Empowering Growth: Discovering Personal Purpose With Constantin Morun

What is your day job?

I work for Microsoft, and specifically Microsoft Canada, and I'm a technology consultant on their sales team in Eastern Canada. So I'm based in Halifax, nova Scotia, and as part of my job I cover four or five different provinces and the largest customers we have out here, so grocery stores and manufacturing and other beautiful industries. And what I specialize in is all Microsoft technology, from hosting in the cloud to artificial intelligence, to Microsoft teams and all the other modern workplace tools that we have. And in my day job I help people unlock the amazing capabilities of this technology so then they can have a better time of their work, spend more time with their kids, so they don't have to work 12 hours a day and everything that comes with that. And that's essentially my day job Lots of meetings, lots of presentations, lots of conversations with C levels, directors and project managers.

That is fascinating and I don't want to spend too long on Microsoft, but the fact that you just said all this about a week ago. now, i've been a Microsoft Office 365 user for probably five or six years, and just about a week ago I got billed again. I got my bill and I was like what else does Microsoft have now in five years? something else had to have happened besides just one drive.

Yeah, exactly.

So I went on and looked at all of the. I can't even believe it's going to take years to explore the tools that were available to me as a Microsoft 365, or an Office 365 user. I was like wow.

Exactly, that's a challenge in itself, for sure.

So that was cool and it's just interesting that you work for Microsoft and you brought that up when it happened so recently. Yeah exactly.

That's funny. It's funny how that works And the artificial intelligence stuff is what it said. That's going to revolutionize a lot of different areas of our life And people are scared of it, of course, but at the same time, people like myself they see the true power of it. It's okay, I can't wait. I'm using a lot of AI in my day-to-day podcasting life and the things I do outside of work, because it simplifies my day. It essentially gives me time back in the day that I didn't have to begin with. That's what the problem is?

That is absolutely yes. Do you know? I have this list of the. I call it my KOPD kind of person. I want to be document that I read. I read it to myself every morning And I thought, if I expound on, this could be a book. Yesterday, in four hours. Chatgpt, google Bard and Microsoft's Bing all three of those I used together, i wrote a book yesterday In one day, in four hours. Wow, in four hours I wrote a 37,000 word, 166 page book. That's impressive. Now I still gotta go through and edit it and all of that. But the power of that technology, like it knew what I was asking.

Exactly.

I would give it one of the phrases and I'd say write a blog. I just use blog posts. Write a blog post about this topic. Use my voice. I fed it my voice, yeah. And so just use my voice, and there you go.

It's impressive. It's impressive, Matt. And yeah, I've seen, I've heard the people do it for books. You're the first one, Ashley. No, that has done us. That's awesome. But I use it for any type of drafts because, like you said, you have to not only give it inputs but also take what it gives you and then modify it to fit your messaging and fit your voice a bit better and clean it up. But it gives you so much to start with that you don't have to waste hours looking at the blank screen.

Absolutely. I'm a part of a group called Write Minds with Jacob McMillan. He's a copywriter and he teaches people more about copywriting And he's really pushing artificial intelligence. But one of the things that he said that was really cool about like chat, gbt and those similar services, where that you have to treat it like a podcast interview. You treat it like you ask a question and then it gives you an answer, and then you dig deeper and it gives you another answer and you dig deeper and then you get what you want, and when I started doing that, it was absolutely incredible.

It is, and I use it for ideation a lot. I fit my ideas and then I ask you to give me more ideas in the same vein. Right, like it's so many use cases that you can come up with, and, for example, my show notes, everything I do with the show notes I'm using and a technology that uses AI, processes the audio file and then spits out a bunch of stuff, including social media content. I haven't used a social media content as much as I should have, but it's giving me timelines, it's giving me show notes, it's giving me everything I need, and then I clean them up a bit and I put them up, so it saves me hours per episode.

Okay, wow, nice, i might tap your brain about that later.

Yeah, I was happy to chat anytime.

I need to start saving some time on that. So, through all of this, through your job at Microsoft, at what point did you, was there a point where you found, like some personal development concept that just started you off on the path that you're doing right now, which is empowering people and inspiring people?

Yeah, that should start right when I joined Microsoft about six years ago now. It's important to know that I was born in Eastern Europe Romania, during the time of the communist era still, and I grew up in that environment And in Eastern Europe and many parts of the world still. It's more around of a fixed mindset. Right, some mistakes are not accepted, they're to be hidden, they're to be avoided at all costs, and I carried that with me when I moved to Canada when I was 17 and began studying here. But I was always someone curious and learning And I didn't realize that there was something called fixed mindset and something called growth mindset. And it wasn't until I joined Microsoft that the culture of Microsoft promotes growth mindset. So I started reading and learning a lot more about it And all of a sudden I'm like, wow, this is amazing And that's what propelled me on an even bigger personal and professional growth path, because all my life I've done that. I've always been curious to learn and learn. But now I had a different approach to learning. I was like, ooh, i can go back and do this, i can time and look at let's call them mistakes or whatever. I fell down and learn from them, not try to bury them deep down and ignore them.

Was it just something inside you that made you decide that you wanted to share this stuff? Was there a big life change that you had that made you decide Yeah?

so that's-.

I need, people need to know this.

Great question. There was a big life change last year but, to be honest with you, it's always been within me. So whenever I learned something and I'm passionate about something and there's many things I get passionate about and I've been over my life I love to share it with other people. And that started with me playing soccer when I was very young and then coaching people and mentoring people and putting things together to computer games and to tutoring math and engineering in university and in high school, to, of course, mentoring and coaching people in the work environment. And then last year what happened was about April I actually went on a mental health retreat to Ecuador, spent about three weeks in nature and would like my individuals, and that opened my eyes up to so much more like to how life should be. I was able to clear up a lot of things that I was unsure about, and That was really the pivotal moment in my life, because when I came back, I came back with a? I Reminding myself what life is about Right, leading from a place of love, which includes being more compassionate, empathic, considerate of people, and then also sharing and in giving away Whatever you are accumulating, beat Knowledge right, like most of us have knowledge, some resources, giving helping people out, any of the stuff. So I would say, to answer your question, the big moment was last year about April, may.

Okay, did it cause any changes in you, like recognizable changes in your mind or any, not necessarily just last year, but over time, this stuff that you are teaching people And yeah, before we get into that, like, what kind of changes has it had on you personally?

Oh my, so many changes, mad. So the changes that come to mind right away is essentially how I approach Every interaction right now, realizing that it doesn't matter if you're a customer of mine is someone I just met for the first time. Like you and I just met a few minutes ago, i Want to treat you the way I would like to be treated. I want to come from a place of love and not a place of fear, meaning again being compassionate, being kind, being empathic to the situation, and that Went into my work life as well as my personal life. So that's been a big change In on the personal side of things. It put all things in perspective how I react, how I make choices, realizing I have a choice. To begin with, those are another big a homo for me, when I realized that Everything I do in life It's actually my choice. Sometimes it doesn't appear the way because some outcomes of certain choices are tough. A good example Someone gave me a while back was you have a choice if you want to pay taxes or not. If you don't pay them, of course, outcomes are unfavorable for the most part, but you have the choice, or you have the choice to move to a country that doesn't tax you, or a state or a place in the world.

When I started on a personal development journey, it started with some books and some people, and so are there any influences, specifically that that are Attainable people, a book that somebody can read, a seminar somebody can watch besides going to the retreat that you went to, an Ecuador Which is not available to everyone?

exactly. Oh, there's so much information out there, like you said books, podcasts like this one, videos, you name it. The book that I picked up Very early in my career Microsoft's about six years ago, when I learned about the growth mindset and trying to understand myself better, i'm finding my why, or my purpose, was the book by Simon Sinek named find your why, or start with why. That actually is a really good book in in getting to understand why that's important and, secondly, how to find your why. And That was big for me. It wasn't a rapid process. It took me a few iterations, it took me a few years of working with that and, like many other resources that we consume as human beings, sometimes we get the habit and I've been there many times myself where you read a book, you like the book, but then you don't actually implement much of it, you don't put in the work, and I've done the many times in my life And then once it really clicked for me that hey, i have to really put in the work to see the results. That's when everything changed. Is your why?

something that you would like to share, absolutely on the podcast. What is the why that you came up with?

Yeah, the why equal the why with my Or what I would call my purpose in life as I know it right now, and I also realize it's very fluid in the sense that it will evolve over time as I grow as a person and as I understand myself better And get to know myself better. But my why starts with being in service of others, and that includes myself. And then the mission itself, or the purpose, is to inspire and empower people on this beautiful life journey. That's it, that's my why. And then how does that show up in my day-to-day life? Because it's a question I get a lot. There's my personal life, my professional life and anything in between. If you have a strong why, one that you believe in, then you can apply that to everything you do in life. It doesn't matter what career you have, you can apply that. So in my case, microsoft. I work with customers and co-workers and partners and people all day long. So if my goal is to inspire and empower people on this journey, that means I have to come from a place of love. That means I have to be a person that I can't be. I have to keep in mind that, hey, every interaction I have, there's no brilliant for me to Inspire through my stories through my messages. It's a brilliant to empower, provide the tools, the guidance they need to be successful in whatever they're doing.

Now you said it's fascinating to me. You said that you went through a lot of iterations before you arrived at this purpose, and the same thing happened to me. But when I was looking for what is my why and there's so many things and it's just such a broad, a broad expanse for you, i Have my own answers, but for you, how did you know that was your why, that you were like This is it, this is the one that's a great question, matt.

So How did I get to my why to this last iteration? it to me started actually when I was very young, because I'd always asked the question What's my purpose in this life? I Remember I was maybe five, six, seven, my very early memories and I would ask that question to myself And then I wouldn't have an answer and I would kind of park it and move on and I would ask the question Maybe at least once or twice a year, growing up and in my 20s and early 30s, and he wasn't here. I sat down that To really dig in. That he said to show up and the what I did is I looked back at my life. I said what is it that brings me joy and happiness beyond anything else? and he wasn't money. He wasn't the American dream or the North American dream. What it was is interacting with people, like I'm doing with you right now, and need the audience, sharing my learnings, but also decening to whatever they have to share and just having a genuine connection and giving back. And that was really what Grammy started to think okay, so that means I like to be in service again to myself and everyone else and sharing what I'm learning And through all my life there have been many iterations of when I would learn the skill, i would become good at it, be it in the professional world or personal life, and I would then want to share that with anyone that would be willing to listen or partake in that again big soccer online gaming. I was a professional poker player for a while and then I coached a lot of people, hundreds of people did a lot of stuff in my life between professional life and personal life, so that's really how it started for me. And then, once I did the work of going backwards, looking back at my life, that's when everything started to click into place And I now sit on this mission of inspiring and empowering people on this beautiful life journey.

There's a philosopher named Albert Schweitzer. He said as he got older he was in his, i think, 90s when he said this. But as he got older someone asked how goes it, how are you doing? And he said when he was that old he said my eyesight is getting worse and worse, but my vision is getting clearer and clearer every day. And to me I see, when you say you went through iterations, and then you actually indicated that you realize that it's going to go through iterations, you're going to keep refining it. So that's neat to me And it always feels good, right, because my vision is my vision for now, and it's maybe not quite as narrow, because it's not clear to me yet, but it gave me a lot of hope that there was a guy in his 90s that was like my vision is not perfect yet, but it does get clearer and clearer every day.

Exactly, And I love you. You mentioned that because I strongly believe that we don't stop learning and growing as human beings. And if we were to stop learning, then you stop growing altogether. And what happens next if you stop growing? You look at nature. You have great examples of what happens when something stops growing. Now, what I like to add as well because you touched on this and it's so beautiful is the idea that we, as human beings, like to set pre-formed expectations or boxes or frames around our visions or our dreams, and I was no different. I had this idea when I moved to Canada when I was 17,. My family, that I was studying really hard. I would chase American dream. I would want a life for me and my family that we never had, growing up in communist Romania. So then you started chasing those things, but they weren't things that were coming from my heart. It was more from the environment And because I grew up a certain way, because of my background. What I wanted to chase? this because society was saying A, b and C and this is how you should act in life, right, go to school, get married, have some kids, chase the American dream, and so on and so forth. But what I realized is that if I put expectations on things and I've done a lot of that in my life then it's almost like a horse I'm chasing my blinders on, i'm chasing my expectation and I'm going to miss all the opportunities and all the beautiful experiences and people that come along the way that are not in that path for my expectation. So what I've done recently, i say to you, it's a few years now I changed my expectation to intention. So what's my intention instead? My intention, like yours, that's my vision. My intention is to do A, b and C over the next five years, or 10 years, or 20 years, but I'm not fixing it and saying it has to be this way or I'm not accepting it. So I'll give an example. I'll say one of the things that I would love to do in the future and I know I'll be doing it is speak on a big stage. Could be a stadium, could be a corporate stage, doesn't matter to me. But not speak about technology, which I've done already. Speak about personal and professional development, self discovery, spirituality. Now let's say that dream of mine. I'm very fixed and I say I only want to speak on a stage that has at least 30,000 people surrounding it, and that's my vision. What happens if the stage that shows up in my path is actually a virtual stage that can hold 50,000 people or 100,000? Or what if it's an actual stadium that's 20,000 or 40,000? Am I going to say no to those? So that's what I'm coming from with this.

Right. So be willing to adjust your vision to meet at least part of it at the beginning And probably your vision would come about the way that you pictured it. but you have to be open to the other possibilities first.

Exactly because the reality is that if, let's say, you and I said OK, matt and Konstantin, today we're going to put on paper our vision for the next five years or 10 years, if we come back to that six months from now, one year from now likely you want to change at least a couple of variables, because you grew as a person. In the time, things changed in your life, you met new people, you changed priorities. So to me it makes sense that your vision and how you approach it should also be flexible so you can adjust. It's the idea we talked about earlier fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. Are you allowing flexibility around it or are you being too fixed in how you approach it?

How would you define since that is really important part of this How would you define the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset?

Great question, matt. So for me, a fixed mindset, which is what I grew up with and what I had in my life for a very long time, is a mindset where you are not looking to consider any mistakes you make in your life as learning opportunities And you're looking essentially at having a very close mind. Whatever you grew up with, let's say, societal norms, family norms, school norms, whatever the case might be doctrines That's what you know, when you're not necessarily open to anything that's outside of that. So it goes with, of course, mistakes and, of course, all the lessons you've learned along the way. A growth mindset, on the other side, for me, and the way I see it, is all about being open minded, being aware that my opinion may not be the correct one in every instance And, for example, you, matt, have other ideas and you and I can be friends or can at least have a conversation without judging each other, without saying I'm right and you're wrong or the other way around. And, of course, growth mindset also goes into the idea that everything that you've done in your life be it good or bad, in your eyes doesn't matter is a learning opportunity. So that means all the mistakes we've done, every time we fell down. Instead of trying to bury the deep down like I did in the past in my early years, bring them up, see them as learning opportunities, as gifts presented to you, and learn as much as you can from them.

Do you do you go through any process to do that? Do you like you'll be driving in your car and think of something that happened in your past? Do you like come home and maybe write that down somewhere and say what can I learn from that?

Yeah, that's another great question, Matt. I love this. There's two parts, right. I would say that There are really things I've done in my past That I'm not proud of, and every time that memory comes up I'm like I'm trying to bury deep down as fast as I can. And the more you do that, the more you bury deep down, the harder is gonna come up the next time and like a volcano eventually is going to erupt and it's gonna Blow all over yourself and everyone else, because now, of course, you're gonna have some issues. So there was a long time when I didn't actually allow any of those emotions to come up. Now I have practices Like meditation, like something I call check, in which I essentially talk to myself for 10, 20, 30 minutes, literally, just talk from the heart and allow those emotions to come up, and then I analyze them And I am. My goal is to see is it coming from a place of fear or love, meaning that if an emotion comes up of something in the past and I'm not happy with maybe how I talk to someone, something I did, usually comes from a place of fear and judgment, something I don't like about myself, and that allows you to break it down and I do use a journal to write things down, but not always, especially, like you said, if I'm driving. Usually I'm gonna look at okay, what am I trying to learn out of this? So I'll give you an example. There was a situation early in my career when I Wanted to switch from project management to consulting and I had an interaction with my manager at the time and he wouldn't go very favorably For me and I reacted in a way that, while he was still professional, is set me back by, let's say, six months. So I that was a memory that whenever I would look back on I'll be like That was bad and try to pull it down. But now I'm looking back and I said, okay, what can I learn from it? And there's so much you can learn, not just from, let's say, the bad reaction I had, but everything that led up to it, because Every choice I made leading up to that point Could change so that maybe the situation doesn't come up or I can approach the situation differently. So to me, it's about breaking down these memories that you have, these mistakes, this Every time you fall down, and seeing what you can learn from it. And the beauty is that let's say Matt, we break something down together now. If you go back to it, maybe in a week or two or three you may find more stuff you can learn.

I Found myself having a conversation. I was calling to cancel an online service and I The service was pretty good, but none of my team was actually using it, so I was just like I'm not gonna pay for this if nobody's using it. No, so I called to cancel and they said that I had to schedule, like this interview, to cancel. Okay, they wouldn't just cancel the service, they're like we have to do an interview, okay, so. I went into that conversation like ready for battle and It didn't go well and I got the service cancelled it. But I was. I was like probably mean a little bit Right. I was angry from the get-go because of the way they made me do this, because in my mind There's other services. It was like, okay, I'm done with this. I go online account cancel account. They say won't be charged anymore and I'm like that's beautiful. That's what I want to do, but these people wanted to talk to me and make it all happen. So I went in poorly After and I cancel the account. So my conversation was successful. Right, i can't, i cancel the account, but I Was not proud of myself About that conversation, about the way I spoke to another human being, about I wasn't like I wasn't like abusive, right, i was just rude and I was like no, i don't want to answer any of your questions anymore to find out why You want to know why I'm canceling, but I don't have time to tell you any of that, like that kind of thing. And I thought I could have just been nicer, right, i could have. I could have approached this in an entirely different way, but because I let my mindset be, i'm angry about the way they're doing this. And then, mostly, i ended up with a bad feeling for a couple evenings, yes, in my mind, about the way that conversation went. And Had I been just a nice guy like I want to be and like I see myself, and been the kind of person I want to be, i Probably wouldn't. I wouldn't have even been giving it a second thought, there wouldn't have been good feelings about it, but I wouldn't have had that burden for two nights, two or three nights.

So anyway, no, matt, i love so much as you give an example because It resonates so well with a lot of what I've done in my life too, because there are situations when you're coming from a place of love, which is the second part of your example if you had been nicer Or coming from a place of fear and fear, of course, is that all the negative aspects to it, and I've done so many of those. And what you touched on that I talk about a lot Is this idea that if you were to Replace some of these situations where we come from a place of fear with a place of love, not only are you going to make others feel good about themselves And the interaction, you're going to make yourself feel better. So in your example, you're not going to ruminate over it for Nice, it's actually going to make you feel good and every time your memory gets triggered, you'll feel good again. And I had an incident like this morning when I Maybe didn't sleep well enough or something, and I I was maybe too Quick to respond to my partner or react to something, and it's been on my mind all day. And those are, and those are What are the samples in our life that if we were to replace that with something coming from love, be more understand, more compassionate and communicate more clearly. Oh, so many things can change for us and those around us.

Yes, that that is a beautiful thing. I, yeah, there's. There are a lot of incidents like that in all of our pasts. Yes, and so To me, i do journal. I like when I think of it, i will take a note on my phone and just say I need a journal about this. That's how I get it out of my head, right. I, yeah, you think of something that happened seven years ago And I was so stupid.

Yes, that's such a human thing to do, because I know so many people were resonate with us. Such a human thing to do.

But to be able to train yourself to say, okay, i can't do anything about what happened seven years ago, but What would I do next time if this situation ever arises again? I'm gonna train my brain to say, well, how am I gonna react next time? and I really liked what you said. come from a place of love, which means if I'm ever angry and About to make a phone call, i Should probably ask myself before I dial these numbers and hit send Am I coming from a place of love?

Yeah, or can I come from a place of love? if you can, can I Stop? yeah, okay, so it's a. We're human beings after all, so it's not always gonna be possible. Right, there are things to happen in our life that we have little control over and they may upset us. There's a lot of learned behaviors from our early childhood. They will come up and I know I'm working with a lot of those right now and I've Overcome quite a few of them, but there's always more and more as you peel back the layers of yourself and realize But you touch on something that I want to bring it back really quick, if I may, so we can learn from all these interactions, like you mentioned, right, and something that happened seven years ago will come up And we'll make you cringe, right, will make you like, be like, why did I do that? Yes, and one mistake I made for a while was that I would try to learn from it, and That was it. But really, what I came to realize is that the learning is part of it, but the second piece is forgiving yourself and doing the self love, meaning that I Can forgive my anger self for reacting that way Because I didn't know any better. I didn't have the right tools, i didn't have the right information and, honestly, when I started to Approach the way as well, blood and forgive and practice some self love And I know you may sound weird, because to me something very weird people talk about self love. What is it That's about? being kind to yourself? We talked about coming from a place of love. It starts with you, right? if you can't be kind to yourself, you're not gonna be kind to anyone else for a very long time.

Right. So you're talking about that. Let's go back to my example, something that happened 70 years ago. You cringe, you write down what you could have learned for it and then you say, look, that was seven years ago. I personally was 43 years old seven years ago. I didn't have the tools, i wasn't equipped with the mindset to deal with it the way I would have today. So I'm gonna forgive myself. Yes, how does it happen then? Let's say it comes up again in a couple years and you cringe. Do you just say I already forgave myself for that? Yeah, i can forget about it because I already forgave myself for that incident.

I love the question and let's come up quite a few times. For me as well, it all comes down to what we're saying earlier Free will and the power of choice. You have choices. Now, if I'm saying I forgive myself and I don't actually mean it, i'm not actually doing any of the work for self-love and being compassionate towards whatever I did and not breaking it down. It's not gonna work. And I've been there myself. I thought I forgave myself and I thought I got over it, but, like the example you gave, it came back after a few months or a few years and I'm like, wait a second, i haven't actually done the work for it. So to me, the way I see it is, that truly is It's reminding yourself, because what happens is it's your subconscious mind that brings up a lot of this stuff and It dictates a lot of your life, because the subconscious mind, your ego, your brain, they all want your well-being, but they're leveraging outdated information again, those learned behaviors from childhood, the tools you've learned along the way. So it's up to us to make choices, to update those tools the software, if you may and and Reminding it that, hey, we are not operating at the old software level, we're doing it at the new level right now. So when the thought comes up again, i Personally do a quick check Am I have I really forgiven myself? Why is it coming up again? And then reminding my subconscious I'm like no, those thoughts, i don't accept those anymore. I forgive myself, there's no reason for them to come up. And And okay, for me it works. And which is really interesting, because the first time when it worked I was like it does. I was like surprised.

Okay. Is there any way to know, then, if you've genuinely forgiven yourself at that moment? So this thought comes up something happened seven years ago. I cringe, and then I tell myself I Forgive myself for that. That's in the past. But then it keeps popping up because I just said the words, the. Is there any Ritual, anything that you can tie to that moment To, to make it so that you're like I truly am honestly 100% forgiving myself for something I've done in the past?

That's a good question. I would like if I said I had the answer fully for that. The way I understand, the way I see working for me, is that You will start Like the first few times will be very tough and you won't know if it's working or not. But it always has to come down to you being honest with yourself and really looking as to why that's coming up to begin with and Why you may have not forgiven yourself and then go to the process of the rituals you mentioned. For me, what was really well is literally when I take my dogs for a walk at 10 30 at night, there's usually no one on the streets or the park where I take them and I would literally talk to myself. Now, when I say I talk to myself, it's literally as you and I are having a conversation right now, but without you in the picture. It's just I'm talking from my heart and I'm saying I feel this way, i feel sad. Why do I feel sad? I feel sad because I reacted poorly to my partner earlier today. Why?

did I react?

poorly. And then I kept asking questions and going down and realizing okay, so I did because of A, b and C, or maybe I'm. I did because I felt like I wasn't being seen or heard or whatever the message may be. So as I dig deeper and deeper, i get to realize what? so? the core of it. So I'm not treating the symptoms, i'm trying to treat the cause, the cause. And Then, in the process, look to forgive myself and say, okay, this happened. We cannot change the past. What can we learn from it? and can we let it go? Now the similar situation may come up again in a few months. It's a matter of saying, okay, so why is this coming up again? Do we not do enough work? Do we need to do more work? and likely you have to, and in my case I have to do a lot of work. Still, there are parts of that I thought I fixed or I got over or I forgave, but they still come up. So that means there's more digging for me to do that.

Okay, even I had to thought while you were speaking that, okay, maybe this is a cumulative thing. Maybe you need to start at one point and just say you know what, when that happens, i'm gonna forgive myself. And then it's gonna keep happening, with different incidents, different things, new mistakes that you've made, all of that as you go through your life. But the more you begin to forgive yourself, the more you adopt an attitude of love and care for yourself to say, look, i'm gonna forgive myself for that. Maybe it's cumulative, maybe it is. Oh, the game is, you Takes years before it to start working immediately, and maybe it'll never work immediately.

I would say every situation is different, so we human beings are very good at Trying to find the fix, the worst for everything across the board, and that's why there's so many Gurus and people that claim oh, i have the perfect solution for you to get in shape or lose weight or Be the best entrepreneur. Here's three steps, five, a hundred. But the reality is they may work for a small percentage, but not for everyone, and we're all different and also means that every Instance, like you mentioned, is different as well. So just because, let's say, these three tools work for me in one instance of working with myself and Working on self-love and forgiving myself, it may not mean that it's gonna work for every single scenario That we do, and that's why I truly believe in continuing to learn, to find tools. Try them in our life and see does that tool work for me? And it may not work at this point in your life, but it may work in a couple of years. But at least you have that information in So you can practice and you can see what works for you.

When I think now about your why Do you have when you set goals, do you think of, like your why as being at the top, and then you're, as you think about setting goals, do you say does this align Yes, does this make sense with my why?

I haven't always done that, but Once I figure down my why, everything that I do has to align with it, especially, for example, my podcast. The mission of the podcast is the same mission that I have on a personal level to inspire, empower, guide, support individuals on This beautiful life journey perfect, let me give you an example. Let's say Two years from now. The show is huge. I have sponsors coming my way right And, let's say, one of the sponsors is a big corporation That doesn't do a lot of good stuff for the, for mother earth, for the world, but they want to throw a lot of money at me. Now I have to look at my mission and say, does this company I'm going to fill in myself with Going to support my mission, do they inspire, empower people on this journey, or do they just look at their bottom line and essentially Affect millions or more than that in the process? And that's how I like to look at this. Everything that we do in life, we have choices. So it's your choice to say How strong do you feel about your own mission or your own purpose, and what do you have to show up in your life? and to me, that's the same In my professional career. I'm a microsoft right now. Let's say, should I change careers and move to somewhere else, i would want my mission or my why or my purpose to follow with me. So I wouldn't want to be in a place What I would have To come from, a place of fear more than of love, right, when I'm not inspiring and empowering people with what I do?

So it is like the guidepost also For making decisions.

It should be. Yes, it's not easy, trust me. There's always Things that come up and because all the decisions we make could be impulsive, right, could be done in the moment and, like in my case, if my why was just developed more recently, like Not the full why, but like the why I know right now, that means that there will be instances when I make choices without realizing Because I'm acting too quickly. So it's also a matter of working on Okay, can I take a breather, can I do a deep breath Before I respond, before I react, before I choose something? Can I sleep on choices for longer? And that's one thing I've practiced a lot in the last year is, let's say, there's a big decision I need to make. If I have a bit of time so I don't have to give you an answer right away, i would like to slip on it. So I would then take 24 to 48 hours And combine that with my gut feeling, and it's been giving me much better results. Of course, everyone is different, so you have to see okay, are you a type of person that can make react decisions right away And they mostly good Or do you need to slip on it a bit and see and again look back into your past. When you had a chance to slip on it, when you had a chance to react in the moment, how did you react? and that should give you the answers you're looking for.

So did you talk about all of this stuff on your podcast on?

my podcast. I interview guests, people that are likely farther along on their journey than me or have done something amazing in their life or helped others do Something amazing in their life. I bring some of these topics up on my podcast, but I empower people to share their experiences.

I am going to. I'm gonna put this in the show notes, but can you tell everybody about your podcast?

Absolutely. Thank you, matt, for the opportunity to share that. So my podcast is called Unleash Thyself. Mission is to inspire and empower You, the listener, on this beautiful journey, and again I bring in guests that specialize in Different parts of life. It could be someone that's specialized in the professional growth or personal growth or self-discovery So, let's say, inner child work or it could be people that are doing things that mainstream May not be accepted, like hypnotherapists or people working with plant medicine, or any other number of spiritual teachers or mentors that Personally, i find very intriguing to learn from, because it's something I'm not used to. And you can find the podcast at unleash thyselfcom. It's on all the major podcasting platforms. On youtube, at unleash thyself. We are on instagram tick tock all the major platforms.

Okay, thank you for that. I want to ask you a question that I ask all my guests, and I'm actually looking forward to your answer. If you had 43 seconds And you had the entire world on the line, what would you tell the entire world if you had the chance?

Wow, okay, okay, that's an amazing question. For those that have watched the video, they may see my background. They have a couple of signs. Top one says follow your heart. There's something I've realized that I must do and truly be happy and find joy in life. And that's what I've been doing for the last little while, and I cannot tell you how Impatial that has been and anyone around me that has seen me transform. I am now having permission as well To follow their heart, and a lot of them are doing it as well. Second part, a second sign. You'll see, there is love. We talked about this a lot. For me, that was the big a how moment last year. You have to start with love. You have to start with love. You love is the answer. And again, a, it's about coming from a place of compassion, empathy And anything that comes with love. So start with that. And then, of course, the third one would be and this is a bigger one that we can touch on next time In the idea that things let me actually rephrase that. It just is meaning that think about everything in your life. You apply labels, you apply Boxes to pretty much everything based on what you know. So something that's good for me might be bad for you, matt, and vice versa. But in reality things are just things Encounters, relationships. We label them. They're not inherently good or bad, they just are.

Thank you so much. I am glad you said next time While you were talking, because I believe that we could probably make this a few podcasts if you'd be willing to do that. Absolutely. Our work pretty closely lined up in what we're trying to do Maybe not in how we do it, but in what we're trying to do. So I see us having more conversations and doing this more often. But for now, we will end this interview and I thank you so much, constantine, for being on the show.

Thank you so much, math, for having me much appreciated.