Following the Soul Path: A Journey of Courage, Clarity, and Peace

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services. Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.

0:44 Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Marco, Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, doctor Doc. It's great to be you. So I'm looking at your name. I'm here and it's a little bit different than what I just called you. Can you explain that? Yeah, that would be because I did a call with my brother Earliott today. His name is Roslov. I should be reading fine, Now there we. Go, There we go. Okay, I was just wondering if we had Doogal personalities here. Make sure. Anyway, you have a very interesting journey and we have a very interesting topic to talk about today. Would you share with the audience number one, where you're at right now and then also your journey what brought you to this point of writing your book and doing all of the retreats that you're doing and that type of thing.

1:42 Yeah, absolutely so. Right now, I'm calling from Serbia in Europe. This is home country fuel where I was born, but where I spent very little time in my life. I was raised in Australia, papit of Ues, so that's where the accent's from. And then the last five or six years I spent living a very nomadic experience of life. Actually, I was right during the time of the pandemic that I came to terms with the fact that I was living a life that wasn't deeply inspiring to me, even though I was giving everything of myself to that life and it was a beautiful life, but I didn't feel inspired on the inside. And that was right at the age of twenty nine, I was looking down the barrel of my thirtieth birthday and I said to myself that if this is what life is moving forward, I'm not that interested. I want a life that's deeply inspiring, that burns red hot, like when you see a beautiful fire crackling away and you see those red hot coals. That's the kind of inspiration I wanted to feel. And so I made a fairly unique decision where I sold everything that I owned, including a forty acre property. I parted ways with my partner at the time, and I booked a one way ticket into the unknown, which was two Mexico for me.

2:48 Wow. So I booked the one way ticket with nothing more than one suitcase and one guitar on the other hand, and I went to Mexico only knowing one person over there, not speaking the language, not really having a plan, but having a sense of inspiration that I was being called there. And so that was about five years ago now, and since then it's been a life of really crafting out and chiseling out a life that is inspiring. And I feel very blessed and grateful to say that today I do get to live a life that is deeply inspiring to me. Every single day I have conversations that are deeply exciting to me, and I do work there I feel as a service and a value to humanity at a large scale beyond myself. So and when did you write your book and what motivated you? And obviously let the audience know what the name of your book is.

3:33 Yeah, of course, So the name of the book is Soul Path, and I spent all the last year writing it. So I spent nine months writing the book. I did about seventy revisions during that time. I was manic about that piece of work, that book being one of the masterpieces of my life. So I really wanted to give it everything that I could. And during the right writing process, I had a lot of people give me feedback. They're like, oh, you've done enough revisions, just put it out there. But it didn't feel complete me in my heart as the work of art that I wanted it to be. So I kept working away on it for about nine months and then spent a few months launching it towards the back end of last year. As far as what the book entails is, it's just twenty two short stories of my journeys through Mexico and other lands that was largely around following what I referred to as the soul path, and the sole path for me is nothing more than that life of highest inspiration, and some people can call it the universal Plan, God's Plan, the most aligned path.

4:32 For me, I just called it the soul path because during my time in Mexico over the last five years, I started having encounters with life and experiences that felt like I was living a movie script that I wasn't even aware of. So it wasn't like I sat there with a pen and wrote down all these experiences that I want to have like a bucket list of items. This were experiences that were so unique and so beautiful that there was something far greater than what I could imagine at the level of my mind and who I'm nos Maako. There was something that gave me a taste of life that was so much greater. And so I called that the soul path because I experienced it as if at some level, my soul decided to have these experiences and it was up to the human me whether or not I was willing to go through with it.

5:15 For me to go through with it, it looked like, you know, selling everything around going to Mexico. It also looked like a nine month period of silence, which was a big devotional chapter of my life where I spent a lot of time time in silence, and during that time, I got to experience a lot of sacred sites according to indigenous cultures that are still very much alive, different rights of passage, initiations and ceremonies which were beautiful things that allowed me to appreciate life at a deeper level. Well, you know, it's interesting how as you go to these different ceremonies with different cultures and depending on what the focus is. But I I just came from a funeral a couple of days ago, and I'm in Thailand, and I've never been to a Buddhist, you know, a Buddhist one, and I was just so touched and amazed at the focus on that individual that had passed away.

6:09 And of course they had their own beliefs about all of that, but what really hit me was the fact that they are just really focused on that individual, on the chanting and the desires and prayers for him and for those that knew him, the family and so forth. And you know, I find that it's just really inspiring to go to different cultures and to experience different things and obviously you've done that in many different ways I know, and yet you know, I think that's really cool that you've been able to do that. And you know, one of the things that you talk about is a sacred pause. And as you talk about your life now, you know, you walked away from everything which is extraordinarily brief, and yet you've reached a point in your life where have you reached that sacred pause? Have you reached that point time where you're really experiencing what you want to experience in life?

7:05 Yeah? Absolutely, I'd say as time goes on, it's like I'm watching the flower of my life bloom in a way that my life gets filled more and more with the beauty of that flower. So what I mean by that is like where I'm at right now, I'm completely satisfied with not satisfied, but like I'm completely in touch with life. Right. I feel that aliveness, that inspiration of the red hot coals that I referred to before, and I stay equally excited for what I see in the future in terms of where my inspirations lead me. Right, So, last year, the inspiration was to write the book. During the writing of that book, I felt all the inspiration of life that I could feel I'm not done with that, And now I'm in the stage of, you know, speaking about the book, doing some events, and then eventually towards the back end of this year and in a couple of months time as well, leading some retreats. So yeah, I'd say that at large ninety percent of my life I'm very much living what I refer to is this whole part well.

8:00 And as you were going to all those different cultures and going through all those processes, you know, we talk about personal development, personal transformation. Obviously you experienced a major transformation in your life. From what you're describing was a lot of what you were doing really going through what we would call personal transformation. Question number one, and I've done this so many times, I ask multiple questions. So question number one is were you going through that with all of these processes you were experiencing. And number two, I know that you talk about the fact that that personal transformation can actually get to a point where it becomes a loop and you can get caught up in that rather than achieving ultimately what you're looking to achieve.

8:47 Can you address question number one? What did you do? In question number two? About the loop. Yeah, so question number one. Absolutely, it was a consistent theme of personal transformation. And I'd say it layers, right, Like we have personal transformation at the level of the mind, then we have personal transformation as the level of the heart of the body, and then at the level of the spirit of the soul. And I feel like each one of them are valid and each one of them allows us to experience life in new ways as and actually, to give a little more context to that, I'd say that we're in a constant state of transformation. But what I mean by that is one of the indigenous language groups that I got to learn from is called now what And in Nawah, they don't when you ask them what color is a leaf, for example, they don't say green or brown. They'll either say becoming green or becoming brown, which speaks to the cyclical nature of life. That we're in a constant state of movement, like we're never one thing, We're always in some kind of we're leading towards a new expression at the same time we're letting go of an old form of expression. Right, So how that might manifest for me in my life and how it relates to me my life is. For example, if I didn't allow myself to try, I may have only ever titled myself with a hat as an author and never allowed myself to run a retreat, right because now I have to be a facilitator. It's a different hat that I'm wearing.

10:08 And so this think, finally, a tuned to this theme of transformation, allows me to recognize the different characters that I get to play in my life. As far as the trap within self transformation, I absolutely agree that it is a big one and one that far too many people spend time in, and it can look like a really beautiful thing from the outside on. Like, I still feel that I have work to do, I still feel that I can transform, and that's all well and good. But there's a point where we have a discipline, whether it's yoga, meditation, you know, the work that I do, going to pilgrimages and sacred sites where it allows us to become the better person. And then there's a point where within that practice we'll get inspirations to do something else. So, well, what are the other things that we'll get inspiration for. Well, we might get the inspiration to write a book, we might get the inspiration to facilitate some of this work that we've been doing for some time, might get the inspirations, have certain conversations with people that we've put off for too long. We might have inspirations to do many different things in life. It's like life starts to assign us homeworks, right, and we'll oftentimes put the homework on the back burner to stay with the discipline, and the discipline in that way becomes like a blinder on our eyes, where it traps us in this idea that we're doing something good, but in fact, we're not living anymore. Now, we're just doing the practice for the sake of the practice, and not to engage with life at a deeper level. So it's like there's this balance of transformation of recognizing that at each level that I've every time I've gone to a ceremony or one of these experiences or a write a passage, there's been very clear tasks that I knew

11:41 that I had to take care of, and had I not taken care of them, then I wouldn't have advanced myself as an individual. Well, and you know it's interesting. I tell my kids a lot my children that you know, life is an adventure and you know, talking about this and I've done this a lot when I've worked with clients that you know, there comes a point time where here's your goal, here's what you want to achieve. But once you've achieved it, what are you going to do? And many people get stuck in that you know they've achieved it, and all of a sudden they get stuck rather than realizing that there are always adventures available to them. And and you know, for you, you know you're you're living this life now of you know of a quiet type of still moment in your life, and yet you're still listening to that inspiration, to that spirit that says, all right, you know you're writing your book, you've written your book, here's something else you can do now. And I think that's so important for people to understand that life is not stagnant. It needs to be something that we can listen to our heart, listen to our soul and be able to realize that, you know what, once we finished once adventure, we have another adventure to experience and that's how life is forever.

12:57 Yeah, I completely agree. It speaks to that old saying of you're ripe and writing sorry you're either green and growing or you're ripe and writing. And no matter what age we are and what stage of life we are, there's always a new chapter that we can turn the page on, and, like you said, a fresh adventure and a new taste of life. And what I found for me to be really valuable that is perhaps lacking a little bit of modern day society is that we get so caught up in who we are in terms of the title that we have at work, in terms of the way that our family knows us, or you know, the value that we have based on our material possessions or the money in our bank account. And that's all well and good. Those are parts of life's experience, but there's so much more beyond that, And if we get too caught up in who we are just based on those titles, then we might miss out in all the magic of what life has for us. So I'm very big on giving people that invitation the adventure, And many times I tell people, Hey, if you're ever close by it, or if I'm ever close by to where you are, I'm hanging around a fire with me for a night, and let's hang out under the stars. Let's have a beautiful night around the fire and book about life, the kind of conversations.

14:02 That I rarely had well, and you know, you talk about you, you know you take people. Are you working right now? Do you do you actually have a daytime job? Because most of the people that are listening are not able to get to a point where they're just experiencing life and peace and so forth, because they're still trying to make a living, they still have a family, all of those types of things. I haven't got a daytime job. So this is all I do. I promote my work. I have some products that I sell and can see on the back shelf over there, and I promote my book, and I promote my retreats. I made a commitment to live a life that's inspiring to me, regardless of how humble I had to be during the process. So in my book I speak about one of the chapters was actually me busking through some of the Mexico's most dangerous streets with nothing but a somberro and a flute. And I lived like that for about three or four months, and it was probably three or four of the most memorable months of my life that allowed me to refine how well I play the flute, allowed me to on Spanish, allowed me to see many parts of Mexico that most people will never see, and allowed me to start a business at the time because I started to learn about some really beautiful plant like power plants that they have over there that they use as like daily medicines, as like homeopathic remedies, and so I started to learn about these things and then eventually made products out of them, them blessed enough to sell all over the world today. So it's been a journey of me just following one step to the next, but also being humble about my situation. So there was a time when I, like during that time with the flut,

15:34 I didn't know if I'd have a roof over my head for many nights in a row. But somehow life kept taking care of me. Someone would offer me something, or I'd make a little bit more on the streets when I was busking, and like someone would give me a more generous contribution. Something would always open up. And I feel that's the dance with faith that we take on. If we want to live a life of inspiration, we're going to be tested against our comforts. Right, It's a lot more comfortable to know, Hey, I've got my job and I get my paycheck X amount every week every month and have that security. But as that's saying goes, life is outside the comfort zone. The magic of life is outside the comfort zone. Right. Well, I was willing to d outside of the comfort zone, I'd say for a much more extended period of time than some people allow themselves to. I don't consider myself special. I just wanted to be a message of full the possibility of that.

16:24 Bells of pops on me writing the book. Well, and you're blessed to be able to do that. But one of the things that comes to my mind is so often people get so caught up and you kind of referred to it, and we can talk about ego or whatever you want to call it, that they're so caught up in their work and maybe maybe importantly so because they're trying to support their family, pay for a nice home, you know, with their kids and so forth. If that's the case, and that becomes their life, and it's fascinating to me that we can get so stuck in that and not realize that. You know, there's this whole concept of black and white either or and I always go by the concept of both and and I think that that's so important. I remember I was working with one client in his business years ago, and when I really sat down with him and said, all right, what are your goals here? His real goal was to spend more time with his family, with his wife, with his children. And it's like, okay, So we worked on the business, but with the whole point of giving him more time, and ultimately he started making much more money in his business, and he now had time to be with his family, with his children. And I think so often we get so caught up in just one sided focus rather than recognizing that, you know, yes, we have to support ourselves, we have to support our families, whatever that is, But there are so many other things that

17:56 we can do. For instance, you talk about going out and sitting by the fire and just appreciating nature and experiencing that. You talk about meditation, and you know, the piece that can come from that if you're doing it well and consistently, is just amazing. So how do you in your book? Do you talk about that a bit about how to how to become a both and minded person rather than an either or. Yeah, I do speak about it but not as a preacher teach a mentoral guide. Rather I speak about it just through my direct experience. So the types of the book wasn't for me to be a preacher in anyway.

18:37 It was rather you're writing Shotgun with me, like you're sitting in the passenger seat of twenty two of some of the wildest stories that I lived, and along the way, I have excess for my general So this is general notes throughout of my experiences, my transformations, and some other things that I learned. So there's a lot of takeaways in there as well. But I feel what you're speaking to there is really valuable on on ego. For me, the ego is kind of like this thing that generally gets bustardized. But there's good aspects and there's bad aspects to ego, or more than good and bad, i'd say useful and not so useful. The useful aspects of the ego are the ones that tell me who I am. So if I didn't have an ego, I wouldn't understand myself as being Marco or anything like that. And you hear some stories where there's like ascended teachers that have walked on this earth, who have been in such an elevator to say that they didn't have a sense of ego, that they walk around in an underwear through cities and stuff like this, because they didn't have a sense of hey, like it's appropriate to put clothes on when I got and they were just living in a completely different world.

19:38 So there's that aspect of Vigo. It's really valuable. That helps me to understand, well, what are the commitments that I made, What are the promises that I made to my family, to my friends, to my work and all these things, right, And then there's the not so useful parts of ego, which is the parts of us that keep us dominant and safe, right, And those are the paths that in Hebrew growth. So what you're speaking to there about the example of the man who wanted to grow his business and spend time with this family. The life that gives us both is always going to require a little more growth from us, but it's always going to give us the greatest leverage and inspiration. That's the way I've experienced the time and time again. So it's not a question of can I have one or the other? It's how can I have both? And I feel like That's one of the questions that many people never ask themselves to begin with. They say, oh, I can't because of and it's easy to justify that like anyone, and in fact, most people do exactly that. But to sit and actually open my mind and say, how can I create a life where I can have both of these, Well, that's a beautiful dance to play with my imagination. And the moment I start asking that question and leaning into it, the moment this life starts to speak back to me.

20:41 I might come across a teacher, someone like you that could help me out with growing my business, or something else might open up for me. Yeah. And you know, we talk about and I love the word you were talking about becoming. In your example with the leafs, they are becoming green or they're becoming brown, and you know, we are becoming And I think that's so important for people to realize, is that part of what we're trying to accomplish here in the earth is to become the best version of who we actually are. And you know, as you talk about the sole path and people really starting to discover their true path, what are some of the modalities of that? And there are different modalities and based on your personal experience, for you, what are some of the advantages in different events and disadvantages of the different modalities that exist in helping someone to really discover their purpose and their soul path.

21:40 Excuse me, great question. I'd say that those words that ever so true is that all poths lead to home and so modalities for me are nothing more than a system or a framework that allows me to understand a pathway. Right, and there's different pathways for different people, and they're all valid to the degree that they don't become a framework that I live by. So what do I mean by that? I mean that if I sit and meditate for twenty minutes a day and it makes me a better human because I'm more relaxed and more centered, I'm able to be more present with you, with my family, with everything that I do, then it's done the job. If I can't live my day unless I've done my twenty minute meditation, now it's controlling me and I'm no longer steering the wheel.

22:24 I am a slave to it rather than it being something that uplifts me. And I'd say that's a fine line that we all have to look at because we fall in love with the things that support us. Right, so if I get profound transformation through spending time around the fire, and then I might become the person that securing is from the top of the mountains that everyone should do that. But it's not everyone's path. Someone's path might just be the right there own book and they may be the most transformational process for them. Right, So, each one has their own path and they're all valid to the degree that they don't become a thing that we are enslaved by. As far as my journey and the things that have helped me out the most, I'd say at scale, it's been time around the fire. And the reason why is because when I look at all the traditions from all around the world, spiritual and religious traditions, they they all work with the fire in some way, whether it's a candle in the church. I was raised raised in the Serbian Orthodox background, right, so growing up, Mom and Dad took me to church and I learned about the importance of light, lighting a candle for all of those that are living, and lighting a candle for all of those that have passed on. And I could see the way that the priests would work with the candles and all of that. So there's an element of fire there. There's also an element of fire through the smoke where they'll burn the incense. And then when I look at indigenous traditions, whether it's the Buddhas, whether it's the in Africa and the Aborigines in Australia, the Native Americans from the north, central or south, and all the way through Europe, the way that my ancestors wants them.

23:55 Before they were Christians, they were Pagans, and the Pagans all honored the element. It's the fire, the water, the air, the earth. And so this theme of fire for me has been something that's been very alive for me in my life. And I'd say why is because as time has gone on, I've come to appreciate that fire is the only element that can't be made dirty. So when you look at the waters of today, a lot about waters has been ruined. It's got chemicals in it and all these kind of things. The air is polluted, the earth is polluted. You put something into a fire, it cleans it right up, it purreface right so you can't you can't make a fire dirty. And so I love that element that it keeps something so pristine and pure and clear, and it offers me that's any level of purity in my life that I get to experience that I can't say that I've consistently found elsewhere. So I've enjoyed it because of that, and also because the fire, to me, is almost like the script of life. If I only go back a few generations. In almost all around the world, this is what I have been spending time around the fire, commuting around fire. It's only the last few generations that we've started to steal away from that.

25:04 And so there's something ancestral that you know, memory that speaks to our being that you kind of even quite put into woods. But everyone feels the when they're around the fire. Well, and that's interesting you say that, you know, as I said, I was at this funeral, and you know, I don't speak Tie, so I'm trying to get some of my questions answered. And what I found fascinating is they cremate here for the most part, here in Thailand. They don't vary, and I think a lot of it has to do with the space. But also I think I found out that they really have a belief in Buddhism, that cremation creates a you know, it's done by fire, and that tends to free the soul and you know, burn and burn the negativity of the body and so forth and free the soul. And as I thought about that, what comes to my mind is that I really believe, as you know, with a Christian background, and also that there is a fire that exists within each of us and it's that light. And you know, you talk about wisdom, elemental wisdom, you know, and I think something that comes to my mind is where did that wisdom come for you?

26:17 I know that in my own life, I've experienced times where it's like, Okay, this is the path that you're going to take, and sometimes it's just been way off the wall. It's like really, but okay, I'm going to do that. And I think people sometimes struggle with understanding the trust that they can put in that wisdom, in that inspiration that comes to them, that may actually come from them, and they don't realize it. Yeah, it's an interesting conversation, and I'd say that you're speaking to something very primal that is easily dismissed in the modern day because with so ties to technology, to what we read what we see on the phone, and like if I don't, it's not material, how do I justify it. That's typically what's going on in people's unconscious wiring.

27:05 But our ancest has never lived like that. There's stories where, for example, the bushmen of the Kala Haari Desert when researchers went out to understand their ways of life, the bush men were confused and sad and by the fact that the researchers couldn't hear the echoes and the songs of the stars. Wow. I think about that as a concept for us that seems like a fairy tale, but that's how they live their lives. And so to me, that was just one demonstration of like how far we've distanced ourselves from the primal forces of life. And to bring it to what you were speaking to of, you know, like getting this sense of inspiration or something like this. It's happened to me many times. I mean, that whole decision to sell everything happened with a flash of light. It was like a lightning bolt struck me in my heart with the resounding truth that said you're complete here in Australia. And even though I didn't know rationally or logically what my next step was. I felt that in me and I knew it was a life And shortly after that, within twenty four hours, I got a message inviting me to go to Mexico. It was very spontaneous and unexpected. So I feel like the elemental forces are always speaking to us.

28:12 It's a question of whether or all week you got sells the space to listen to them well. And I think one of the challenges I mean, I think of myself. I experienced the same thing a little bit later on my life than you did, but I experienced the same thing. I was actually in Cardagenia and going through a meditation week program with Joe card with you anyway, And what fascinated me is somewhere along that line, that inspiration, that sense was, you know what, it's time to experience Asia, and it specifically became Thailand. And I had spent some time in Vietnam, and so I appreciated the culture to some degree, and I just made the decision, you know, I'm going to do that, and all of a sudden, three years later, I'm here, and I'm you know, pretty much here full time. And what's fascinating to me is that as we as we start to seek that.

29:09 So many people really struggle with outside influences. I mean, you know, my kids struggle with the fact that I'm not there with them and with the grandkids, and I struggle with that too. But the reality is so many times that as you're surrounded by friends, by family, and you gain this inspiration that all right, this is this is kind of a path I want to follow. Oftentimes that path is so different than what other people would perceive for you. And as you say, you know, we can either be at the effect of others and so forth, or we can be in control of our own personal lives. So how do you suggest people when they're starting to experience that sense of all right, here's my path, how do they overcome the influences that are saying no, no, no, and gain the strength and the courage to be able to follow that path? And he even talked about the setbacks as they're doing that and the challenges that come up.

30:11 How are they able to overcome that? In your opinion, and how would you advise them to move forward on those paths? Yeah, it's a great question. The way I've dealt with it in my life is I'd say fairly unique to what most people do, and that is I remained silent until I've manifested enough of the new reality that it's undeniable. So what I mean by that is when I decided to make that move and sell everything off, I didn't really advertise it to anyone. I told my dad about it, and I told my partner because we were going to go separate ways, and that was it. I didn't tell anyone else until the property was pretty much bought and everything else was sold, And in fact, most people didn't know until I was already in Mexico. Right. Well, what it looked like when I was writing my book was I've seen a lot of authors get stuck, and they'll tell people that they're going to write a book. People will get excited for it, they get the emotional and orphin hit, and then they never end up writing because it's like they got the reward before they did the work, right, So then they'll just speak about how they're writing a book for many years instead of actually writing it. For me, I'd written out all the chapters, and I'd done about twenty to thirty revisions of the book before I started to promote it, and so I already had a lot of momentum in that way that I didn't have the influence of others. So for me, I've always felt an importance to really guard it and guard it with silence.

31:28 When I have a flame of inspiration, I wait until it starts to reveal itself and until I can see it really really clear for myself, and then I'll start to speak to other people about it, because even if people that are close to me, it doesn't matter, like they're all going to have an opinion, and that's felt. Even if they don't express it with words, they're expressing it somehow, and it's an energy, it's felt. There's this term call quantum entanglement right where we can get caught up and entangled through the energies of others. So that's a real thing. It exists, and I do my best to guard it until it's real enough that it's undeniable, and that will be my best encouragement for most people. I say, most people are too loud, too soon, and they don't put the energy where it needs to be put, which is actually moving the needle or the manifestation of whatever they're working.

32:16 Well, And you know it's It's interesting that the concept that comes up to me and the wording that comes up to me is keep your own counsel. And I think that becomes so important that you keep your own counsel. And I love how as you talk about the fact that all right, I'm ready to go, I'm manifesting this and so forth. You know, you went to different places and you learn different things, and I think it's important for all of us to recognize that we can, through that curiosity, reach out and find people who we can trust, that can help us along that path. We can't we just don't do it on our own, because as you say, you went to so many different retreats, so many different cultures, and that I'm sure that as you did that, each time you came back with some greater inspiration, greater understanding for you what your path was. And I think it's important for people to understand that. So how do they how did they reach that balance of keeping their own counsel and yet at some point in time reaching out to someone that they truly trust that can be kind of a mentor or if they're going, you know, on the retreats and so forth, where they can determine which retreats are going to be the greatest benefit to them.

33:34 Yeah, I'd say there's a couple couple of pieces. For me. One is that keeping your own counsel has an undertone of knowing oneself. Right if I'm if I'm not aware of me at a deeper level, then I'm not going to do the best job of keeping counsel to myself. So for me, that comes through self assessment and whether it's through whatever introspective practice people decide to take on generally, meditating, whatever it may be. And what I specifically pay attention to is the integrity. And when I mentioned integrity, I'm talking about when my feelings, thoughts, words, and actions align, Because if those pieces aren't aligning, then I don't know myself that well. If I'm saying one thing but doing another, then there's still pieces there for me to integrate. That's fine, It's part of the part of the journey, and we can do that for our whole lives at every final level.

34:22 So that's the first one. In order to keep my counsel, I'll make sure that I actually have a solid track record of knowing myself and living with a degree of integrity as far as reaching out to other people, I'd say that it's contextual. Who I'll reach out to will support depending on how they live their lives. And I look at what they demonstrate more than what they say. And so if I need someone for spiritual advice, I'll look to people that are further down the spiritual path than I am, and I won't take what they say for as if it's the be all and end all. I'll still assess whether or not it's really into me in my life, and I'll ask myself a question of where are they speaking from, right, because sometimes people will give us feedback, even if that further than the path in us, but they'll give us feedback from a place of docness within themselves, the docness that they haven't integrated in their lives yet. And so that's not going to be very useful because it's going to create the same common for me right well.

35:19 And I love the fact that it's like, you know, you watch their lives now what they say. In fact, I love this saying what you are thunder so loud in my ears, I cannot hear what you say, and you know, in some cases that's more of a negative approach, but I think you can reverse that become a positive statement that you know what, I will observe who you are and I don't care what you say, because there's so many people that say, oh, this person's that and so forth. But when you get to know them, you realize that they are truly a loving, kind, honest, full and integrity individual and that they just have people out there that are either jealous or just bullying or whatever and trying to put them down. So I think being able to identify people based on who they are, and as you watch who they are, it helps you to understand that these are the people that can be of value to you.

36:12 Yeah. Absolutely well. So as we come to a close, Mircael, what would be a message that you'd like to share with your out it's kind of a final message. Yeah. A beautiful metaphor that I love is that there's this train that passes by for all of us, and sadly most people never take the step to get on the train, and that train is that path, that sole path, that through path that we're speaking about before. So my invitation to people is to step on the train and go for a ride, because they can always get off at the next station and come back to what they've been leaving. But what they won't get is the time that they spent not thinking about it. The universe doesn't work in terms of any time other than right here, right now, So when we sit there waiting for the right time, it's actually never going to arrive. There are more opportune times the mong we decide that's the right time, and so give yourself the right time right now and go after whatever your greatest inspiration is. Life is way too short to put those things on the back burner.

37:10 Yeah, okay, that's great. So how do people find you? What's your website? Yeah? My website is Solepath dot io. And if people want to connect with what I'm up to and stay in touch with updates, Instagram is the best place. And my handle is meat Marker muble Et m a Ko. Okay, and that's on Instagram. Great, ye. And how do people find your book? My book that they can get it through my biolink in my Instagram or they can just search my name. The name of the book is sole Path on Amazon. It's available on Amazon as well. Okay, So on Amazon. That's that's always the easiest way. Is it mainly a book or can you do it for kindle or audio or how has it been set up so far? I know it's early in the pathways.

37:51 So yeah, of course the audiobook isn't that yet. That's a project for this year. But the kindle version and the physical copies are available. Oh great, well, Marco, thank you. This has been a great discussion and I really appreciate it. You know, the ideas and the philosophy that you've shared I think is so important for people to understand that reaching that sense of peace in your life and being able to realize that, yeah, life still happens, but being able to mentally, emotionally, spiritually recognize that, you know what, I am reaching that sense of peace I think is so important and that's obviously what you're teaching.

38:31 I a great thank you so much, doctor Doug. It's been great. Thank you for the work that you're doing and putting messages like this out there. And I want to say thank you to the listeners as well for training in well. I appreciate it, and folks, hey, thanks for listening. I hope this has beant something for you, and get to the website, get to the book. Some great insights there Anyway, this is doctor Doug saying no mistay, no