I

in motion.

 

Manon Bolliger  02:51

So, what is it that you then currently do? What is this calling and your focus currently?

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  02:59

Yeah, so, and thank you for that. I know sometimes it’s a little it can be a little convoluted sometimes to explain to people that like “What you do vision boards?” I always tell I start with saying that I wrote down a goal that I had, and it just came to me throughout thinking about and envisioning my own life and process. And I said, I feel like my purpose, and I feel like my goal in this life is to change the world one vision board at a time. Now, what does that really mean? Well, I’ve been envisioning things vision using vision boarding as a tool and as a resource throughout my life. Since I was eight years old, I had a teacher who introduced this idea or concept of getting out a piece of paper and writing down three goals on a piece of paper. And so I did that. I transferred those goals onto a post it note. I stuck it on my mirror at home. Later that day, it stayed on my mirror for 10 years. I was 18 years old, headed off to college, and the first goal on that post it note was to graduate from college, because I was a daughter of an immigrant with an eighth grade education. My mom never had an opportunity to attend a four year university. So education was very, very much impressed upon us when we were younger. And the fact that, you know, I mean, I live in the US, and we had the opportunity to have obtain a free education like you gotta take advantage of that opportunity. So, so that was, that was the first goal that I wrote, and I was on my way to accomplishing it. And then the second goal that I wrote was that I wanted to be Miss Kentucky. I wanted to be Miss Kentucky ever since I was really, really little and I wrote that down on my post it note, because I’ve been watching the Miss America Pageant with my mom. And so I started competing my freshman year of college. So as I headed off to college to hopefully accomplish that first goal, I was also simultaneously trying to accomplish that second goal, and then the third one was a little bit more long term, but it did definitely drive my major in college. I wrote that I wanted to be a United States Senator. I have no plans of doing that anymore, but because I love what I’m doing now, but it did guide me. I was a political science major. So I graduated in 2004 with a political science degree from the University of Kentucky and and then, yeah, I interned in Washington for under Secretary Elaine Chao in the Department of Labor, and had, I mean, and worked on some political campaigns and enjoyed it, but I kind of got a feel for what that life would look like, and decided that really wasn’t for me and and so I started taking this process really into my my home at first. That’s really where it started, before I took it into corporations or even into my own company. At the time I took it into my home because I thought, You know what? If I can set the vision for my life in my home and with my family, then everything else will be will be really good. And I think when I was going through this process of re envisioning what my life looked like, I realized that I had gotten really far from what I had been envisioning all those years, which was to stay grounded and centered in my family first, and then my work second, and it had definitely flip flopped. And so I think that calling really was as much of a calling of me fulfilling my purpose, but also calling me back to myself.

 

Manon Bolliger  06:10

Well, it’s, it’s interesting what you’re how you’re describing, you know, it’s like we may have aspirations and dreams and they gave us a direction, but at any moment in time where we’re still agents of our own destiny, we can still say, wait a minute, now that I really know what it feels like, it’s not quite right for me, right and shift it. And then also realize that the maybe the values were not fully aligned, you know, so that the the dreams and the values need to be aligned if you’re really wanting to feel into the into the manifestation of it, right?

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  06:51

Yes, yes. I, my process starts with core values. Because I, I think fundamentally, that’s where we missed the mark. Is that we kind of wander through life, especially as we’re, you know, children. I have an eight year old, a 15 year old, a 17 year old, and so so many times I find myself just grabbing them and being like, but, but remember what’s really important to you? Because while grades are great and it’s great to be a straight A student and all the things like at the end of the day, what do you value about that? What is it that’s really important to you about that, because it can’t just be about getting the grade. It has to be something deeper than that. And so that’s my that’s my attempt as mom, and as you know someone who does this for their for their life as a consultant to businesses, I really want to press upon that. Because I think a lot of us, I think this whole idea of this midlife crisis was really born out of the fact that we wake up one day and realize, what have I been doing in my life? I never asked myself what I want. I never decided who I wanted to become, and I never answered the question of what it is I want to create out of my life, or what I want to create in general. And so because of that, we just allow ourselves to be aimlessly driven through life, and we wind up at this point where we’re dissatisfied and we think it takes drastic measures in order to make us NEW, when really we just have to get recentered with asking ourselves those three questions,

 

Manon Bolliger  06:52

Yeah. So the three questions, just to be clear, are, so go ahead.

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  08:19

Yes, yeah. The three questions are, what do I want? Yeah, it’s interesting, because a lot of people don’t, can’t even answer that question for sure. You ask them, What do you want? I don’t know. I don’t know. The second one is, who do you want to become? You know, I think there’s a larger emphasis, especially here in the US, put on like, what you want to become. We start asking kids that from this time they’re in kindergarten, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to become? You know, want to become? You know, instead of focusing on who, and I think especially in today’s world, where we could all be a little kinder to each other and a little lot more understanding, I think focusing on the who we want to become, it would be, would be globally beneficial. The third question is, what it what do I want to create? Because I think we all want to create something in our life. And it doesn’t have to be incredibly grand. It doesn’t have to be rocket science. It doesn’t have to be, you know, the patent for some innovative new idea or product that doesn’t exist. It can be that you want to create peace and harmony in your life, that you want to live a life that is intentional. You know, you want to create intentional and intention and purpose. You want to create a minimalistic approach to the way that you live. It can be a myriad of things. It’s all in how you interpret it. But I think in answering those three questions, we kind of get to this greater and deeper understanding of who we are and what our purpose is in the greater like meaning of life.

 

Manon Bolliger  09:44

So how do you deal with because, I mean, at Bowen College, I have students that I train in the methodology, which is a natural pain elimination technique, but that’s the easy part, the part that’s challenging to a lot of practitioners is actually having the guts, the know how, the what it takes to be an entrepreneur, actually get out there and imagine, you know. Doing the work that you know by the end of the training is easy to do, right? It’s it’s not the skill set missing. And so I realized, when I created the college, I had to create this whole other part to make sure that, you know, not just you know, 5% of the graduates, but 95% of the graduates actually practice this modality. Otherwise, what’s the point? You know? So I do quite a bit of this work, and I have a program called Create, which is about that aspect creating and envisioning how we’re moving, okay, but this is all about people who already know what they want to put out in the world, right? Well, first of all, do you have anything to add to that, to from your because this is obviously your, your field. What? What could you say to them that might be helpful? Because a lot of them are listening. I want to make sure I answer their questions as well.

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  11:24

Absolutely. Well, I would say one. I think there’s beauty in in in approaching any type of environment that is uncomfortable. There’s a wonderful like, yeah, I always say that I’m people who go forward with entrepreneurship. I think they always find, even, you know, 10 days in 10 years in if they’d known what they were getting into, maybe would have made a different decision. So I always applaud people who are in entrepreneurship and then decide to make that move, because it’s, it’s so much more than people can, ever, could ever, it’s like motherhood. Like you can never describe it fully. And you think you can, and you think you can prepare people for what entrepreneurship is going to bring. And then you never, you never can adequately describe it. So I think there’s that piece of it, and then I also think that there’s something beautiful in abandoning goals that no longer work for us. And I don’t think that we talk about that enough, because so much of our focus has always been put on, but did you accomplish the goal? But maybe the goal was never meant to be accomplished. Maybe it was meant that you were supposed to learn something through that process that led you in a different path. And that’s how I chose to view my whole 17 year career. Because I could have looked back and said like, Well, that was a waste. I don’t know what I just did. I just wasted 17 years of my life. Instead, I chose to say, You know what? That was a beautiful lesson that I learned. And I take all of the good, the bad, the ugly, the indifferent, the positive, everything and I molded it into this process that I now can follow. Because I think the last piece of it is the discipline, like we have to have discipline and consistency in order to stay with it. And I think the people that make it, the people that do practice what they preach, it’s because they’re disciplined in doing that in a consistent way.

 

Manon Bolliger  13:09

And how do you experience discipline? Like in other words, you have a goal. So let’s take one of the students, who sincerely wants to help people is super excited that now they have the skill too, and they have to set up the office, which, okay, there’s, there’s lots of things there, but how do you…where does the discipline? Can you kind of explain how, how you put art behind discipline, basically.

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  13:48

So I think there’s definitely, there’s definitely a process, like I said, you know, my process is five steps. I talk about core values. I talk about, you know, a purpose statement, having that purpose statement, especially if you’re setting up like a physical office, I would print that purpose statement out and put it right in front of you to where you to where you can see it, and where everyone who comes into your office that you’re trying to help knows exactly what your mission is and what you’re trying to accomplish by helping them. The third thing is, I always choose a word of the year, so it’s going to change throughout the year, but I always put it plastered in the middle of my board, so I have a word of the year. And then the fourth step of the process is to break down those goals and to really have those goals. And then the fifth process, this step, is building positive habits. We plan for that. We plan for what that looks like. We plan for the peaks, the valleys, the ups and the downs. And we use the smarter process, which is being very specific about a goal, being, you know, measuring it, you know, making sure it’s achievable. Is it relevant? Meaning is it worthwhile? Is this worthwhile me accomplishing? Can I do it within a time bound reference point? Am I evaluating my progress and how am I rewarding myself? So I think all of that is really my process. Now. I think implementing. That in some for someone who really wants to help others, I think what that looks like at the discipline and the consistency is but not getting discouraged when someone doesn’t listen to what you tell them. And that’s like, you know, we’ve all heard the term like the asshole, because you know that they the person who asks for advice or who shows up at your door and says, I want you to help me. But then everything you share with them, they somehow discount, or, you know, just they don’t acknowledge, or they think I know it better, I would say that there’s discipline in understanding that you’re not going to have, you’re not going to be for everyone. And so there’s a massive level of of of of consistency and discipline that has to be employed because that that’s when, like, we call it the grind, like, it’s just that grind of, like, putting one foot in front of the other. You’re not going to hit, you know, you’re not going to hit every every ball, you know, out of the park. It’s not going to be a home run every time.

 

Commercial Break  15:56

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Maria Maldonado Smith  17:06

I think that’s where a lot of discipline comes in. Is literally willing ourselves, sometimes, to get up every day and face the uncertainty of what might be.

 

Manon Bolliger  17:15

And it just made me think of one other point that I see commonly with them, with my students, is they will, they will put time aside for their business, but, and I think it’s human nature, but they’ll avoid the things that might actually help them the most. So in other words, they’ll go through emails and they’ll respond and whatever. But like, if they’re new to the area or to the community, they haven’t gone to knock on other therapists doors, introduce themselves, suggest to go for lunch, have a conversation about what they can offer and vice versa, like, actually build that, which is, it’s like, oh, gosh, then I have to meet people. I have to, I mean, some people, it’s natural, right.

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  18:10

Right, absolutely, yep.

 

Manon Bolliger  18:12

But a lot of people, it’s not, if we just want to deal with the patients and, you know, the rest, they think they can be found, you know, I mean, eventually you’ll be found if your reputation, you know, is, is great, but when you’re starting a business, you don’t necessarily have that reputation yet, right.

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  18:29

Right, right, you have to build that.

 

Manon Bolliger  18:31

Yeah, and it’s choosing the actions, not just being busy doing actions.

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  18:39

And that’s Yes, and that’s exactly where I think that process of being specific, because when you know what you’re specifically trying to accomplish, it makes it a little bit easier. I’m not saying like I’m a natural more of a natural born networker, and, you know, I’m more extroverted than I am introverted, although as I get older and the more I work kind of alone and by myself, I feel like I’m becoming way more introverted than I ever was, but, and I find a lot of comfort in being a homebody. But, but I still know that I have to for my business, I have to put myself out there. And so I think that’s where the preparedness and the discipline of creating even just a few talking points about what it is you’re trying to accomplish, that’s where, like get very specific on why am I knocking on this therapist’s door? What are the three things I would want them to help me with, or that I’d want them to take away from our interaction? And then also, maybe a way that you could support each other, because everyone likes to feel like when you’re calling on them for something, that you’re also going to be reciprocating that potentially in the future, even if you couldn’t do it right if you can’t do it right now, but that there, that the door is going to swing both ways. And so I think those are two things to be mindful of when we think about connection and support, because we all need it, and especially to grow a business, we have to have it. And I will say that that’s probably one of the things that a lot of. Of business owners, especially small business owners and entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, the mistake that they make is focusing on all the other things that are more task oriented, that they feel well, this makes me feel like I’m getting stuff done, when, in reality, we’re really just on that hamster wheel of task related issues to the business. When what would actually be driving the business, more to your point, is getting out, knocking on doors, meeting people, creating those action driven plans where they have more of a process to follow, because that process then creates that that that action for them.

 

Manon Bolliger  20:37

Yeah, and I think part of it is, is inviting what you’re uncomfortable with, and not just going, Oh yeah, no, I’m not comfortable with that. But so my vision, I really feel into my vision, and that’s not in my vision. Well, okay, maybe, maybe you have to invite, you know, all of it into it.

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  20:58

For sure. And I think some of those, you know, those responses, too, are emotional. I mean, they’re, they’re very much emotional triggers, like, we procrastinate because of emotional, you know, triggers that of things. So much of this is tied to, you know, it’s not that we’re lazy. It’s not that we, you know, we just, we have to, we have to get to the root of the of the problem. We’ve got to uncover the source. And maybe it is, maybe it is that, you know, speaking to people just absolutely terrifies you, and so that’s where you gotta Okay, well, it’s not that I don’t want to network. It’s just that it terrifies me to speak to people, or that I feel I’m going to say the wrong thing. So this is where you practice with people that you know or people that are familiar with you, because you know that that’s where you start to then that that decreases over time, and you start to become more confident and more comfortable in your capabilities. But that all takes work and it takes discipline and practice.

 

Manon Bolliger  21:50

So I want to switch gears a little bit to other listeners who are people with, you know, all kinds of conditions and labeled diseases and and pain. And you know, it could be emotional pain, could be physical pain, but this is my question to you here is, and I’ll give you a little bit of context for it so that we can talk about it more more fully. Okay, but where do you see the vision board working for people in pain. So let me give you the context first. So you know, and this is how I train my students as well. When, when people come in and they say, oh, you know, I have frozen shoulder, I have sciatica, whatever, you know, I ask them, typically, what are three things in your life that you would like to change if you had a magic wand? And what that does is it, it actually shows the most important things in their life, which allows them me to tap into the purpose and their vision, which then makes the whatever they need to do about their pain easier to contextualize within a bigger picture that they believe in, right? So that’s how most people are set up in in our treatment protocols. But I haven’t used a vision board, and I I’m wondering, you know, there are people with, you know, chronic pain that are and I’m going to call, let’s talk about physical, because I think emotional is a little more different nuanced. But how would you use a vision board? And they’re probably listening now, so feel free to share whatever you think is helpful to them. But how do you do that effectively, given that they’re probably getting some treatments here and there, and they’re trying different things. And how do you help those people with a vision board?

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  24:06

Well, I would say a couple things, and I know we touched on this briefly before we started, but you know, pain definitely does reveal what matters most to us, and so I love that they are able to write those three things that kind of the most important to them, or that would make them the happiest or the most fulfilled. And I would say that as far as it comes to physical pain, from what I know about the research and neuroscience, because I use a lot of neuroscience backed information in my work, is that the same chemicals in the brain that respond to emotional pain are the same ones that are responding to physical pain. So it’s all very much inextricably linked. And so what I would suggest is to sometimes that physical pain is very hard to push through because you’re you’re absolutely you’re feeling it. So the way I would use the vision board is, how would it feel to you to not have this pain? What does that look like visually? Because the feel of it, we can feel it every day, and we’re living with it, so we feel it every day. So then the visual becomes and even the guided meditation that would accompany that would be envisioning yourself without that physical pain. And then the pictures, and the images that I would have patients, or, you know, participants in a workshop outline would be find the images that describe that those, those positive feelings for you. Because images are very powerful, and when we, when we when we align. So when we see a vision, we’re actually activating we see a visual image, we’re activating a part of our brain, the reticular activating system, and that’s essentially creating that information funnel that is weeding out unnecessary information. And so because so many of our negative our thoughts are negative. Now we have 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day, and I think about 70% of them are negative. So think about that from a pain standpoint, probably a lot of those negative thoughts would be, would could be or coincide with that physical pain. I’m never going to be able to do this, or I’m never going to feel better. I’m not going to feel this. And that’s really what we’re trying to work against, because the vision board is actually trying to say, You know what? But there will be a time, or we can get there. The physical pain cannot be my barrier to everything. I still have the ability of, you know, my mind and my mindset, and it’s very powerful when we can, when we can activate that particular activating system to see images that emote that that emotional response, which, like we said, is still tied to the same type of chemical response as a physical as physical pain. And so when we elicit that those images, and we invite them into our our our daily our daily mindset, that’s the other thing. It has to be daily. That’s where a lot of that discipline and consistency comes from. People say, Oh, I did a vision board and then I threw it in a corner and didn’t see it for, you know, six months to a year. It’s got to be something you’re looking at daily, but if you do that and look at it daily, over time, you do start to condition yourself to seeing okay. Now I know what I’m looking for, and now when I leave my house or I’m in the car or I’m at work or I’m engaging with friends of mine, that physical pain isn’t there because the image in the back of my mind is friends laughing carelessly together and having a really fun time together. And so I’m, I’m I’m able to minimize that pain. Doesn’t mean that it’s going to go away and it’s not going to be an end, you know, it’s not going to be a solve for everything, but it’s at least a step in the right direction. And that’s, that’s how I would guide participants is to really be very thoughtful and intentional about the images that they’re putting on their board that truly align with the kind of person that they want to be pain free.

 

Manon Bolliger  27:54

And it makes a lot of sense and and the idea here is that it’s it’s what they want to see. But as they see it, they’re actually feeling it, which is part of that whole manifesting. You have to see it, believe it, feel it, and put energy towards it right. And then when the pain returns, because in chronic pain is going to have such patterns. It’s also to maybe that they can bring in to shift the pain focus. Because my understanding of this, and I’m, you know, I’m not an expert in this part of it, but at least clinically, what I’ve seen is, is that the mind can really impact the physicality to the point where maybe there’s new neural pathways that are actually happening where the pain really will go away. Because, I mean, if there’s an obvious cause to pain, like inflammation, we can do, you know, we can work on it that way, but there is a mental, emotional component, which I think does work with the mind, right? I mean, does that seem consistent with your understanding?

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  29:21

Absolutely, yes, yes, absolutely, very much consistent. And I think, to your point, when it represents itself, I think it’s an opportunity for us to acknowledge that it’s back, and maybe what had we been doing prior to that, to mitigate those feelings, you know, physically, of feeling that pain, and is there that response? You know, I think that it’s the same thing when we get off track with our goals or our life in general, and we and then we, we come back to that, and we get recentered. We realize, oh, it was just because I got off course. I just I didn’t I wasn’t doing consistently what I said I was going. To do, and that’s why I was feeling the way I was feeling. And I think it works both for our emotional, thoughts, feelings, actions, results about about our life as it the same that it does for the thoughts, feelings, actions, results of our physical. You know, our physical well, being.

 

Manon Bolliger  30:21

Good. Okay, well, I can’t believe our time is already already up so maybe I’ll just leave you a closing few words and, yeah, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

 

Maria Maldonado Smith  30:34

Well, thank you so much for having me. I truly appreciate it, and I love talking about the power of vision imagery, because there is so much neuroscience link to it. And the thing is, is less than 3% of Americans, I mean, globally, it’s about 18 to 20% but less than 3% of Americans were really bad at sitting down and writing out our goals. And I think if anything, what it does is it gives us a sense of control and a sense of purpose as well, anytime we kind of get off, you know, think about any path in life, whether it’s a diet plan that you you’re not heating and but you know that when you stick to it, you feel better. You know you, you know you, you you wake up, you’re lighter, you’re you have more clarity. I think that’s ultimately what the vision board is leading you to is greater clarity. It’s not definitive, it’s not perfect, it’s not set in stone, it’s not a contract, but it’s definitely a compass that can guide you and that can hopefully lead you in a direction where you feel empowered and in control of your situation, whether it’s starting a business, whether it is helping a patient, whether it is you yourself or someone you know dealing with that chronic you know, physical pain that the board really can be a guide for who you envision yourself to be six months from now, A year from now, five years from now, however you it works best for you. I always tell people, there’s no right or wrong way to vision board other than not doing one and not sitting with it every single day and spending some time just like you would spend time on your business, spend time with your board, because I think both hand in hand will be very positive. And same thing, you know, just like you would work on maybe physical therapy and going working through your physical pain, sit with your board and let it, let it speak to you in that way.

 

Manon Bolliger  32:35

Well, we’ll end with that. Thank you so much.

 

ENDING: 41:33

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