.529)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (35:46.112)
Mm. Yeah.

Esther Zeledon (35:47.306)
I thought it’d be cool to do one of the questions here on the how to, because that could be something folks could be like, I don’t know what my how to is. So maybe we could do it here. So if you had unlimited resources, like 20 billion, if $20 billion is enough for you, or you can say unlimited, what global problem would you solve?

Nick McGowan (35:58.195)
Is that for the audience or is that for me?

Nick McGowan (36:04.18)
So $20 billion, what problem would I solve? The instant thing that comes to my mind is stopping childhood trauma and helping actually fix that. Because here we are in this generation, I’m almost 40. So I think of people that are about my age. We’ve gone through things and I’ve joked with people, if you’re an 80s, 90s baby, you were used to having shit thrown at you and like.

Esther Zeledon (36:08.514)
For both, let’s have the audience write down and you also say it out loud too.

Nick McGowan (36:31.863)
whatever, the Jerry Seinfeld sort of situations of the world. But that we all have childhood trauma. My mom did, her mom did, her mom did, her mom did. All the way back, same with my dad, same with everybody else. It goes all the way back. So being able to actually impact in that sort of way, that’s the thing that I would love to have sort of a magic pill for everybody to be able to take and heal all of that because I think that.

That’s where pretty much all of our stuff comes from. I want to touch on what you talked about even with the system and, and getting into that, uh, but don’t want to, don’t want to get ahead of where you’re at. So why don’t you go on with it.

Esther Zeledon (37:19.371)
Yeah.

We’ll do that right after. So now let’s say the G7 is like, oh my God, I love your idea. That’s great. But now tell me how you would do that on a global scale. And it’s okay if you don’t know how, but how would you figure out the how? Give me like, give me your thought process at least in three steps.

Nick McGowan (37:27.895)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (37:31.871)
Well, the cool thing is your company and my company, we’re actively working on this and working on helping people. I think the big thing is being able to actually realize, be self-aware enough to be able to see those things. Just like if you’re in a system or whatever, you need to see what’s going on. And then actually starting to do the work and understanding what inventory it is, that work that needs to be done, but then not just doing the talk work or one piece of the work.

It’s the deep subconscious processing. And I say that because I know that’s what’s really worked for me. I’ve had so many different therapists and coaches and paid fucking thousands of dollars for all these different things. But the actual deep subconscious processing that goes in re formats, the story changes the way that you look at it and being able to sit down with seven year old Nick and sit there and go, this shit that’s happening right now is pretty fucked up.

but you’re in good company with me, I’m gonna take care of you. And then having that travel through with me from that point all the way to where I’m at now, that is some of the most impactful work that I’ve ever been a part of. And I think if we had to really nail it down to something that was specific, it would be deep subconscious processing.

Esther Zeledon (38:57.062)
Oh, I love that. And I love inner child work. So I love it. Now, but now see, this is your how to, right? You said like, I heard self-awareness, right? Helping people become self-aware or yourself. You said doing the actual work. You also mentioned a little bit about like collaborations I kind of heard a little bit too. And then the third one, the deep subconscious. So if now when you think about your answer and the audience can think about their answer, now you know this topic very well. So there could be

Nick McGowan (39:18.659)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (39:26.13)
other steps because you kind of already know it. But I think with everybody just think about their steps. If someone of a friend came to you with a problem or a work colleague or anything, would you use those same approach?

Nick McGowan (39:32.515)
Well, it’s interesting because the first thing that you pointed out early on was listening, and I think that’s the first step that I would do. That’s just what I do anyway, is be able to ask questions and listen. And for the most part, especially from a coach perspective, like it’s not our job to fix somebody or do the work for them. It’s our job to pose the questions and make deposits of things and kind of help them figure out where they’re at and through that become self-aware.

So that’s kind of the answer.

Esther Zeledon (40:11.34)
Yeah.

No, no, I love it, right? So you do use the same approach. That’s what I was saying, like you probably knew that topic really well, right? But I think the first step to becoming self-aware is listening to yourself and others, right? So the answer, that answer, if you start, it’d be great for you to, you know, you could probably now look at every single problem you’re solving, you’re probably using those same three steps. Like you first going, first like listening, looking at it, then doing the work and then going deeper, whatever that is, right? That’s your superpower.

Nick McGowan (40:25.975)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (40:41.548)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (40:42.838)
But everyone else who’s on the audience, the three things you mentioned, or five, are unique to you, and that order is unique to you. And you’re applying that to everything. That is your how-to. So when you’re applying for a job, when your friends look at you for advice, they look at it for you because you have that way of solving problems. So that is the thing that I think…

Nick McGowan (40:55.989)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (41:04.563)
Yeah, no title.

Esther Zeledon (41:07.906)
helps people realize the most that’s like, wait, that’s outside of any technical thing I have. Even if you’re, yeah, you could use those three steps in every, any title. You could use that as a doctor, you have a therapist, a lawyer, an engineer, a construction worker, anything. Right, that’s because that’s why it’s more than that, right? That is your unique superpower, what you bring to a team, to a place, to anything.

Nick McGowan (41:11.403)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (41:31.511)
Yeah.

Esther Zeledon (41:34.954)
And so if, you know, when you were saying about people getting snuck, it’s unpack your superpower and realize that it’s so much bigger than where you are and that people have already been valuing it and seeking you out for that since you were a kid.

Nick McGowan (41:41.643)
So there’s always a ton of lessons within anything. You can take something at a surface level, like if you’re listening to this right now and you go, well, that’s cool, I can grab those things and I can just move about and there we are. You can also nerd out with us like we do and just go deeper and deeper and ask all the fucking questions. And I’m glad that you pointed out that the way that I operate is different than how somebody else would operate. And there are certain people that.

I can jive with and go, Oh my God, we operate the exact same way, but we’re still a bit different. We’re unique in our perspectives and all that. But I think there’s also within the system, you get into the system, you are doing these things. And no matter what we’re born into system. So even if you think like, fuck you, I’m not part of a system. Fuck you, you are. We’re all in this. But being able to look at what do you do? How do you operate within that? And what feels right? What feels aligned?

And I think an easy thing to think about is if somebody says, well, I was good at this thing and then I got into this job and now I do these things and that’s it. To put a little bit of meat to the bones. I remember being, um, 18 or 19 and thinking, well, I got to go to college, I guess. Um, I’m an art kid and I can talk. So I guess I’ll go to art school, but I don’t want to be a starving artist. So I guess I’ll be a salesperson. There I went.

But realizing maybe about five years ago, I was like, I don’t know if I want to do this anymore. I don’t want to sell anymore. I don’t want to sell a shit that I don’t want to sell. And I remember fighting with myself and being like, well, what do I do? And how do I do this differently? Cause I’ve gotten really good at this and I make a bunch of money and I do these things, but I just want to walk off a bridge or whatever. There are things that I think we can take from what we do that you actually deeply align with and can look slightly different.

Like I knew that I could talk, obviously. Those of you who listen to this, you know that. But that’s why this podcast became a thing, is because I could talk and I wanted to talk. And that’s part of the way I express and I work through the things. So I guess my challenge in a sense is to be able to actually think through what you’re doing, what feels right, but don’t look at it. Like you were saying, this is exactly how I need to do these things. It’s being able to look at it and go, well, what’s really here? Like my purpose is to inspire people.

Nick McGowan (44:04.287)
to be able to help them figure out what their purpose and their calling is. And I got to fucking talk and we got to ask questions and look at things from different angles and somebody might be a little different with that. And they might go, well, I’m, I’m an accountant. What do I do with this? Well, why did you get into accounting? What is it? Like you’d mentioned about the doctors and lawyers. The first thing that came to my mind was somebody wanting to be able to serve or somebody that’s really in it for justice and being able to change that.

the lawyer is just the thing that the system tells us, well, if you want to do this, this is how you do it. What do you suggest about somebody that’s in that spot that’s saying, well, I’ve been doing these things. How do I peel these apart? And how do I actually find the thing that makes me feel like I want to move with it?

Esther Zeledon (44:38.478)
Exactly.

Nick McGowan (44:54.839)
Mm.

Esther Zeledon (44:56.426)
Yeah, but it’s kind of like what you said, right? So it’s kind of cool because you pointed out the other question, because you do this too, right? It’s like, what can you teach the world is another question, right? So now you know your how to, what can you teach? Like you said, you can talk, right? But it’s still your three process, right? You’re still having these conversations to bring people awareness, and you like to go deeper in the questions, right? Because we’re like, hey, we need to go deeper, you know, as part of your process, right? So it’s a whole combination of those things, right? So it’s not…

Nick McGowan (45:02.005)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (45:08.119)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (45:23.762)
Exactly that. So I think once you do your how to, what can I teach people? What do I like? What’s an alignment? Like everything’s open to you, but it has to be aligned to you. And another exercise I do is like values. So there’s like this thing that’s free for everyone. It’s personal values, the website, and it has a dot before ES. It’s called personal values. You can go there it’s free and it gives you your top 10 values. Even gives you an AI paragraph. But what I love about it is that it tells you, okay, so even if you know, like, you know, okay, how do I want to show up every day?

Nick McGowan (45:52.734)
Mm.

Esther Zeledon (45:53.058)
Having that value lens, let’s say you can’t do it with the exercise, it’s really hard for people to unpack their values. Most of the time it’s in there, but sometimes it’s hard for people to see it. That’s why you asked me, what kind of tip could I give? If you feel stuck, go on this website, get your values, and you’re gonna see the connection between all your values. So for me, when I did that exercise, we’re bringing out stories. The first thing that came up for me was meaningful work. And then I realized right there why I hated bureaucracy.

Nick McGowan (46:11.462)
the

Esther Zeledon (46:21.258)
Because I entered the system to fight justice. Like I’m like, I was driven, like I wanna be in international development. And I thought that was the only vehicle. So I know what these people feel. Like I felt that’s the only place I could do that in, but that’s not true. Like I can do coaching, I can do workshops. Like you said, like what’s my skill? What can I teach people? I can teach people how to facilitate, how to listen, how to bring people together, right? How to build community, right? These are things that I can teach people to do.

But then, you know, my purpose is to help people unpack their purpose and actually live it. So how do those combine? And why, how was I doing that? I was doing that in international development, right? Helping people unpack and give them money to do it. I was doing that in college by helping people figure out their track and helping them get scholarships, right? It’s all related. I was always doing that in some way or another. I help NGOs get funding for the things that they have fire about, right? But I’m always tying it.

Nick McGowan (46:57.737)
Mm.

Esther Zeledon (47:14.742)
so they can make it work in the system that they live in, and build social capital along the way. That’s the thing, we don’t have to be alone. Like, you know how you mentioned that you have somebody that could do it like you, but a little bit different? These are the people you need to surround yourself with, that give you that energy, that are like, we are aligned. Let’s support each other. Let’s collaborate. And I think if like, sometimes when we feel stuck, is sometimes we feel alone, because we’re in the place where other people are not aligned.

with us or don’t share that, either that way that we wanna make a difference in the world or our values. And so I realized that in the institution, it had become not meaningful work. A lot of people were there for the paycheck and not everyone, there are a lot of exceptions and those people are still my friends. But there was a lot of the system was built with those incentives, right? Like promotion and this and longevity, but not, they were losing that. And I know they’re trying to change that.

Nick McGowan (47:52.221)
Thank you.

Esther Zeledon (48:12.598)
But I was like, do I want to spend, you have to ask the questions that are aligned with your values. Do I want to spend another years of my life where I feel like I’m not doing meaningful work or it’s not aligned with me? And the answer is no. And so when you do these values questions is, does this align with that? And values, they have all many, right? It could be growth. So if you’re in a place that you value growth, you’re not gonna be the person that stays in the same job for 20 years, so there’s nothing wrong with you. Like I have,

Nick McGowan (48:23.775)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (48:32.087)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (48:36.632)
Cool.

Nick McGowan (48:41.862)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (48:42.03)
Clients are like, but Anna, every three years I get antsy. That’s okay, let’s do your values. What do they say? Growth, I’m like, okay, that means that you’ve outgrown it. There’s nothing wrong with you that you tried and you’ve done 10, 11 different things. That’s why it’s important to do that work because there is no right or wrong. It’s not black and white. It’s according to how you show up to the world. And that’s what makes sense. While there could be other people that value stability.

So for them, like I think you were saying that, right? Like their legacy could be the family. They value stability. Those people might wanna be in a place for 20 years and it’s finding that place that values them, that’s aligned with them, that gives them that stability they need. There’s not a wrong or right. What matters is that how you’re living is aligned with you. It’s in the path that you can show up the way you wanna show up.

that is valued, that’s appreciated, and that you’re fighting the things that you want to fight for, right? And that’s not just a constant uphill battle, right? And that you can find people like you to build a community. And if you don’t have it yet, that’s okay too. I get people are like, I don’t have any champions in my life. I don’t have community. But guess what? We live in a digital world now. You can find it, right? Like you can like this podcast, see who’s on it.

Nick McGowan (49:40.621)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (50:02.686)
like connect with them. Like I remember when I left the service, I felt that limiting mindset as well, where I’m like, well, now what’s gonna happen to me? I don’t have community. But that was so limiting, so I didn’t think there was community near me, because I was only focused on like people who lived next to me. And so my first community I found was actually in Australia.

Nick McGowan (50:06.679)
Mm-hmm.

Esther Zeledon (50:24.462)
Because I went online looking for women entrepreneurs that were heart-minded, like, you know, heart-led. And I found this great community in Australia of women and their intergrowth mindset and I feel that, and it was awesome. But then because I, when I entered there, I realized the characteristics I was looking for, I then was able to create it locally, but that was a mindset shift because you know, it’s, it does exist near you, but you have to be willing to see it. And I wasn’t, I was only seeing the.

Nick McGowan (50:42.615)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (50:54.99)
the, oh, they only work here. But that’s, it took that, it took finding a community outside to then to build a community inside. And now I have both, it’s wonderful. But there’s a community for everything and everyone. So once you’ve discovered what’s aligned with you, you can find them digitally anywhere and initially just click it off. And then you realize you’re not alone. You are not alone. And all of us want community. It’s just, we just want someone to reach out to us.

Nick McGowan (51:07.843)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (51:14.007)
Yeah, it’s such a simple thing to think about how we’re not alone, but how we can often think, I’m so alone, you don’t get this, you don’t get me. But then when somebody does, you can still feel a little estranged from it. But being able to understand that, I think those principles and values are a big thing that can really help somebody understand within themselves. And that took me years to get to the point where I was okay with that. I remember people being like, you want to write your mission statement.

And you want to figure out where your principles and values are. And I was like, fuck you. I just want this all to be a lot less hard. Like I don’t give a shit about your mission statement and all this other stuff. And I fought with that for years and years. And I finally got to a point where I was like, all right, I need to actually figure out what my principles are, what my values are. And I knew them all along. I just needed to actually get them out and have them become a thing. Now I know what my mission statement is.

I know what my values are. I’ve even nerded out and made myself a 10 minute long track that walks myself through that so that I can understand, I can regurgitate that, I can also pause and kind of work through it. So that’s a big thing I think you pointed out is just understanding maybe kind of what your boundaries are in a sense, what your values are. If your value is loyalty, that’s much different than…

somebody’s who’s the complete opposite of that, but you need to know what that is so that you can work within that, because we are working within our own system. And if you try to fight within that system without knowing what the rules are, or how you operate within that and what your operation system is, that’s just maddening. And some of you are going to say, yeah, I got it. I’m going to run with that. Some of you are going to say, fuck you, Nick, I’m going to do whatever I want. And I get that because I did the exact same fucking thing.

And it was maddening. So being able to actually understand what your values and principles are, I think that’s huge. I appreciate you getting into everything you’ve gotten into and going through that activity. I hope everybody who’s listening to this, you went through that. If not, go back and just omit the things that I said, but just answer those questions for yourself and figure out what are the principles and what are the values that really stand out to you and that makes sense. And if they feel unaligned to what you’re doing,

Nick McGowan (53:32.997)
It’s probably going to be like that for a good chunk of them. But actually seeing that and working through that is really important. So along those lines, what’s that piece of advice you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self-mastery?

Esther Zeledon (53:55.486)
It’s that, right? Taking that time to really reflect and sit down with these questions and do the work. And I think so many of us just want to skip it because it’s uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable, but my advice is don’t skip it and don’t stop discovering it. Like I think, yeah, so I think your last statement about that was me with the spirituality piece. Like I was, it’s a part of me.

Nick McGowan (53:59.915)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (54:13.521)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (54:22.819)
same.

Esther Zeledon (54:25.206)
And I kind of, because it was so tied to religion and I have some trauma with religion from childhood that I was like, oh, they’re, they’re the same in my mind. I thought, so I’m not going to even touch it, but that’s not, that’s not true. Right. And so you have to kind of also question.

Nick McGowan (54:37.152)
Mm.

Esther Zeledon (54:40.914)
yourself and be true to yourself and understand like I realize actually I use spiritual allowed to touch on my intuition on the steps because what I’m doing now there is no path for it. You know there’s no check mark met like metric nothing right it’s I have to go in deep and realize why am I doing it who am I doing it for one of my next steps and that requires you so I had to go full circle so I understand exactly what you’re saying to the audience because there was times when people were like I would talk to

Nick McGowan (54:42.163)
I’m going to go to bed.

Nick McGowan (54:55.319)
Yeah.

Esther Zeledon (55:07.618)
people doing this work and they’re like, you have to tap into your intuition. And I’m like, I don’t do that. And I remember my book, even my book, like, you know, my book, at first I was ranked in personal success and spirituality. And I’m like, well, I’m telling people about their purpose. I’m like, oh no, people are gonna get turned off by it. And then, but then I had to sit down and go, no, this is a part of you and it’s not.

Nick McGowan (55:29.549)
Yeah.

Esther Zeledon (55:34.602)
Actually, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be religious. Of course, actually you can be. Actually, all it is, all spirituality is in our work. But I think I had to go full circle and debunk all those limiting beliefs around it and all those narratives that we have in society. So that’s why I’m like, a lot of us have that. That’s why this inner work is important because you’re unpacking all those narratives, all those limiting beliefs that you’ve been told your whole life.

Nick McGowan (55:36.939)
Mm-hmm

Nick McGowan (55:57.678)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (55:59.702)
But I do want to leave someone else a tip. It’s like ask someone their highest aspirations and you’ll see how much they light up. And that way you can then see how important that is to ask someone that and ask yourself that.

Nick McGowan (56:03.663)
Absolutely. God, you started to get into the religious system and the other systems and something that occurred to me was I think, and I’m not 100% sure of this, but I feel like most of us probably have to actually go through the systems to understand more about ourselves and about the system. It’s just like that old saying, if you’re going through hell, don’t stop, just keep going. And sometimes that hell looks like a religious system.

family system, an educational system, career system, any of those sort of things. But there’s a lot should we could probably have an entire episode about the systems of religion, and how it detracts from actual spirituality, and how it is just a system to kind of keep us in line. Not going to go down that path. We’re about an hour into this thing. It has been absolutely awesome to have you on.

Are there any other family members that you guys want to toss my way to be on the podcast? You both are absolutely awesome. I’ve loved having both of you on the show. And I’m excited to hit stop for you and I to have another conversation about this stuff. But I really appreciate you being on today. Before I let you go, where can people find you? Where can they connect with you and where can they get the book?

Esther Zeledon (57:29.122)
Yeah. So you guys, you can find me, like I have a more fun Instagram, be.act.change. So like be yourself, do the action and change the world. So that’s the brand. And then, um, my book is called creating your limitless life, which chasing the American dream crossed out. But, and I would encourage everyone to get the war book. So the book has its part memoir and then the other parts of the theory, like how all these questions on purpose and mission and vision.

Nick McGowan (57:38.711)
Hmm.

Esther Zeledon (57:58.07)
But the workbook actually has all the prompts. So if you have been a person that stopped, doesn’t know how to journal, like I work with a lot of adults that are like, I don’t know how to journal or I don’t know what that is, or I don’t know how to do the questions, well, the workbook is super easy. It guides you through all these prompts we talked about. You could just spend 15 minutes a day. You can do it with your partner. You could do it with your kids. You could do it by yourself. What’s nice is that you could do it with the community. It’s a great way to get to know people and listen to them. So I would definitely encourage the.

The workbook, if you don’t get the book, at least get the workbook. That’s what’s gonna change your life. And I have it available for me. Accessibility is really important. So the electronic version is only 99 cents. It’s less than a cup of coffee, right? I want people to have this information. So if anything, just download the PDF. If it’s too much, just put it away and open it again later, right? But these are the questions that are great for you to explore.

Nick McGowan (58:43.319)
That’s awesome. And I deeply appreciate the accessibility of it. I think too many times people are like, oh, you want this thing? It’s automatically $10,000. It doesn’t have to be. Accessibility is huge. So thank you for that. Thank you for being on the show. I appreciate your time.

Esther Zeledon (59:01.047)
No.

Esther Zeledon (59:06.626)
Thank you.

Just Esther

Esther Zeledon (01:13.05)
Yeah, so I’m in the, I like to say that I’m in the business of impacting lives. So I see it way more than a business and it’s more like a global movement. I’m trying to shift us to really listen to folks. So I have a superpower. I like to say that I know how to identify purpose, like people’s purpose. Um, what is their alignment? What is it they want to do? I can, I can help people unpack that. And then.

Esther Zeledon (01:39.91)
not only unpack it that you just have it, but really like make it happen and keep it going. Right. Cause there’s a lot of that then like, okay, so what do I do with this now? And then I want to give up because the system pulls you down and we’re going to get into that. And so how do I keep it going? And so I know that’s my superpower. And then that it goes like individually that’s purpose, but with teams it’s mission and vision and team can be your family. It can be couple, it can be in the work.

Esther Zeledon (02:07.15)
It could be your community, it could be a country, whatever the team is defined, where you got to come together with a mission vision for it to be sustainable, for it to work, whatever that is. And so that’s what I do. I help people unpack that purpose, mission and vision, but really to change the world. Like I’m not in the business of helping people do that just for their own, for metrics. You know, that’s why for me, like the…

Esther Zeledon (02:33.438)
I don’t want it to be just so I can get a promotion so that I can make X figures now. Like it has to be like in the business and my alignment is that it’s that you are trailblazing, you wanna change the world, you wanna be part of a collective power. And those are the type of people that I help and serve.

Esther Zeledon (03:37.118)
Yeah, I think what’s a little quirky is that when I was 13, I grew up in a paycheck to paycheck family, right? But I saved up all my money to buy this birthday book. So I’m really into spirituality. And it’s interesting because for a long time, I rejected it.

So at 13, when I was a kid, I was super into it, super into personalities. And I think it’s tied to the purpose thing, right? That we have these how-to, and so I was obsessed with this birthday book that had studied, because it was spirituality, but also backward data. And so they had studied thousands of people from different birthdays, and had brought together their themes and things that made them alike. And then I read mine, I was like, oh my God, it’s me. And then I started doing it with my friends, and I started photocopying them, and like,

Esther Zeledon (04:25.034)
crossing out the date and being like, can you find yours? And everyone would find theirs. So I started bringing that always throughout my life with teams and everything. And like seeing that there are like little things that have similarities from the day you’re born. So anyways, it’s really quirky, but I love it. And for many years, I had actually like repressed that side of me. And then I’ve come back full circle, like full embrace. Yeah.

And now I love it. Now I’m like, yes, I’m the girl that has the tarot cards, that has the crystals and the birthday book. And I love all that. And I tap into my intuition and do breath work and now, but for a long time, there was a time of that. I almost silenced it. I would say. There’s a lot there.

Esther Zeledon (07:38.378)
Well, that’s a good question, because I think I could start with my life. I was a system follower. So like, you know, I grew up, I immigrated to United States when I was a child. And then, I mean, this is like a interesting thing that happened to me was when I was a toddler, I almost died and was given three weeks to live. And this was in Nicaragua. And my dad, he’s not religious, but he’s spiritual.

Esther Zeledon (08:06.558)
He was like, I want to play the lottery. My mom’s a lot more practical. And she was like, no, that’s crazy. She’s going to die. But he played the lotto and they win. And my life is saved. But then we immigrated to the United States because then the Civil War came. And then so they spent all the money on me. And so the United States, I grew up paycheck to paycheck. So I interpreted that because you were talking about.

Esther Zeledon (08:31.186)
intergenerational and like, and children and trauma, right? So I interpret that second chance to mean that I didn’t deserve to discover my purpose. I took it as I got a second chance and I have to help my parents and my family become financially stable. So I found, I interpreted my purpose to work within the system and learn the systems.

Esther Zeledon (08:55.958)
and advance in the American dream checklist matrix. Because I think that’s like its own system, right? It’s like, you have to get married by a certain age, you have to have a car, you have to have a house, you have to have a certain income, everything by a certain time and a certain formula and a certain position. And so I interpret it that way. So even though I had this gift of unpacking and telling everyone else, like, let me help you, let me listen to you and kind of repeat what your own intuition’s already telling you, right? I was coaching since a young age.

Esther Zeledon (09:25.578)
But for myself, I felt I had to work in the system. So I was the person that you mentioned, got the straight A’s, top of my class, only studied, you know? And as much as I would read and I was drawn to these other things on intuition and callings, I saw it as, well, I have to follow the American dream template.

And then pro bono Lee, I will help everyone else follow the path they need to path. Right. But it was a duality I lived in. Right. And so I did all those things. And then I found that none of them gave me happiness. Like I remember that I, you know, I went to the college, but I still found. Like you can’t silence yourself completely. Right. And so this was talking about the systems. Right. I remember, I remember in college being like, how is it that I read this book, that climate change, environmental issues. And I’m like,

Esther Zeledon (10:17.558)
How is it that we don’t have at that time? Now we do. Back then I’m like, how do we not have a major in environmental studies or science? And they’re like, well, no, that’s not a career, that’s not a science. And this is how it was 20 years ago. And I was like, no, it is. And I’m gonna be the first one. And I’m gonna show you guys how we can do this. But again, it was me fighting that system of going, I am going to prove that this is actually a solid science, it’s a study, it’s something that…

Nick McGowan (10:40.129)
Mm.

Esther Zeledon (10:47.038)
is going to concern us, but I was getting resistance from all sides, from the institution, from people who only studied one discipline. And then I was getting even from my own culture, right? Because they were like, that is a white field. You’re already going to do, you’re going to go look at birds, you’re going to go save trees. Like we have big problems in our communities, like unemployment, this and that. And they felt like I was wasting my education. And I said, wait, these issues are going to affect black and brown populations the most. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. This is not a…

It’s not a race ethnicity thing, this is a world problem. But I’m here fighting all these narratives that we’ve been told, and not only that, but have been washed out by generations because actually earth practices, spiritual practices are actually very indigenous. But I think we were taught with colonialism with all these things that no, they’re not. Now they belong to this social class, the rich, white, this. And I’m like, that’s a manmade narrative.

Esther Zeledon (11:46.934)
that’s not that you need to study the origins, right? So I came, I went on that quest and that’s where I did find some joy, right? But it wasn’t in the pursuit of an education. It was in the system disruptor, trailblazing and changing mindsets and openness. And like you said, breaking these barriers and these narratives that we have. And then when I was in grad school, same thing. Like when I actually got my PhD.

I was kind of like, uh, kind of empty. Like I was like this certificate. Like I thought I was supposed to feel this lightning on striking on me and I didn’t, but I was very happy that I, cause I helped my dad finish his education. And I was very happy for him because that was his purpose. And I realized that during that whole time of education, what I loved was organizing groups, starting movements, bringing people together for common mission vision, for bringing in resources to underrepresented groups, right? Changing even then.

Esther Zeledon (12:42.59)
my research was seen as, no, you have to just do science. And I’m like, wait, we need to go talk to people. I need to go talk to them and see if they even want this, if it’s aligned with them. Let’s go listen to those populations. Like data alone isn’t enough. We gotta like hear people’s stories and hear them out. But then I was, that was seen as radical, listening, radical. But I was like, I am going to fight and show it. So I got my own funding and did this, right? But that was what brought me.

joy, not the metric, you know? And then I, but it’s still, even then, I hadn’t recognized it. So I went on and continued this whole American dream checklist, even got married, not to my current spells before. Of course, that didn’t end well because it was just a check mark exercise rather than an alignment exercise. And when I got into the workforce as well, I couldn’t just stand back. You know, like my dad, the narratives I was taught was, you got this job, you better be grateful, put your head down and don’t make waves.

Esther Zeledon (13:38.258)
And I was like, well, because, and especially they’re like, there’s very few Latinas and women. You gotta just like, just do your work and don’t get yourself in trouble. And I remember even calling him about certain issues and he was like, what did you do? I’m like, I didn’t do anything. I’m really frustrated. Cause I’m like, I’m here in this, we’re in this humanitarian, I was working at humanitarian aid, international development, but I was like, wait, when are we gonna go talk to the people? Why are the five of us sitting down and telling communities what they, designing what communities need?

Esther Zeledon (14:06.954)
We need to go listen to them. We need to go sit with them. We need to bring, like you were saying, system thinking. I’m like, we need to bring the system together, everyone that’s a part of it, and jointly decide. Is this something that everyone agrees that we want to be involved in? They’re like, oh, that takes too much time. We need to procure the money. We need to do this. And then I found myself that I couldn’t stay silent. And so there was a lot of resistance.

pushing that I was like, we need to listen and I’m going to prove it. So as I climbed the ladder, once I climbed it, I was like, okay, I’m going to go listen to communities and show you guys that it can have more impact. And I led this movement based on listening, you know, and then I was able to raise like a hundred million dollars based on this for the organization and for the community and showed it, but it was exhausting. And I think that’s what people don’t talk about. You know, everyone saw that like saw my accolades, the team growing and all these things, but I was beaten.

Esther Zeledon (15:01.298)
Like it was every time that I was like, Hey, we should go listen. Somebody would bring some reg, some things, some something why I couldn’t do it or why it didn’t make sense, even though it was the best practice for the best impact we needed to have, right? Something so simple just to go listen and spend time with these people and understand what their purpose mission vision was. So at that time though.

It’s something we don’t talk about, but like, you know, as someone who like, you know, I felt the burden of one, you know, it’s a very underrepresented, like I was in this organization where at the end it was like 2% Latino and like women, you know, very low and I’m in this leadership positions, right? So I got a lot of pressure being like, you know, I had to protect the team. I am representing whatever. And so I didn’t share everything that I was going through and all the stuff I was shielding everyone with. Right. So you suffer in silence.

Esther Zeledon (15:57.242)
And when you’re like a system disruptor, like there’s so much bullying that happens, so much people trying to bring you down, resist you, but we don’t share that enough. And it’s because we want to protect people around us, but it’s lonely. And I felt then when I decided to leave, it’s because I realized that this was a global problem, not just in this organization. Because when I would ask you, why do you resist it so much, even though you know it’s making more impact? And they’re like, well, you’re asking me.

Esther Zeledon (16:27.698)
to put aside my title, everything I’ve been valued for, whether you’re an engineer, whether you’re an architect, lawyer, whatever, you’re asking me to put that aside and just go listen to them. And then only if they need my technical thing, do I bring that in? I’m like, yes. And they’re like, I can’t live with that because I don’t know who I am outside of that. And then I realized, have you ever been listened to? Has anybody ever asked you what your highest

Esther Zeledon (16:56.254)
And that mostly answers like, no. So then I started doing research and then I’m like, wait, only 20% of people actually know their purpose. And then when I started researching some more, I realized that when we’re like at table discussions and dinner and all these things, think about what happens in our family tables. Isn’t it’s not, it’s across all cultures. What are they asking you? Did you put on weight? How’s your, how much money is your business making? Did you get a promotion? Tell me about your boyfriend, girlfriend. We’re just asking people about metrics. So when we do that, we’re making people like, we’re, we’re kind of like
Esther Zeledon (17:26.018)
bringing that cycle constantly. Like you were saying, like, what are the things we need to break? We’re like propelling that we’re telling people you are just worth your metric. So it’s no surprise then when they’re, when I’m here pushing people to listen, they can’t, they can’t. It’s like, it’s like deconstructing their whole lives and then all of everybody else is reinforcing it. So I realized then that’s why I left and I started what I’m doing now with my husband, you know, we started this together because we were like, we need to teach people how to listen to themselves.

And because that way they’re going to actually be better at helping others because now they know how to listen to themselves. They can listen to others. And I really feel like that is how we’re going to solve global problems. Because if you don’t know your worth and your how to outside of your title and manmade structures, then if you don’t have that confidence that you’re more than that, you’re not going to be open to listening to someone else’s dreams and aspirations because you haven’t done that work yourself.

And so that’s when I was like, okay, this is a bigger movement and I need to lead that because I can help people with that. And, and you can also be, it ends also toxic workplaces, competition, all those things, because when you start to see everyone around you has value, you have value, everyone around you has a different value, even if you all have different titles or different things, it doesn’t matter, you’re more willing to listen to everybody in the hierarchy.

You’re willing to listen and bring in everyone together because those hierarchy structures in these systems, all it leads is the toxic competition and toxic workplaces. And we need to change that. How many people are miserable at work? It shouldn’t be like that, right? We can create positive workplaces. We can create positive communities. But it starts with all of us be willing to do that work and change these narratives that we have, like with even starting with our own families.

Esther Zeledon (21:53.578)
Yeah, and I think sometimes like we think it’s a lot more drastic than what it is, right? Like I get, I get clients that are like, well, uh, I don’t even want to do the exercises cause they scare me. Like when I, cause I start my first exercise I give people is like, you got to write your obituary. If you were like, Oh my God, that’s so heavy. But I give them that heavy exercise mainly because you’ll see that everything you write there has nothing to do with your title.

Esther Zeledon (22:20.99)
has nothing to do with any of the metrics that we’re taught, that that’s the only thing that you value or your whole value is placed on, right? But that’s what the purpose of that exercise is, right? It goes to your heart. Like, what is that impact you’re making, how you’re making people feel, how you’re making that? So then you, and then it’s to realize, they connect you, right? A lot of people, I like, you know, I’m a scientist, right, so I like to ground truth that, right, you’re gonna write it, you’re gonna rewrite it, we’re gonna do all that.

But then I’m going to have you text five people in your life at different stages of your life and ask them these questions that come out on the obituary. What impact have I had on you? How best memory? And you’re going to see that then you have to prove that what you wrote in that, that legacy, you would say, whatever you want to call it, legacy, obituary reflection matches. Is that a lot of times people think, Oh, well, that’s how I think of myself. Who knows if other people think, but if you choose five people throughout your whole life that don’t even know each other.

you’ve been giving value your whole life, right? So whether it’s switching to another job or a system, the thing is you’re not really switching anything really because you’re just bringing your how-to to something different. And that’s the thing, like I do a lot of that mindset work is your how-to, whatever that is. And no one answers, I have this question on like.

unlimited resources, we could even do it here. No one answers that question the same. But your how-to, when you answer that, you realize you’ve been doing that your whole life, you can apply that to a hundred different things. It’s just that the matrix has told us we can only choose one. But that’s not true. That’s a limiting belief. We could do a hundred things and apply it, even if our society started over. I find this really interesting. I have this friend of mine who’s very aligned with me. And he works for refugee camps and does the same type of purpose work. And he talks about like,

Esther Zeledon (24:06.346)
You use that to then grow societies again. If our society plummeted, which it could happen, what is your how-to that you would bring to that and creating new structures, new stuff? And that’s what you realize. Then a lot of that fear goes away because then it’s like, wait, I can bring it to a lot of spaces. And then not only can I bring it to a lot of spaces, but why not find the spaces that are aligned with you, that are going to value your how-to, that are gonna be aligned with your values.

Because a lot of times we don’t do that research. We’re looking for shiny objects or we’re looking for things that look like that we think, but we don’t take that time to dig deeper. Even in my case, right, I wanted to do humanitarian work and I was like, oh, I want to do it at the largest place that I could make a difference. And I went into that, but I hadn’t taken the time to really look at the structure I was entering. I realized actually, dumb as my client works super well, but me being in the system where I’m someone who’s

Esther Zeledon (25:05.282)
hyper anxious, like I like to disrupt and change things. That’s better for a consultant role than to be ingrained in the system where I’m being monitored 24 seven. That’s not in alignment with me, but I couldn’t, I didn’t take that time to analyze it, right? It could even mean just a switch within that system in a different role. And it is coming to that understanding, like where your how to and how you work and understanding yourself, what works better.

Esther Zeledon (25:34.878)
And even like sometimes my class is just that little tweak or it could be a different place, but how you market yourself is instead of using those standard, I help people think outside the box, even with resumes and CVs. Why doesn’t it have to be chronological with our jobs? Why don’t you make it about your how to, how to buckets with all your experience. It’s super clear to whoever’s hiring you or whatever business you’re starting, whatever, what’s your unique value proposition? And then you can put your whole life in that. And so that takes away that.

Esther Zeledon (26:04.546)
fear for folks that, oh, I can’t pivot. Oh, I’ve been here for 10 years. I get a lot of that. I’ve been there for 10, 20 years. I can’t pivot. I can’t take that risk. I’m gonna lose it all. I’m like, you’re not gonna lose anything because you have a lifetime of experience in this with your friends, with your family, with your job. And like, and you’ve been doing this and you already have outcomes. Remember those five people you text? I’m sure there’s actually 20. And those are all outcomes that you can put in throughout your life. But I think it’s that. It’s like,

Esther Zeledon (26:33.858)
Getting like, if I had to give people advice, it’s like we need to look broader and bigger. And that’s the purpose of digging into these exercise that realize that you are more than your current job. You are more than your current title. You are a lot of amazing things. And it’s like opening our mindset to that, that you’re actually are limitless and all the limitations that exist are in our minds.

Esther Zeledon (29:57.642)
No, I love what you said too, right? It’s everyone’s legacies are different, right? So I think like the first thing is to understand that. Like your purpose is how you wanna show up every day, right? And then there’s questions for that, right? It’s the, that’s when you unpack your childhood dream. But the childhood dream, people think about it. I get people that are like, well, I just wanted to be a doctor. I just wanted to be a lawyer. And I’m like, okay, no, no. That’s what your brain did, like the mental models it did, right? It just attached to something. Characteristics of that dream.

Esther Zeledon (30:26.858)
What was it? Why did you want to be a doctor? Why did you want to be a lawyer? Those were just careers that you saw, right? But what was it about it? And then when you actually unpack those characteristics, a lot of them are like, huh, those are characteristics I embodied today.

Esther Zeledon (30:40.366)
And I’m like, exactly. Or if you can’t, sometimes people’s childhoods are traumatic. I mean, even Paul, who you had in your show, it took me six months to unpack his childhood dream because he was like, I don’t think I dreamed it. I was like, okay, what was your favorite TV show? And then he was like, oh, Jacques Cousteau, but it took me six months. But then he realized everything he did was to follow him. Like, he learned French, he got a red beanie, he wanted to travel the world, right? But he represented, the qualities he represented was someone who was adventurous.

Esther Zeledon (31:08.738)
who is still calm under crisis, right? Like it’s really unpacking those characteristics and realizing those are things that you embody. And maybe there’s additional ones that you still have yet to embody that you want to. And that’s one part. But also like the purpose of your how-to, right? So one of the things is helping people like unpack that, right, do that legacy exercise. Do the exercise of what you wanna be sought out for because just because you’re good at something,

Esther Zeledon (31:35.362)
doesn’t mean you wanna do it. And so when you mentioned those examples of feeling stuck or I wanna get out of a job, right, a lot of times it’s because they may be sought out for something that people see that they’re good at, but it drains them and they don’t wanna do anymore. So sometimes the exercise for me is make a list, let’s make three lists. What are you currently being sought out for? What, that you wanna continue? What are you things you wanna be sought out for that you want to stop?

Esther Zeledon (32:03.282)
And then what are things that people don’t seek you out for that you wish they did, right? And those are, that’s a great exercise, right? Because then you go into other topics of like limits and boundaries and having communications and conversations about what you wanna be sought out for, right? And those are little tweaks, like just that question alone, right? Just start, change the conversations with your friends and be like, hey, I don’t wanna, you know, you know what I thought about? I reflected and I don’t wanna do that thing anymore.

Esther Zeledon (32:29.918)
I want to do this new thing. So if you see opportunities in that new thing, I would love that. Did you, did you guys know that I actually can do that? You’ll be like, no way, dude, I had no idea. Like even for myself, like I, I’m really good at events and event planning, like a master, but I didn’t, I started to be sought out for all these birthday parties and events and like, you know, things, and I was like, this is not fulfilling to me, I, I like community events, bringing people together, like the breath work, like sharing and purpose.

Esther Zeledon (32:59.614)
And those I love organizing, but I don’t want to organize kids’ birthday parties. I don’t. I hate it. But at first I didn’t realize that, right? At first I was like, why am I so drained from this? And it wasn’t until I did that exercise and I’m like, wait, the thing is, is that I’m being soft for something. Yes, I’m good at, but I don’t want to do anymore. And so I needed to have that conversation with folks. Like, thank you so much for thinking of me, but I don’t, I’m, I’m now only doing events like this, but that’s like a tweet.

Esther Zeledon (33:25.67)
That’s not a huge one. So when I tell people, like it’s getting people to do those little things first. Cause like you said, it can be so overwhelming when you think about huge change. But that’s because like we’re, we don’t look at five years. We look at one year and we want to pack everything in the one year. We overestimate we could do in one, but then we underestimate we can do in five. And even when I do visualization exercises with folks, which is another thing people can do, is great. After you do this legacy obituary exercise, really sit down.

Esther Zeledon (33:55.078)
and visualize your life in 20, 15, and five years without metrics. What are you doing? Who are you with? What are you feeling? Where are you? And people struggle because they immediately go into metrics of like, I want to be singing on the stage or I want to be making this amount of money. I want to have 10 properties. And I’m like, without metrics. And when they, and then when they actually take that time, they’re like,

oh, I’m sitting down with this person and we’re having coffee over this conversation or I’m seeing this view. And that alone tells you where your alignment is, right? What’s that vision you wanna create that’s outside of these metrics? And what are the small changes you can make to get there? And then another thing is like, so as you like, I think there’s a lot of these questions that I have in my workbooks really need to follow. It’s like,

Esther Zeledon (34:53.794)
15 minute prompts of these, and then you start to see, where is that misalignment currently in your life? What are three small steps I could take this year and next year and the year after to get me there? It doesn’t have to, there’s no race. This is your life. You don’t have to all of a sudden change your whole life one year. Everyone has different traumas. I know for my case, one of my big traumas was

Esther Zeledon (35:20.286)
a fear of losing everything I’ve built because I grew up paycheck to paycheck. So even when I exited to what I’m making now, I had to have an exit plan. I had to do it little by little, right? There’s other people who can one day to the next, right? But it’s whatever you’re comfortable with. But what matters is that the minute you start taking these actions, you already feel more in alignment because they’re more true to you. They’re more authentic to you. You’re moving towards it. You’re recruiting momentum.

Esther Zeledon (35:47.306)
I thought it’d be cool to do one of the questions here on the how to, because that could be something folks could be like, I don’t know what my how to is. So maybe we could do it here. So if you had unlimited resources, like 20 billion, if $20 billion is enough for you, or you can say unlimited, what global problem would you solve?

Esther Zeledon (38:57.062)
Oh, I love that. And I love inner child work. So I love it. Now, but now see, this is your how to, right? You said like, I heard self-awareness, right? Helping people become self-aware or yourself. You said doing the actual work. You also mentioned a little bit about like collaborations I kind of heard a little bit too. And then the third one, the deep subconscious. So if now when you think about your answer and the audience can think about their answer, now you know this topic very well. So there could be

Esther Zeledon (39:26.13)
other steps because you kind of already know it. But I think with everybody just think about their steps. If someone of a friend came to you with a problem or a work colleague or anything, would you use those same approach?

No, no, I love it, right? So you do use the same approach. That’s what I was saying, like you probably knew that topic really well, right? But I think the first step to becoming self-aware is listening to yourself and others, right? So the answer, that answer, if you start, it’d be great for you to, you know, you could probably now look at every single problem you’re solving, you’re probably using those same three steps. Like you first going, first like listening, looking at it, then doing the work and then going deeper, whatever that is, right? That’s your superpower.

Esther Zeledon (40:42.838)
But everyone else who’s on the audience, the three things you mentioned, or five, are unique to you, and that order is unique to you. And you’re applying that to everything. That is your how-to. So when you’re applying for a job, when your friends look at you for advice, they look at it for you because you have that way of solving problems. So that is the thing that I think…

Esther Zeledon (41:07.906)
helps people realize the most that’s like, wait, that’s outside of any technical thing I have. Even if you’re, yeah, you could use those three steps in every, any title. You could use that as a doctor, you have a therapist, a lawyer, an engineer, a construction worker, anything. Right, that’s because that’s why it’s more than that, right? That is your unique superpower, what you bring to a team, to a place, to anything.

Esther Zeledon (41:34.954)
And so if, you know, when you were saying about people getting snuck, it’s unpack your superpower and realize that it’s so much bigger than where you are and that people have already been valuing it and seeking you out for that since you were a kid.

Esther Zeledon (44:56.426)
Yeah, but it’s kind of like what you said, right? So it’s kind of cool because you pointed out the other question, because you do this too, right? It’s like, what can you teach the world is another question, right? So now you know your how to, what can you teach? Like you said, you can talk, right? But it’s still your three process, right? You’re still having these conversations to bring people awareness, and you like to go deeper in the questions, right? Because we’re like, hey, we need to go deeper, you know, as part of your process, right? So it’s a whole combination of those things, right? So it’s not…

Esther Zeledon (45:23.762)
Exactly that. So I think once you do your how to, what can I teach people? What do I like? What’s an alignment? Like everything’s open to you, but it has to be aligned to you. And another exercise I do is like values. So there’s like this thing that’s free for everyone. It’s personal values, the website, and it has a dot before ES. It’s called personal values. You can go there it’s free and it gives you your top 10 values. Even gives you an AI paragraph. But what I love about it is that it tells you, okay, so even if you know, like, you know, okay, how do I want to show up every day?

Esther Zeledon (45:53.058)
Having that value lens, let’s say you can’t do it with the exercise, it’s really hard for people to unpack their values. Most of the time it’s in there, but sometimes it’s hard for people to see it. That’s why you asked me, what kind of tip could I give? If you feel stuck, go on this website, get your values, and you’re gonna see the connection between all your values. So for me, when I did that exercise, we’re bringing out stories. The first thing that came up for me was meaningful work. And then I realized right there why I hated bureaucracy.

Esther Zeledon (46:21.258)
Because I entered the system to fight justice. Like I’m like, I was driven, like I wanna be in international development. And I thought that was the only vehicle. So I know what these people feel. Like I felt that’s the only place I could do that in, but that’s not true. Like I can do coaching, I can do workshops. Like you said, like what’s my skill? What can I teach people? I can teach people how to facilitate, how to listen, how to bring people together, right? How to build community, right? These are things that I can teach people to do.

But then, you know, my purpose is to help people unpack their purpose and actually live it. So how do those combine? And why, how was I doing that? I was doing that in international development, right? Helping people unpack and give them money to do it. I was doing that in college by helping people figure out their track and helping them get scholarships, right? It’s all related. I was always doing that in some way or another. I help NGOs get funding for the things that they have fire about, right? But I’m always tying it.

Esther Zeledon (47:14.742)
so they can make it work in the system that they live in, and build social capital along the way. That’s the thing, we don’t have to be alone. Like, you know how you mentioned that you have somebody that could do it like you, but a little bit different? These are the people you need to surround yourself with, that give you that energy, that are like, we are aligned. Let’s support each other. Let’s collaborate. And I think if like, sometimes when we feel stuck, is sometimes we feel alone, because we’re in the place where other people are not aligned.

Esther Zeledon (47:42.518)
with us or don’t share that, either that way that we wanna make a difference in the world or our values. And so I realized that in the institution, it had become not meaningful work. A lot of people were there for the paycheck and not everyone, there are a lot of exceptions and those people are still my friends. But there was a lot of the system was built with those incentives, right? Like promotion and this and longevity, but not, they were losing that. And I know they’re trying to change that.

Esther Zeledon (48:12.598)
But I was like, do I want to spend, you have to ask the questions that are aligned with your values. Do I want to spend another years of my life where I feel like I’m not doing meaningful work or it’s not aligned with me? And the answer is no. And so when you do these values questions is, does this align with that? And values, they have all many, right? It could be growth. So if you’re in a place that you value growth, you’re not gonna be the person that stays in the same job for 20 years, so there’s nothing wrong with you. Like I have,

Esther Zeledon (48:42.03)
Clients are like, but Anna, every three years I get antsy. That’s okay, let’s do your values. What do they say? Growth, I’m like, okay, that means that you’ve outgrown it. There’s nothing wrong with you that you tried and you’ve done 10, 11 different things. That’s why it’s important to do that work because there is no right or wrong. It’s not black and white. It’s according to how you show up to the world. And that’s what makes sense. While there could be other people that value stability.

So for them, like I think you were saying that, right? Like their legacy could be the family. They value stability. Those people might wanna be in a place for 20 years and it’s finding that place that values them, that’s aligned with them, that gives them that stability they need. There’s not a wrong or right. What matters is that how you’re living is aligned with you. It’s in the path that you can show up the way you wanna show up.

that is valued, that’s appreciated, and that you’re fighting the things that you want to fight for, right? And that’s not just a constant uphill battle, right? And that you can find people like you to build a community. And if you don’t have it yet, that’s okay too. I get people are like, I don’t have any champions in my life. I don’t have community. But guess what? We live in a digital world now. You can find it, right? Like you can like this podcast, see who’s on it.

Esther Zeledon (50:02.686)
like connect with them. Like I remember when I left the service, I felt that limiting mindset as well, where I’m like, well, now what’s gonna happen to me? I don’t have community. But that was so limiting, so I didn’t think there was community near me, because I was only focused on like people who lived next to me. And so my first community I found was actually in Australia.

Esther Zeledon (50:24.462)
Because I went online looking for women entrepreneurs that were heart-minded, like, you know, heart-led. And I found this great community in Australia of women and their intergrowth mindset and I feel that, and it was awesome. But then because I, when I entered there, I realized the characteristics I was looking for, I then was able to create it locally, but that was a mindset shift because you know, it’s, it does exist near you, but you have to be willing to see it. And I wasn’t, I was only seeing the.

Esther Zeledon (50:54.99)
the, oh, they only work here. But that’s, it took that, it took finding a community outside to then to build a community inside. And now I have both, it’s wonderful. But there’s a community for everything and everyone. So once you’ve discovered what’s aligned with you, you can find them digitally anywhere and initially just click it off. And then you realize you’re not alone. You are not alone. And all of us want community. It’s just, we just want someone to reach out to us.

Esther Zeledon (53:55.486)
It’s that, right? Taking that time to really reflect and sit down with these questions and do the work. And I think so many of us just want to skip it because it’s uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable, but my advice is don’t skip it and don’t stop discovering it. Like I think, yeah, so I think your last statement about that was me with the spirituality piece. Like I was, it’s a part of me.

Esther Zeledon (54:25.206)
And I kind of, because it was so tied to religion and I have some trauma with religion from childhood that I was like, oh, they’re, they’re the same in my mind. I thought, so I’m not going to even touch it, but that’s not, that’s not true. Right. And so you have to kind of also question.

Esther Zeledon (54:40.914)
yourself and be true to yourself and understand like I realize actually I use spiritual allowed to touch on my intuition on the steps because what I’m doing now there is no path for it. You know there’s no check mark met like metric nothing right it’s I have to go in deep and realize why am I doing it who am I doing it for one of my next steps and that requires you so I had to go full circle so I understand exactly what you’re saying to the audience because there was times when people were like I would talk to

Esther Zeledon (55:07.618)
people doing this work and they’re like, you have to tap into your intuition. And I’m like, I don’t do that. And I remember my book, even my book, like, you know, my book, at first I was ranked in personal success and spirituality. And I’m like, well, I’m telling people about their purpose. I’m like, oh no, people are gonna get turned off by it. And then, but then I had to sit down and go, no, this is a part of you and it’s not.

Esther Zeledon (55:34.602)
Actually, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be religious. Of course, actually you can be. Actually, all it is, all spirituality is in our work. But I think I had to go full circle and debunk all those limiting beliefs around it and all those narratives that we have in society. So that’s why I’m like, a lot of us have that. That’s why this inner work is important because you’re unpacking all those narratives, all those limiting beliefs that you’ve been told your whole life.

Esther Zeledon (55:59.702)
But I do want to leave someone else a tip. It’s like ask someone their highest aspirations and you’ll see how much they light up. And that way you can then see how important that is to ask someone that and ask yourself that.