In this solo, podcast‑style motivational talk, speaker Ramon Estrada draws on his experience as an executive coach to explore why professionals—especially founders and “business artists”—often feel stuck in repetitive, aimless cycles. He uses a GPS metaphor to describe coaching: identifying where you are, where you want to go, and charting a path. A short Rumi poem about Nasruddin wandering at 4 AM illustrates the feeling of aimlessness and the need to define “home” or purpose. Estrada emphasizes responsibility and the importance of pausing to reflect, arguing that without this, daily actions become mechanical and unfulfilling. He connects personal values to everyday tasks, sharing a family example of washing dishes to show how aligning chores with one’s deeper purpose can bring joy. The talk then invokes the Bhagavad Gita’s warrior‑dharma concept, positioning the listener as a warrior on a purposeful quest rather than a mercenary driven by external reward. Finally, he cites a mentor’s question—“How are you complicit in the things you don’t like?”—to prompt listeners to consider how their attitudes and actions shape both external outcomes and personal growth. The episode closes with an invitation to continue the conversation in future episodes.
Chapters
Why would you say that sometimes it's confusing to do the right thing for us? Have you wondered why sometimes at work you feel that you are doing the same thing over and over without any sense? Or even when you are launching your company and every day feels like Groundhog Day? Like, if it's all the time the same thing, I have a proposal for you and I would like to discuss it. For the past few years, I have been dedicating my time and my energy developing myself and working as an executive coach. What does it mean that I help people to achieve their goals, right? So there's always an origin, a point of departure. It's like a GPS, like Google Maps, and you are where you are, and then eventually there's a destination that my clients want to go. And this is what executive coaches do. We trace a path, we allow our client to know where he or she is and where she wants to go, what she wants or he wants to achieve. So that's important, right? But let's bring a poem from one of my favorite poets, Rumi. He liked to tell stories, and I love this one. It's really short. So it goes like this. It's 4 AM. Nasruddin leaves the tavern and walks the town aimlessly. Why are you out wandering the streets in the middle of the night? Sir, replies Nasruddin, if I knew the answer to that question, I would have been home hours ago. Isn't this short poem a jewel? Because sometimes I feel like this. I have seen my clients feel like this, like they are aimlessly walking Outside at night, not reaching home. Where's home? It's the destination that we were talking about. But the point here is that sometimes we don't know what we are doing because we are aimlessly walking towards a path. And that's a big question. So we need to answer ourselves, where's home? Where do I want to go? And in this sense, I would like to bring a sense of the word that it's responsibility. Responsibility. If we don't pause and if we don't reflect to understand where we are and where we want to go, we're going to be aimlessly walking. And this is what I am bringing into this podcast, thinking about business artists. It's not that our work, our companies are not valuable, but what's most important is that there's a sense of us, of belonging, a sense that we are changing. By the way we are acting, by the kind of people that we are, the way we show up, how our values are being imprinted in every email, in every Canva design, in any conversation that we are having with our team, with our co-founders, with our board, with our clients. And most important is which kind of conversation we are having with ourselves. Because I think, and by having a lot of conversations and even looking into myself by taking the time to pause and reflect, When I am not happy, when I am not enjoying my path, is where I feel that I'm walking aimlessly. Now, is every activity a source of joy? I think it can be, but it requires us to understand that part of that walk from point A to point B has to do with doing all sorts of things that probably not all of them are fun, are interesting. But if we don't forget the intention that we are trying to build in the world, It's going to be great. One author called Vernon Howard mentioned in one of his books, happiness is a state of non-illusion, seeing things as they are, not as we are. So this is really deep, because when we are walking and we are doing our things, if we are not enjoying it, that activity is not going to be enjoyable at all. It's going to be a pain in the neck. I don't like doing dishes. I don't like washing dishes. I did that a lot when I was a young kid, but now I have a family. I have a wife, I have 2 amazing kids. So when we are having time together at home, after having a joyful lunch and we were talking and laughing and, you know, being together in our home, I needed to wash the dishes. Why? Because by now I'm 48 years old. Now I know that I cannot cook as good as my wife. So she's the one that enjoys providing and nurturing all these amazing meals, and I'm the one doing the dishes and preparing all the setup. So do I not enjoy washing dishes? I enjoy it because it's part of my values. It's part of who I am by showing up with my family. And this has to do with the warrior's path. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of India's Most important books. There's this part where Krishna is talking to Arjuna, and Arjuna is a warrior, and he's really facing this uncertainty about what can I do in this battle, because he was battling his family, his cousins. He knew that a lot of people were going to die. And Krishna, which is a representation of our conscious mind, our deepest mind, Says, you need to do what you need to do. That's your dharma. That's what you need to do. So I invite you to consider yourself a warrior, a warrior in a quest to achieve your destination. And this is not a patriarchal conversation about the typical male Conan the Barbarian. I'm not talking about being a mercenary. A mercenary is not a warrior. A mercenary is someone that is being hired to kill, to destroy, to whatever, with the exchange of money. Here the exchange is your work, is being seen, is having your talents shown up in the world and making a positive impact in others. I would like to close with a question from one of my mentors, Jerry Colonna: how are you complicit to the things that you don't like? Think about how would a warrior, how would a higher version of yourself commit to doing things, and how would you show up differently by knowing that each action that you are taking is taking you closer to the destination that you want to reach? Not only externally, something you want to achieve, but who are you becoming by showing up every day With a different attitude. So let's discuss this even further in the next episodes, and Godspeed. Godspeed.
