Dare to Live Beyond the Ego with Juan Campoo

Jennifer Norman:
Hello beautiful humans. Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast, your source for hope, healing, happiness and humanity. My name is Jennifer Norman. I'm the founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host. This podcast is here to guide you on your journey of self love, empowerment, soul alignment, and joy. With each episode, I invite beautiful humans from all corners of the globe to join me for open conversations about their life lessons and the important work that they are doing to help heal humankind. Take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast so you dont miss an episode. Im so glad youre here joining me for todays show.

Jennifer Norman:
Now there is never a better time than the present to dive deeper into personal development. Today I have the honor of bringing Juan Campoo to the show to offer you practical wisdom when it comes to self discovery and evolution. Juan is a TEDx speaker, award winning coach, and Amazon best selling author who helps others dramatically accelerate their personal development. Juan's own journey from burnout to heeding the call to raise humanity's consciousness serves as an inspiring testament to the transformative power of personal growth. Through our conversation today, Juan will share key personal development insights to help you improve your self awareness, happiness, and outlook on life. We'll dive deep into the core principles of his proprietary mind canvas method, exploring the four elements of personal mastery. We'll discuss the dynamics between life and oneself and how you can use various tools to master your thoughts, emotions. And by the end of this episode, you will walk away with a newfound understanding of your own potential for growth and transformation, armed with practical strategies to cultivate personal mastery and increase your impact on the world around you.

Jennifer Norman:
So now please join me in welcoming Juan Campoo to the show. Hello Juan, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Juan Campoo:
Aw, thank you Jennifer, for having me. It's an honor.

Jennifer Norman:
It is a delight. And I understand that you are very close to Amsterdam, the Netherlands today, and so what a beautiful thing this is that we are able to have this discussion pretty much worlds apart but so aligned in what we are about and I am so excited to get into that. First of all, I want to congratulate you on your recent TED talk. It was called how to go beyond personal growth and it was performed at the universit van Amsterdam. It was so well done. It was really, really amazing. So I can't imagine what that must have felt like for you.

Juan Campoo:
Thank you so much. It was one of the high points of my life, really. It was amazing. All the preparation that it took to deliver a talk in such a way to honor and respect everyone that was there everyone that was watching? I took it very seriously, and I took it also as an opportunity to plant seeds. This is the stage that you've been given to share your message to the world. And that's exactly what I did. And I'm very proud. It was a beautiful moment for me.

Jennifer Norman:
Mm hmm. Yes. And I should say, you should feel very proud because it was exceptional. It was a TED talk on how to do a TED talk, I personally think. Yeah. For, for those of you who are interested, please go to the TEDx website, take a look at it. In it, Juan talks about why personal development goes beyond personal growth. The ego, three beliefs of the ego that limit us in our personal development.

Jennifer Norman:
And I first wanted to ask you, why did you decide to speak on personal development? And could you share with our listeners a summary of those three things that you mentioned in your TED talk that we have to stop believing.

Juan Campoo:
With pleasure, Jennifer. Well, the first question, personal development, it's been common factor in my life always since I have memory. My mind always was special in that way, always trying to learn, understand, connect the dots, analyze, synthesize. It's part of my nature. But then I had a brother, my oldest brother. He was always my first mentor, and he loved personal development. So from a younger age, he would always have conversations with me and he would give me his books on personal development, anything from influence to the mindset, you name it. And I would learn from a very young age. So it was no surprise when at some point in my life, I realized that this is what I needed to do.

Juan Campoo:
After doing a lot of work on myself, I was called upon to do this work with others. And then when I was invited last year to do this TED talk, it was actually the most, one of the most difficult things was to choose a topic. What is this that I'm going to be talking about giving this opportunity? If I have to choose one thing from all the things that I've learned and learned how to give to others and facilitate on what can it be? I combine a metaphor, a new way of looking at the word personal development, so that we can actually go directly to the core and accelerate our personal development. But at the same time, half of it, or the three ideas that we're going to be talking about in a moment are not mine. These three ideas, or the beliefs of the ego are from world renowned thought leader Richard Barrett. We had a relationship for a long time. We worked together, and I thought, the world needs to hear this, and I'm going to put a sandwich around it. Right.

Juan Campoo:
A new frame to make it relatable. Easy within 18 minutes. And these three ideas that you mentioned are the three beliefs of the ego. The most deep, subconscious, fear based beliefs that our minds, our egos have that we carry with us everywhere we go and that inform and influence each and every one of our decisions and our actions, our thoughts, even. So, they determine from the subconscious, from the background, they determine our well being. They determine what we have, don't have the quality of our relationships, et cetera, et cetera. And these three beliefs are the belief that you don't have enough. The belief that you are not loved enough, and the belief that you are not good enough.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, I think that all of us at some point of our lives, if not all the time, can think about, oh, I just don't have enough. If only I had this. If only I had that. If only I could get this. I'm not loved enough. Oh, my gosh. I need to do things to make people love me, or I need to prove to other people that I'm worthy of love, and then I'm not good enough. Oh, I'll never be as good as so and so.

Jennifer Norman:
Comparing, comparing, comparing. Isn't it interesting how those things seep into everything that we do and they're the limiting beliefs of the ego?

Juan Campoo:
That's exactly what it is. And most people, it's a pity, but most of us don't know how that is actually playing on the background. You say it and make it sound like we're so aware of it, but most people, most of the time, we're not, right?

Jennifer Norman:
No.

Juan Campoo:
And we just. Yeah. One example is you're invited to go for drinks with your colleagues, and you say, yes. Deep inside, you really don't want to, but you force yourself to go. Because I want to be liked. I want to be included. I want people to not think certain things about me. So you want to control your image, you want to control the narrative, you want to control what people say about you, or you want to not be left out.

Juan Campoo:
So you go and you do it. And then next day, you feel tired, or you say, I shouldn't have done that, and you feel ashamed of yourself and your decision making. So that's just one of the many examples that we every day are confronted with, because we're not aware of those things.

Jennifer Norman:
It's true. I recently had somebody on the show, and we were talking about people pleasing and how much of the habit of people pleasing has to do with wanting to have validation, wanting to be accepted, wanting to be loved or feeling like, okay, if I do this, then I'll win some approval. And little do we realize that it is just ourselves playing games with ourselves. It's like subconsciously, I think that we know these things, but yet we start acting in ways that we are. We aren't even aware that we're giving our power away. We're giving ourselves away, and we're losing our sense of what we really want and need when we do that.

Juan Campoo:
You said it right. I was in a training with some consultants last week, and one of the learning goals of one of the participants was, I want to find my power back. I want to get my power back. And I was very confused. And I told her, what is your power? Well, I don't know. She said, okay, so if you don't know what it is, how can you know that you got it or that you ever had it, that you lost it? Yeah. And therefore, if you don't know how it looks like when you have it, how could you ever develop it or create it or find it? And she was mute. She didn't know anything to say.

Juan Campoo:
But she was repeating what you read in books. Right? My power. My. But we do have a power, that's for sure. But we think about it the wrong way. And the power is the normal states of human being. I mean, we are the most incredible evolution that we know of in the universe, right? And extraordinary even above animals, in the sense that we have even an extra layer of brain, the neocortex, that allows us to do all the human things that we do, even though we use it very poorly. So we have this power of inner peace, balance, well being, positive impact, fulfillment, joy, enthusiasm, inspiration, you name it.

Juan Campoo:
But we lose that, like you said, because we give that away. If you don't know how it looks like and what it is, of course you're going to give it away without knowing, otherwise you wouldn't do it. Yeah. And trying to be liked is saying, look, my self esteem and my idea of myself, my value depends on what you say. I'm giving you all that power to you, please tell me that I'm good or that I'm loved or worthy of love, otherwise I'm going to suffer. I need you to validate that for me. And that delegation of that power. Gosh, we do it without realizing, and it's so unnecessary and so limiting.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, yes. And I'm so delighted that folks like you are here to flip the script, because so many of us were not taught this at an early age. We were not aware. We pretty much go through life seeing what others are doing, modeling, mirroring other people, what our parents have taught us. In some cases, we didn't have a big brother like you had that was focused on personal development. A lot of times, siblings are just beating each other up and, you know, trying to one up each other. And so hooray for you for having an amazing big brother who worked on personal development and showed you the way. But not everybody has those kinds of methods of teaching in their background.

Jennifer Norman:
And so it's wonderful that it doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter where you are in life. There's always an opportunity to see things from a new perspective and to understand that the happiness that you seek is within reach. It's within you. The joy that you seek is within you. It's just a matter of getting back to yourself and recovering that and then remembering your power. But it takes some work. It takes some relearning and just mental remodeling. It takes a whole new perspective, which does not necessarily happen overnight.

Jennifer Norman:
Sometimes for some people it might, but sometimes it takes a lot of work, because these habits are ingrained, and our neuroplasticity, as we get older, starts to not be as mobile and moving.

Juan Campoo:
Well, if I may say something about that.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, please, please.

Juan Campoo:
You're totally right. But the brain is plastic. As you said, there is neuroplasticity. But just like we don't learn a lot of things when we grow up, also, we don't learn about that. We think that a brain is fixed. The older we get, the more fixed it seems and feels like. So we just say, this is who I am. No, this is who we have become and has nothing to do with who you are or who you can become if you choose to play another role, to take another character in the movie, to put another mask.

Juan Campoo:
So, yes, it is difficult. Yes, it can take a long time. But that's why also, there are coaches like me and methodologies that can be used to really accelerate that. And just to give you a hint, what is one of the main keys I use to accelerate that and activate the neuroplasticity and go back to that inner state that is our potential of human beings, our nature of inner peace and power. It is by detaching from the mind for a moment and helping people not to just rediscover and find, but to remember what they have forgotten, to step into a higher consciousness, their real consciousness, let's say right throughout the day, because we use language, we are using the mind, we are using the ego. And we're all the time projecting into the future and going into the past. Therefore, we're prisoners of the mind. It is by remembering that we are not our minds that we have a mind that we can take that step back and look in silence with no labels at the mind and become free from the story.

Juan Campoo:
Now, there's a process I do in the coaching that by detaching people that way and dissociating it that way, in one, two, three degrees or levels of distance, let's say people are so disconnected from their minds that they experience that inner peace, that power of pure consciousness. And they always say things like, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe this is possible. I didn't think this existed. Oh, my God, I see it so clearly. It's the best feeling in the world. And it only takes stop working through the mind for the mind. And meditation helps with that. However, meditation takes long time, a repetitive work, until you start really getting the benefits.

Juan Campoo:
There are other ways. And just remember, anytime you say something about anything or anyone, just ask yourself, how is this a story? What would other people say about this story? What am I missing?

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah, right.

Juan Campoo:
And then you would see a bigger version or closer version to the truth of that story that will set you free your anger, your frustration, your hatred, your resentment, your shame and blame. Anytime we feel anything limiting is because we're seeing only a part of the truth. That was said to me by a buddhist monk in Thailand when I ten days of retreat there once with them. And anytime you feel something that is limiting you is because you're seeing only a part of the truth. Expand your perception, ask questions, have conversations, challenge your perception, and you will be free. And from that freedom, you will also have better conversations. You will influence better people around you. You'll have more power over the situations around you.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. Exactly. Now, Juan, I wanted to talk about your book because you wrote this incredible book called the Mind Canvas, A Revolutionary Approach To Personal Mastery which delves into four things that people want. Okay, people are going to be curious. What is it that I want? What are these four things that I want?

Juan Campoo:
Definitely. Well, I mean, we want infinite things as a problem, but if we have to make categories of it, it's something on your environment, like a bigger house, a bigger car, a better job, a different partner, better clothes, different material things in your environment or resources outside. That's one. The other kind is to change behaviors, start doing something, stop doing something. Do something different, like smoking, like sporting or whatever. Another category is the feelings. People want to be happy, for example, or you want to be confident. So, and the fourth one is, no matter what you want, it all comes down to the top part, which is, are you aware of any of these things you're wanting in life? And are you empowering yourself enough to get for yourself any of these things for you? Are you resourceful enough to get whatever it is that you want and need? And what hurts me is to see so many people that cannot or are not allowing themselves to get those things.

Juan Campoo:
And the key that I explain in my book is if you activate your awareness, if you step into that consciousness that has a mind, that has a body, you can then master, shift, transform, create anything you want in your mind and then through your mind out there in real life. Because I think it was Robin Sharma from the book the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, or The Saint, The Surfer and The CEO, amazing guy. He wrote that anything that has ever been created out there in the world had first to be created in someone's mind. And that's why I call it the mind canvas. You want to repaint your life, repaint it in your mind. Every possible scenario, every possible future is out there waiting for you to manifest it. And it starts. It really depends on how creative you are, how well you put the power of your imagination to work for you or against you.

Juan Campoo:
You put it to work against you. Do you think of negative scenarios of limited things in the future? You experience anxiety, fear, stress, sadness. You put it to work for you. You use it in empowering ways. Your imagination, you experience inspiration, motivation, confidence, and all these other emotional states that empower you to take empowered action that changes the reality out there. So no matter what you want, you can change it, but it requires you to stop using the mind and seeing the mind and choosing your thoughts.

Jennifer Norman:
Beautiful. And going back to that example that you provided before. The small things really are the big things because those are the tells. If you get invited to an outing that you really don't want to go to, but you go and you go begrudgingly and you're not necessarily even aware of the choice that you're making, then that's going to seep into a lot of other areas of your life that kind of just, I'm going to just go on autopilot because I don't want to seem like I'm the odd person out. I want to be accepted. I want to make sure that people know that I'm a fun person. Just all of these things that we're doing to try to seem rather than to be.

Juan Campoo:
Exactly.

Jennifer Norman:
And when you can make that shift and that complete recognition and awareness of being and doing things that really light you up inside, making every decision where it's like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to go out with my friends. If that's the way you feel, then do it like that is what you should be leaning towards, rather than the, oh, I'm just going to do it because they expect this of me or because. And think about painting the rest of your life. If you are creating this mental vision, your mind, of what you wish that you could have, but then you're like, oh, I don't think I can do it. Because XYZ, rather than the enthusiasm of being able to say, you know what, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to figure out how to get past this and I'll ask questions and I'll meet the right people and doors will open for me. It's just those little tiny things that will weave you into a life of your dreams. Or a life that is a nightmare, frankly.

Juan Campoo:
Exactly. And you have all control over it.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah. And you talk so beautifully, Juan, about going beyond fear and anxiety. You have a couple of acronyms which are dare to live, D-A-R-E to L-I-V-E. You've got to tell us what that means and what that's all about.

Juan Campoo:
Oh, all right, so. And it's linked to the Mind Canvas, so it's easier when people know the model. Anyone can go and look at it on YouTube. You can find the video, the Mind Canvas Model, or with my name, Juan Campoo. But without looking at the visuals. FEAR. There's a acronym that says that it stands for false expectations....False Expectations that Appear Real.

Juan Campoo:
Right. Fear. So you're having thoughts about the future. Expectations that are just stories are false, but they appear real because you are a victim of your mind. You don't realize that you're having thoughts, but you feel the thoughts you have as if they were real. You are. You involve yourself in the story. They really appear real to you.

Juan Campoo:
They feel real. They're just thoughts. And you can have any other thought you want, right? Of course. If you experience fear because of those thoughts, then you cannot detach and you cannot see that it's just a story. You are too much in the emotion now. So if fear is a false expectation that appears real, then we need the antidote. The antidote of fear is dare to live. And these two words stand for.

Juan Campoo:
Yeah, a bunch of things. DARE stands for taking Decisive Action Regardless of those Expectations that created the fear in the first place. So of course you have those thoughts. Okay, listen to it. It comes from the future. Negative thing is creating my fear, okay? It's just expectation. It's just thoughts. Regardless of those thoughts, let's explore another reality, a more positive one, a higher frequency one, let's say.

Juan Campoo:
And so, taking decisive action regardless of those negative expectations. But what happens when you don't dare, right? To take that decisive action? Well, then you need to live, right? Dare to LIVE is because you do that by Listening to the Inner Voice of Expansion. Because the thoughts that are negative, that create the fear are contracting. You are destroying you. You need to expand your perception, your thoughts. And to do that, you need to go into that future positive kind of thinking, which is the opposite. Like you said, I'm going to give it a shot. I can try.

Juan Campoo:
I can do that. Other people have done it. I'm not the first one. I will not be the last one. I mean, it's entertaining. Those other ideas about the future that are not self limiting, but are self empowering is what not only neutralizes the fear, but activates the other emotional states of confidence, motivation, inspiration, excitement. So DARE to LIVE. Take Decisive Action Regardless of the Expectations after Listening to the Inner Voice of Expansion.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, I love those acronyms. And they are so helpful. It gets back to your TED talk where you were talking about personal development and the idea of you as an envelope. And you are not the envelope, but the letter that is inside the envelope. The envelope is just the window dressing. And so if you are able to envision the life that you want to live, that is your letter, that is something that you want based upon what you believe is so central to you and what brings you joy. Nobody else. It's not for window dressing, for anybody else.

Jennifer Norman:
And so when you are able to practice bravery in the direction of your dream, then you will be living your most fulfilling life. And you don't have to worry about the fear and the anxiety, because you'll know from deep within that it. It is the right thing for you. You may get a lot of naysayers outside saying, oh, you're crazy, or, that's not what you should be doing. You should be a doctor. You shouldn't be an artist. All of those things that we hear when we're growing up. But if you are living the course of your dreams, then you'll figure out a way and you'll do it.

Jennifer Norman:
And it'll be your path to happiness by living to that inner voice, which is expansive. I love that. Thank you so much for that, Juan. Beautiful, beautiful. It's very interesting. You emphasize understanding the dynamics between life and oneself. And you also have this, I love you use acronyms because they are such easy mnemonics for people to come back to and be like, oh, yeah, what is this one about? You talk about the ABCs of life framework, and it's like what you think, what you feel and what you do and how that contributes to this understanding. I would love for you to talk about the ABCs of life and what that means.

Juan Campoo:
Yeah, sure. I noticed that one of the reasons why people are not as empowered as they could be is because, like you said, we're not taught these things at school or in universities or in life. And I tried with this book to make, to create two models, visual models, that make that psychology and life simple and intuitive for everyone. It's the core of my work, is the core of the inner acceleration I do with people, and it makes it all simple. And the ABC of life is one of those two models the ABC of life stands for. We need to become Aware of...and when I say this, the ones who are watching the video, I mean, step out of your mind and to yourself and the true self or consciousness, whatever you want to call it, soul. And from that higher place, that's the A of Awareness.

Juan Campoo:
Look at your Beliefs, values and thoughts, the stuff in your mind, the stories that are Causing you emotionally or Compelling you emotionally to Do or not Do what creates your Environment. So that's A, B, C, D, E. Be Aware of the Beliefs, values and thoughts that Compel you or Cause you emotionally to Do what creates your Environment. So the D, Do, is behavior. The E is the stuff out there. The C is the being Compelled emotionally, having the tendency to do something, the willingness to do something. And the B, Beliefs, values, and thoughts are basically all the little, all the contents of your mind, conscious and subconscious, that are influencing your emotional state. And the thing is that there's an order to this.

Juan Campoo:
And most people understand that. Of course, if you want to change your life, you need to change the things you do. Simple as that. I think Einstein said, if you want different results, need to stop doing the same things you do. So far, so good. Most coaching out there, most books out there tell you exactly that change your behaviors, do these Atomic Habits. There's so many books, but where people lose the power is realizing that why can I not do what I know I have to do say no to that outing. Put a limit to my manager who is abusing me emotionally.

Juan Campoo:
Stop this relationship that is toxic or whatever it is. Change industries, you name it. Why don't we allow ourselves to do it? Is because that emotional side, we are too much in the emotion that we don't realize that the emotion is stopping us. If you feel fear, if you are not confident, if you're demotivated, if you're not inspired, yeah. The chances that you're gonna do what you need to do to change your environment are quite low. But if you feel confident, motivated, clear, etcetera, you'll probably do those things. And here's where it gets tricky. Why people go to coaches or psychologists is because how do you, how can you master then the emotional states that causes you to do or not do the things you need to do? That's the mind.

Juan Campoo:
And more than 95%, maybe 99% or more of the contents of our mind are subconscious. We're not aware of them, right. But it is the thought that creates the emotion. Two examples. I once lost a client that gave me 80% of my income. It felt awful, awful for too long in my standard for a couple of days when I was younger, as the other side of the story, I lost one job that I loved. But the moment I was fired, right? And I got in the car in the highway. I was driving in the highway at 30 mph, very slow for a highway with my window open, with my face like a dog outside in the air, looking at the mountains and saying, gosh, freedom.

Juan Campoo:
I get to choose whatever I do next, right? So what is the difference between the first story and the second story? Is that I was aware of how I want to perceive this, because there's never a point in your life for most people out there where you don't look back, and you said, wow, that bad thing that happened actually turned out to be one of the things that made me who I am today. Right? But in the moment we forget, we lose perspective. We are not creative. We use our imaginations in very unproductive ways. So if the mind is what creates your emotions, and your emotions determine whether you can do or not what you need to do to change your life, then really, it's a matter of activating that awareness because we're not aware of it. So if we activate that awareness, stepping out of the mind, and we look at our thoughts and say, wait a second, that story, no, that's creating me fear. That is giving me low self esteem, that is giving me low confidence. That is making me say yes to the things I know I want to say no to, only that separation from your beliefs, values, and thoughts give you the chance to analyze, choose, dissect, shift, and from that choice, then you choose the new thoughts, which create complete different kinds of emotions, which allow for a complete different set of actions that, of course, deliver different results.

Juan Campoo:
That's why I have this with me, and all my clients have it. The A for Awareness everywhere you go.

Jennifer Norman:
My next question is going to be an interesting one, because I wanted to let everybody know that when I invited Juan to the show, I typically ask my guests their pronouns, and Juan was the only person who responded, we/us. My pronouns are we/us. And I was like, ooh, that is a good one. I need to ask him about that. Need to find out what we us is about. Juan, why did you respond that your pronouns are we/us? I think I know the answer, but I would love to hear it from you.

Juan Campoo:
Definitely. And this might be very confrontational for a lot of people, especially people who love to use this.

Jennifer Norman:
I love the confrontation. Bring it on. We need it. We need it.

Juan Campoo:
We don't recognize it in the moment. Maybe it doesn't feel right, but we need it. Look for me, black and white, male, female, Asian, Caucasian. These are all labels, okay? For me, it is an evolution of perception. When people say, I don't identify myself with being a man because I or a woman, there's so much value into that, so much beauty into that. However, then to say, no, I choose another story. It's they them, and I expect others to refer to me that way. And, well, if you're getting emotional when people don't respect that or challenge that, well, it shows that it's just another story that you chose.

Juan Campoo:
It makes more sense to you, and you are a victim of the new story. Sounds better. It is, in a way, beautiful and more evolved, potentially, but it's still another story. True well being and freedom lies beyond each of those stories. So to trigger people, I say we us, because the ultimate truth, if you keep going up and evolving that. That the perception of identity is that we're one. Yes. I'm not my body.

Juan Campoo:
I'm not my identity. These are all stories. And if I happen to be white or Caucasian or Latino, it's just because I happen to be born in a certain country. And in this life, my father and mother happen to have certain genetics, but it has nothing to do with who I am. I choose to think it that way. Therefore, I'm free from all the offenses and all judgment and self judgment as well. Right? And all the conditioning from society, from your parents, from yourself. My spiritual development has led me to believe that we are one, and that on the three dimension world, third dimensional world, we seem separate, almost as if the fingers of my hand would forget that they're together, united by the hand, and would start fighting each other, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

Juan Campoo:
Well, I think that when we transcend the lie of separation of material world, the Maya, how they call it in yoga, or the Matrix, how they call it in that movie, everything is just energy. It's one that appears in this world to be in different manifestations. So if we're one, the real thing to say is not me, you, she, him, whatever. It's just us. So, with all my clients, we tackle this very quickly in the first sessions, and then we laugh because we don't say, you, good luck. I wish you something. We always say, we, we are. They don't say, oh, this.

Juan Campoo:
You were. You were great today. No, we say, we were great because we made this together. And we are one. We have always been one. We will continue to be one. Our mind just forgets it sometimes. It's all one thing.

Juan Campoo:
I need you. I need you, Jennifer. And this podcast, you need me here on this podcast, it all one interconnected interdependence.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, this is such an important conversation, and it could be an entire podcast unto itself, frankly, is the idea that there are different layers of awareness and stories and things that we have, frankly, I mean, I mean, as humans, we have evolved to believe, and probably early on, I mean, if we think about even just long, long times ago, where even primitive human beings had tribes and there were these ideas of we're together, and then there's another separate tribe, and we fight with that tribe, and we need to conquer and power like these things. As humans, we have forgotten the collective, we've forgotten our oneness with nature, and more and more have we created animosity, strife, struggle, us versus them. You said this. You don't believe what I believe. Therefore, you are not the same as me. Like a lot of these things that create divides and separation, rather than togetherness and unification. And so what Juan is telling us here is very important for us to lift these veils of separation between people. It is the answer to world peace, frankly, it is really just.

Jennifer Norman:
Can we think about ourselves beyond ourselves? Can we think ourselves and other humans is, if there's a conflict, if there's something going on with that person, it's like empathy, it's like, I get it. Feel that compassion. I know what you're going through. Let me give you a hug. Or rather than being like, what's their problem? I. And being afraid of it, it's like recognizing that, yeah, we are in this human soup together. We've had to label and categorize and codify things in order to be able to make discernment. We created language, we created all of these things to be able to make certain organizational sense out of everything.

Jennifer Norman:
And we've done an amazing job. I mean, look at how, like, the progress and all of these things. But I often will say that a lot of what we are creating in human form, in manifested physical form, is starting to really imitate the quantum field. It's like, more and more, are we creating things where we are collapsing time, we're making things not take as long as they once were. It's like everything is exponentially getting quicker, faster, instantaneous AI, like, you can get the answers, like, right in a split second, in a nanosecond. And space, space is also collapsing. The fact that I am having this conversation with Juan halfway across the world, and we're able to communicate in this beautiful way to make things happen. So time and space are collapsing.

Jennifer Norman:
We are creating more of our future and bringing it into the present than we ever had before. So it does make sense that this new elevation of conscientiousness, of consciousness, rather, is really helping to serve us in a greater good. It's letting us recognize that we are so together, we are one, and that it's going to be much more beneficial for all of us, as well as the planet, to respect the fact that we are really just two sides of the same coin, as it were. But we can celebrate our uniqueness. We can celebrate our embodiment. We can have fun with these avatars that we've been given. Exactly. And not stress and strife about it.

Juan Campoo:
No, exactly. I mean, it's paradise. Like the story of Adam and Eve, the way I interpret it is this. It's paradise, and we are in paradise, and we get to choose and play. And the only thing, and this may be also controversial to the american audience if you're very religious, look at this metaphor. Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden, being happy, completely joyful. Everything is amazing. God came and said, you can eat from all the trees of the Garden of Eden except for one, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Juan Campoo:
Now, that gives me a clue that this might be a metaphor instead of a real story, but okay. And in that name of the tree tells you the same thing that every sage, wise person, and philosophy from around the world throughout time have been telling us. Yin and yang, evil and good, heaven and hell, night and day, you name it. Dichotomy, discernment. You use that word, discernment, dichotomy. Judgment, labeling, creating separation. It is the original sin. It is what expelled Adam from the garden.

Juan Campoo:
And he had to work and sweat and be a human all his life because he did the one thing he didn't have to do. Discern. Say that you're a woman. I'm a man. You're bad, I'm good. Anytime you do that, you have separated yourself from truth and wisdom, and you have created suffering for yourself and others.

Juan Campoo:
My daughter is five years old, and she tells me all the time now she's about winning. Oh, I won. Oh, I want to win. I go faster. And I said, don't compete. Don't try to win. No, but it's good. Why not? Because when you win, someone loses. Why? What if we just play to have fun together, right? Isn't that a better approach? Let's say so anytime there's. There's some kind of distinction, there's pain.

Juan Campoo:
And the we that I write sometimes is trying to go above that and to heal it. Now, you mentioned something about space, and it made me think of, you know, how astronauts, each one of them, when they come back, what they say, the realization they had that the planet is one, that there's no geographical limits or geopolitical limits. That is something someone put in a map. And we bought that story by looking at those maps. But when you're up there, you see one beautiful marble that has no limits. Everyone is connected. We're all cousins and brothers and sisters. I hope that it doesn't take people to have to go out there to realize that, right? You would just happen to be born in a certain family that had a certain religion that happened to be in a certain country.

Juan Campoo:
You're not your name. You're not Jennifer, I'm not Juan. Those are the names our parents chose to give us, and we bought into it, and we get all emotional. Will people pronounce our name wrong? Right. Sometimes people say, I don't know. They call me something very different, and I just don't say anything. And months later, project or something, they say, hey, but that's not your name. I've been calling this for months.

Juan Campoo:
And I said, well, it doesn't matter as long as you're. I know you're talking to me. And we are, period. Doesn't matter.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, that is so beautiful. It's true. It's like once you step away from the noise, then you just are met with such profound peace. And the beautiful thing about the yin Yang is that you know that you need the dark to recognize the light. You need the light to recognize the dark. They wouldn't exist without each other. And so there is beautiful balance and harmony in the necessity for it all. And a lot of times when we think we are met with hard times, they do become beautiful on the other side.

Jennifer Norman:
When you recognize that it helped you to see something and recognize the gifts that you may have had or that you are receiving on the other side, to be able to live in a different way with more gratitude and appreciation for what life is. And so I want to thank you, Juan, for today, because I think that you're shedding so much wisdom and new insights to a lot of people on ways of thinking about being self aware, about their own personal development, about spirituality, about their ego, and I about the self that they may not have known before. I want to thank you so much for being on the show today. And before we let you go, please let everybody know how they can get in touch with you for sure.

Juan Campoo:
First of all, it's my pleasure. Jennifer, thank you so much for having me. It's been a lovely conversation. How they can find me. You can find me on LinkedIn. That's the one social media that I use the most, even though you can find me everywhere by googling my name. Juan Campoo. But LinkedIn is where I'm most active and also on my website, juancampo.com.

Jennifer Norman:
Beautiful humans, Juan Campoo. Thank you so much for being part of the Movement and my guest today. It was an honor.

Juan Campoo:
Mine. Thank you so much.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.