March 26, 2024

Living the dream with author, Pioneering international diplomat, scientist, and life coach Dr. Esther Zeledon

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Dive into the inspiring world of Dr. Esther Zeledon on the 'Living the Dream' podcast with Curveball. Discover how this international diplomat, scientist, and life coach transcends borders and norms to help people craft a limitless life and achieve balanced success. From pioneering listening-based development projects worth millions to reshaping the narrative of success, Dr. Zeledon's journey is a masterclass in turning dreams into reality.

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> Speaker A>Welcome, um, to the living the Dream podcast with curveball. Um, if you believe you can achieve, cheat, cheat.

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> Speaker A>Welcome, um, to the living the dream with curveball podcast, a show where I and a few guests that teach, motivate, and inspire.

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> Speaker A>Today, we're going to talk about how to have a limitless life and balanced success, as I am joined by pioneering international diplomat, scientist, and life coach, Dr. Esther Zeledon. Dr. Zeledon experience and expertise spans through diverse communities and cultures. So we're going to be talking to her about everything she's up to and what she means by having a limitless life and balanced success. So, Dr. Zelodon, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Speaker B>Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

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> Speaker A>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Speaker B>Yeah. So I like to introduce myself. Know, I'm in the business of impacting lives, and my superpower is that I help people identify their mission, purpose, and vision, plan it out, make it happen, and keep it going. And I've done that in all, throughout my whole entire life, from when I was, like, high school, college graduate, uh, school, and then as I went on, right, to academia, diplomats, and now entrepreneur. And for me, that's been a huge thing, right? It's, like, really about a global movement and changing the narrative, right? Moving away from these fixed timelines and metrics and these fixed labels of what success means. A certain title, a certain thing by a certain age, moving past that and really valuing everyone's uniqueness and their own aspirations and supporting that together for, uh, one another.

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> Speaker A>Okay, well, I know that you are a pioneering international diplomat, so explain to us about your work in that area and how you came to do that work and being such a pioneer.

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> Speaker B>Yeah, I was a diplomat. And you get to keep, uh, that title, um, and part of that career. But that started, um, a long time, like, maybe close now to 15 years ago, is when I started that trajectory. But I always wanted to change the world, right? I always wanted to be involved in that and serve and help people.

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> Speaker B>And for me, it was about where could I do that in a way that could have the most impact, the most reach globally. And so that's when I joined, um, UsAid. And at first, I joined that organization. So for people who are not aware, it's like United States International Agency for International Development. And when I joined that space, um, I first started off as, like, a scientific advisor, right, just on climate change. But when I got there, it was something that bothered me about it, was I noticed that a lot of the projects that we were doing around the world, and I was born in Nicaragua, right? So I'm born in the countries where we do a lot of this development work and outreach and working communities. What bothered me is that what we were taking the approach and taking volunteer work, charity, or even these big international development projects was that people were going in there with their own ideas. They were going in there and saying, this community needs water, they need houses, they need roads. But they weren't taking the time to actually go and listen to them and really ask them, what do you want? What do you need? What is your vision of success in this community and fund that instead? Because we were going in with our own ideas of what they wanted. And then what we were seeing is that after five years, the projects would then die, right? Like, basically, these NGOs or nonprofits would come together, use the money, and then after five years, whatever that was done would just disappear. And then the same problem would reemerge, right, 510 years later. But instead, what I pioneered there is we just need to listen, right? We can change the world by listening. Let's go listen to them. Let's take the time to help unpack their mission, purpose, and vision, what they want, and what's the change that they see, and then let's bring money to that. And so I was one of the first people to do that and changed that approach. And at this time, I had a very small team, like a small budget. In terms of that, I only had, like, $700,000.

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> Speaker B>And I was like, but we got to try it. And then we tried it. And, um, this was, like, in the Dr. Haiti border. And then from there, by funding what they wanted, naturally people started coming together and wanting to work on it. And then money started pouring in. And then we were able. Then it grew up to $100 million. And then, more importantly, then the government took it over, right? So there was sustainability. There was buy in. There was people that were passionate about it, that were proud of whatever happened there. And then from there, then I got invited to go then scale this globally, this approach, right? And it's not an approach of, I'm showing how I build houses in one country, and this is how we should build houses in another country. But instead, it's just, let's share the approach of listening and valuing what people's own aspirations are, and let's serve as facilitators to make those visions a reality. And then that's kind of what I still do now.

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> Speaker A>Right.

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> Speaker B>I did it in that space. But now, even though I still work and I still do some consultancy and international development, what I saw is that the struggle that people had in listening was because they didn't have the space and they hadn't been given the opportunity to listen to themselves and unpack purpose m for their own sake, right? And so they would say, I don't know how to listen.

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> Speaker B>I'm like, well, have you ever been listened to? Why did you become an engineer, an architect, a water sanitation specialist, right. Or a diplomat? And I think just having the exercise of them unpacking those questions helped them become then better serve agents and change agents, and become more effective at changing the world.

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> Speaker A>Right.

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> Speaker B>By knowing their own self and their own value add, they were able to help more people. And so that's how that all connects.

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> Speaker A>Well, let the listeners know, ah, about your work as a scientist as well.

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> Speaker B>Yes. So part of that, when I was, um, in graduate school and in college, I was also feeling that trailblazing movement back then. Back then, they didn't have majors like environmental science or studies, right? And I come from an immigrant family.

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> Speaker B>So for me, I grew up with no money.

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> Speaker B>I grew up paycheck to paycheck hustling. I was sold. Follow this american dream. And at that time, you see as the checkmark list, as you go to school, you get a degree, you can get a six figure job, right? So I was on that trajectory. But in college, my parents were like, I need you to be a doctor, lawyer, which is a lot of what immigrant families push. And I said, I don't want to work in a hospital.

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> Speaker B>I have actually, a severe vomit phobia. Uh, it's not for me. It's not in alignment with me. But I still finished the premed program, which was, like, all the science in there.

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> Speaker B>But I wanted to do applied science, right? I wanted to be able to bring science to people. And so that's what led me on the path of creating, uh, my own major at that time, which is earth and environmental science, which now is super popular.

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> Speaker B>But back then, it was a really hard sell. They were like, there isn't jobs for that. There's no industry for that. They're like, there's no job market. You're going to end up with no opportunities. But I felt, my intuition was like, this is the future. Climate change is the future. Environmental problems is the future, maybe right now, but it will be needed. And so that's when I got my foundation of the science, and then I continued that in graduate school and I did some research.

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> Speaker B>Um, I actually went back to my home country in Nicaragua, and there I worked in the jungles. And there what I wanted to show was that, yes, we have science. I was looking at satellite data. So NASA takes pictures of the land, right? And you can look at change over time, but those pictures don't tell you the full story. It showed that, yeah, we were losing deforesting land in the jungle, but it doesn't tell you why it's happening. There's a lot of theories. And I was like, well, we need to go talk to the people again about the listening, right? I need to hear their stories and then connect that to the science, right? These things need to speak to one another. And so there, then I went and did interviews and met with and listened to all these different communities that lived all across this region that was, uh, suffering from this. And there I learned that it was actually a lot more complex than what the imagery was saying. There was a war. And during that war, during that time, they didn't necessarily use the land, but then post war, they had to use the land. A lot of them were young and they didn't have agricultural training.

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> Speaker B>So there I learned how to actually do a really good, really solid research methodology, really learn how to listen and approach people and compensate people for their time, right? So many times you see people doing surveys with folks, but don't think about that. If you go interview someone all day, right, that could be someone's workday that you're taking out of that, right? So how do you create a value add in that experience? And then I connected that to the science to make a story, right? The satellites alone couldn't tell the story. Uh, and the people's narratives didn't tell the story. We needed both. And that's something. Then I took on, took with me to my international development life. And even now as a life coach, I read the research and the studies relating to mental health, to purpose, to thinking about your life, and even statistics about depression and anxiety. And then I also link that to people's aspirations, people's stories, what people have overcome and how. And resilience, right? And help put that together for people, right, to make. What is the intersection of them both? And we have so much stuff always shooting at us, like the new trend, the new this, and how do we make sense of that and make sense of that in our lives, right? So that's something that, it's just a different application of what I'd always had the lens for.

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> Speaker A>Okay, well, I know, your main thing in your bio, uh, you talked about everything that you're doing in the world to help people create a limitless life and balance success. So, first of all, explain to the listeners what that means, and then explain to the listeners all you are doing to help people create that and, uh, change their lives to a powerful roar.

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> Speaker B>Yeah. So, limitless life.

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> Speaker B>And the reason for that word is that we are limitless, right. We can have any aspiration, any vision that we want. But what happens most of the time is that people give up on it. It's like the statistic that's out there is 92% of people give up on their dreams because they feel that it's unobtainable. And I mean, that higher vision, right.

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> Speaker B>Not the metric goals of promotion, uh, or a certain amount of income. Right. The big vision aspiration that you have, right? What's that legacy you want to leave? What's that vision in 20 years you want to have? And they give up on it. And so my whole thing is we have to move past that mindset that it's unobtainable. It actually is. Everything is obtainable to us. There are limitless opportunities wherever you are in the world.

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> Speaker B>Now, it may be different depending where you are in the world, right? So some people, it may be that they might have access, more access, so they can get it in a shorter time period, and it may take people longer. It may take people 20 to 30 years, but it's there.

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> Speaker B>And we always overestimate what we can do in one year, and we underestimate what we can do in five. So, for me, the big push in the book is that I have chasing the american dream crossed out, and I have highlighted creating your limitless life, because we need to move away from the narrative, the current narrative of the american dream, because the original definition of the american dream is very positive.

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> Speaker A>Right.

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> Speaker B>It's about opportunity. It's about that things are accessible to you and that you can have it right in the United States.

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> Speaker B>But the problem is how it's functioned in reality is that we've defined it as society. Is that you have to get married by 30, is that you have to have a promotion by 35. By 40, you should have your two kids, your five bedroom house or your ten bedroom house and your two cars. Our conversations around Christmas and Thanksgiving are about, oh, so tell me about your partner, or tell me about that. Did you get that promotion? Or, oh, uh, what is the next thing you're working towards? And instead, let's change those conversations to what is your highest aspiration. How can I support you? What do you want to be sought out for? And really give the space for the opportunity for people to vocalize what's their innermost desires and support them and champion them. So my book is part memoir, where I talk about how I struggled, right? And I struggled, uh, growing up in the money. I struggled financially. I struggled with the burden and the pressure to go after these check marks. And I also had the burden of that I needed to support my family, my parents, all those things. So I had that drive at first. At first was like, oh, my goal is to help my family become stable. But then I lost myself along the way. So then when I actually achieved the american dream, I was very miserable because it wasn't my legacy, it wasn't what I want to do. And even though I had made impact as a scientist, as a diplomat, even as an academic, I wanted more. And my thing was more global, and it was different.

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> Speaker B>And I'm giving in the book permission for that to be okay, because then when we're in those situations, we feel overwhelmed by, oh, my God, I should be grateful, or, uh, I should just be satisfied, or I feel this guilt for I have everything that everyone desires. My thing is that it's okay when you're trailblazing, when you're pioneering.

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> Speaker B>You want to bring your unique gifts to other spaces, and that's fine, right? That's why it's your own limitless life, whatever that is.

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> Speaker B>It could mean that you're going to different ten different spaces.

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> Speaker B>It could mean your limitless life that you want a house or a certain promotion.

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> Speaker B>But the point is not to create the same cookie cutter thing for everyone, that it's different for everyone.

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> Speaker B>So my book, the part memoir, talks about my life, how I went through all that, and then how I then created my own limitless life that's aligned with me and that it's my own, right, and it's my own and my families, on how we want our lives to be. And then the second part is actually giving people the tools and those questions on how do you know what it is? Right. I get a lot of people that come to me, like, I don't know what I want. I just know I want something different, but I don't know what that is. And so the second part is all those questions, right? Because I had done a lot of research on purpose, and a lot of the research I had done on purpose was very basic. It was like, what do you love?

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> Speaker B>And what can you teach? And what's your passion.

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> Speaker B>But the thing is, mine goes a lot deeper. What is your unique way of solving problems?

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> Speaker B>Um, for example, you have a way of helping people that you've helped your entire life since you were seven years old. It doesn't matter what job you're in, what title you're in, what you're doing. That's your gift. So how do we giving those questions for people to unpack their value, add their gift, so, one, they can go after it, and second, they can stop comparing themselves to other people. Because your gift is your own. Just because you might be in the same space with everyone else. You bring something special to the table. You bring something special to everywhere you're at.

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> Speaker A>Right?

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> Speaker B>And so that second part is unpacking, um, all those inner questions and doing the uncomfortable exercise of, like, what do I want to be remembered for? Writing your obituary, rewriting it. And it's uncomfortable. But we have to do that to know, are we in alignment and what is our true vision, because it gets really noisy with society. And the third part is how this stuff, like, when you discover that for yourself, how that then applies to everything, right? We need to change the way we're dating. Like, when we're dating, we always ask people, how do you want to raise kids?

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> Speaker B>How do you budget? And instead, it should be like, what are your highest aspirations? What kind of legacy do you have? Because if you are not on the same page of the type of impact you want to have in the world and the life you want to build, then it's not going to work. Right? You need to find people who are in alignment with your values, with your legacy, with your unique how to you want to bring in the world. If that's not aligned, then that's when problems come. 1015 minutes, uh, 15 years, sorry, not minutes later, down the line. And how that then applies to your family when you have children, how it applies to communities, how it applies to countries, how it applies to the teams and the workplace you're in.

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> Speaker B>And so that's the three sections of it.

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> Speaker B>Right? Um, my memoir, unpacking your purpose, how to map it, how to build that resilience is what you overcome. You keep overcoming.

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> Speaker B>So you need to do that other side of purpose, too. If my purpose is to help a lot of people in the world unpack their own purpose, that makes me vulnerable to people taking advantage of me. That makes me vulnerable of staying in things too long. That makes me vulnerable of people pleasing. So I have to also be careful of that and create filters to that right. That's something that's always going to keep happening to me because that's my essence. So how do you create limits and boundaries around that so you can still showing up but also protect yourself.

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> Speaker A>Right.

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> Speaker B>From the vulnerabilities? And then how do you apply it?

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> Speaker B>Right. So it's the book and workbook, and I still use the workbook every year.

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> Speaker B>I use my own program, and this is, um, a program that I've helped thousands and thousands with, and I'm sharing it to the world for them to use and affordably. This is something that I needed. My own inner child needed this in high school, and I read tons of books on purpose, and none of them showed me how. And so I wrote this for my inner child, mini me that exists as a younger self that can use this or even me now, because I need to constantly be doing this work. So I always know my alignment where I'm going.

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> Speaker B>Um, and so far, it's been great hearing how it's helped so many people get that clarity.

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> Speaker A>Well, that was going to be my next question about your book. So I'm glad you went into it. Let listeners know how, uh, they can pick it up.

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> Speaker B>Yeah, it's on Amazon. It's at Barnes and Nobles. It's in books and books. Any type of retailer, that's your favorite, it's there and it's there. And there's a book, um, a workbook and an audio version.

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> Speaker B>And I've kept the Kindle version on Amazon and even at Barnes and Nobles.

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> Speaker B>Really, um, affordable, $0.99. Because for me, this is part of a global movement. Right. I want this to be that we change conversations that we have in our houses, we change conversations we have with our friends. We create more positive narratives that are about supporting and uplifting each other. And I hope through my story, which was. That was the hardest part to write, was to be super vulnerable with my story to the world. I hope the story helps to serve that.

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> Speaker B>If I could do it, anyone can do it. And that if you just even want to just pick up the workbook and not read the book, the workbook helps, gives you that clarity on who you are and what you want to build in your life so that you can go after it.

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> Speaker A>Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that the listeners need to be aware of.

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> Speaker B>Yeah, um, actually, we're working on our second and third book, and this one I'm actually writing with my spouse.

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> Speaker B>And we're super excited about it because it's the next step right. Once you create your own limitless life and you realize all the potential, all the options that are there for you, and you start living in alignment, what's the next step then? If you want to trailblaze, trailblaze new initiatives, pioneer. What's that like?

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> Speaker B>And then we're also writing a book about couples. It's really important that once you find that alignment, that we need to also change the narrative around that, because the new narrative with the new generation is that if you're a woman about women empowerment, and feminism, that it means that you shouldn't be married. And I'm challenging that, because even though I am, I've gone, the education I've gotten after building these movements, one of the best things is being married to my partner and having someone that's in alignment with you 100% and supportive and that we can build the household that we want and, uh, within the gender norms that we like. He does the cooking and the child and taking care of the child, but also does martial arts and does plays his own sports, right. That we can have. It's not one or the other that a man is like this and a woman's like this, that you can build your own couple and your own household and the way that helps build the life and the partnership in the family or just, uh, the unit that you want. So, those are our next projects.

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> Speaker B>It's really the next step into trailblazing. And as couples like what you can actually build together when it's in the right alignment.

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> Speaker A>Okay, well, throw out your contact info so listeners can keep up with everything that you're up to.

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> Speaker B>Yeah, you can find me at, uh, be act change on Instagram. So it's be like, be yourself, act. Because we got to take intentional, aligned action to keep things going and then change. Right? Because together, if we're all in alignment and we're all living out our own mission and dreams, we can change the world.

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> Speaker B>So it's be, act change on Instagram, and that's our website. And then you can find me on LinkedIn. And my main thing is about building this community and this movement. So if you message me, I will respond. If you don't have any champions in your life that are supporting you, feel free to reach out.

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> Speaker B>I'll champion you through every dream.

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> Speaker B>Deserves, uh, a champion and someone who believes in it.

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> Speaker A>So be, ah@change.com.

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> Speaker B>Yes, be@change.com got you.

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> Speaker A>All right, close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or just any final thoughts you have for the listeners to.

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> Speaker B>Just go after it. There's no crazy idea.

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> Speaker B>There's no crazy dream or anything. If it's in your gut and that little voice in your mind and in your head is telling you you can do that, and there's more, it's because there is. So go after it. Do it. It is within your reach. Every single dream I had younger, even when I had know, I dreamed about traveling the world and it know, but you got to take intentional action to make it happen. But it's within your reach. So keep dreaming, keep soaring. Just don't let it die.

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> Speaker A>All right, ladies and gentlemen, like Dr.

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> Speaker A>Zelodon said, if you know of anybody that wants to make that change and needs a champion in their life, please follow rate review share this episode to as many people as possible. If you have any guests or suggestion topics, Cjackson 102 uh@cox.net is the place to send them.

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> Speaker A>As always, thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Dr. Zelodon, thank you for joining us and sharing your expertise.

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> Speaker B>Thank you so much for having me. Thanks, listeners.

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> Speaker A>For more information on the living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurveball.com.

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> Speaker A>Until next time, stay focused on living the drink. Drink.