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Losing that and also the image that I have in the industry. And open myself to the unknown and deeply listening was very important in that process. Bring it back, bring it back.
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What would you do if overnight you lost it all? That's the question with Gabriel Segura, my guest today, had to grapple with. Gabriel has an extensive 30 -year career in the world of finance.
After successfully launching his own lending company,and building status, success, and wealth, Gabriel lost it all after he became the victim of financial fraud. At the same time, his daughter began struggling severely with her mental health, and his wife Giselle had been diagnosed with cancer. You may recognize Giselle's story from our April 30th episode. In the blink of an eye, Gabriel's life had been turned upside down, and he was forced into a deep grieving process where he had to rediscover himself and his purpose.
Through a lot of reflection, deep spiritual work, and a great deal of courage, Gabriel began the process of reinventing himself and building a new life. I'm so honored to have him share his story with us today.
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So Gabriel, I wanted to start our conversation at the beginning, I guess. I want to hear a little bit about how you grew up and you're from Columbia, no? Yes. Okay, so tell me about what was it like for you growing up in Columbia? It was beautiful. I grew up in an environment where I had a lot of friends, Gary, in my neighborhood where 20, 30 kids playing all together.
The TV at that time was only two channels so it was quite boring the TV and no internet devices. So my life as a child was a lot of outdoors. It was beautiful. Two channels. Yes. Yes, no distractions. my goodness. Yeah, yeah, it's a whole lifetime ago. And with big family? I have two sisters.
I think, yes, my family, beautiful family, very blessed, the relationship with my parents. Probably I will do a highlight of my father. My father, he died like 16 years ago, but the more important legacy that he gave me was my ability to question, one, and second, that he was very humble, quite uncommon for men.
at that time, very humble man and I appreciate that so much. You have been helping me so much in my life. My mom, he was an architect. My mom is still alive and she's an artist. Also, she gave me wings. She allowed me to fly. She was not a controlling person. So, and the, of course, the influence of my friends. I'm being blessed with a lot of friends.
And they've been keeping those friendships, some of those friendships up to today. So very blessed. Amazing. So how did you end up, cause you went into, so your first school bachelor's was in industrial engineering, if I remember correctly. Is that kind of following your father's footsteps in some way? Cause there's a relationship there, no? No, no, no. I got my bachelor's in Columbia, an industrial engineer.
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At the time was between being an architect or being in finance or business, business. And I chose the last one, especially because architect at that time, at least in Colombia was not such a good, it was hard economically, beautiful and hard. But so I chose to be more a business and that is what I have done. Yeah.
So you went on to create your, tell me about your business, because you created a business in financial consulting and you've been doing this for 30 years now. I started my career in consulting in one of the big five. I hate it. I hate it. It was super controlling, that kind of environment where the company thinks that the employees, the soul of the employees belong to them, let's put it that way. And I didn't like it.
I moved very quickly to finance. I started working in banking. Then I got the opportunity from a bank that gave me an opportunity to bring to the United States and they did my citizenship process for me. Very blessed. And then that was probably 2000. In year 2000, that bank got into a bankruptcy situation in Colombia.
Even though our bank here in the United States was okay, we have to close. The bank was eventually sold. But for me, I got into a nice opportunity to create a company. It's a financial entity, a lending private company. The technical word is factoring, factoraje in Spanish, factoring, which is that we finance companies, we lend to companies. So since year 2002, 2001, I started doing that.
And in 2003, I resigned from the company. That was one of the many steps into the abyss, into the hole, into the unknown abyss. And stepping into the unknown, that was probably my second time.
06:32.
And I, and I resigned. I remember I called my wife one day and said, ⁓ here, she said, come, come home. We have two kids. So I, I, I swallow what I had in, in Savings in the 401k and I went home and I started structuring my, a dream was creating my own financial entity. And I started in 20, 2004, 2004. And I kept that company until year 2020.
Two, I was able to solve that company. It was not, let's put it away. it was voluntary, but I went into a big fraud, very big fraud and I lost it. I lost the company. I owned a lot of money to investors and in order to rescue investors, I chose to sell the company, lost all the money that I built in 19 years.
And that was a little bit of that. And then after that, it was a process of big grieving. It was hard, very hard because it was losing the fraud was one of the grieving steps. Losing the money was another one. Losing the company was another one. And then I have to in order to sell it, I signed an uncompete. So that, by the way, ends this month.
And I had to, so I lost my career. So that was another time where my wife, the sport with my wife was essential. I remember she told me, take some time, take some time off. So you don't continue building the same out of momentum, out of the same, keeping doing the same. But it was probably the first time in my life where I felt like I lose my, driven my drive to create.
It was deep. I take some time off and I create, I follow with the beautiful guidance of my daughter. In the New Year's Eve, she asked me, Papi, you always tell me to follow my dreams and I don't see you happy. What do you want to do? And I was so beautiful, the question. With that, we create a space for healing, for helping people.
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My wife on one side and on the other side, this is very like a passion, like something that I do because I love, but I don't want to make this a source of income that I have to sustain the family and pay the bills. So on the other side, I also keep doing my consultancy in the industry that I was working on for many years. And that's what I'm doing up to today.
And we'll see the uncompeted ends, how I move. So I wanna, let's go back and unpack some of that. So first of all, I just wanna make clear that you didn't commit fraud, you were a victim of fraud. Yes, I was a victim of fraud. It's a very important distinction. Yes, yes. The way you told that story was a little bit like, this guy deserves that. No, no, you were a victim of fraud.
When I was reading something you wrote and you said the term business grief. And when you said that I was like, wow. Cause I often do feel that people just are very linear about grief and they think that grief is just like when you have the loss of a person, right? But the truth is grief is when you lose anything that's really deep and meaningful to you, right? And this here had been this business, it had been your baby.
I mean, anybody who's been an entrepreneur knows the kind of work that it takes to grow a company to the level that you had grown in. And then all of a sudden it's gone, right? The wealth is gone, the business is gone. And there's also, for me, I often talk about it as, so before I became a coach, I used to be an art director. I used to be a graphic designer. And...
I know for me to become a graphic designer, like there was a lot of work and there was a certain pedigree. Like I went to one of the top art schools and I graduated top of my class and I worked at Sony Music and I had all of this sort of prestigious jobs on my resume. And I remember the transition of like letting go of the ego part of like, I'm a designer and this is my identity, this is who I am. Like, what am I if I'm not a designer?
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So I imagine that part of what you were grieving was like your identity in some way, right? Like who you had known yourself to be in that way. I mean, just grief all around. Yes. How, I guess let's talk about how did you heal from that? How did you go to work at repairing yourself from that? Because I'm just thinking it out and it had to be pretty deep.
I think, well, we all have tools to help us, you know, work in those nights, those dark moments. I've been helpful and grateful for having those from people and also from planetesans and so, but from my family, my wife. A lot of listening was super important for me.
Because at the end it's either that life is harsh, it's bad, or life is telling me something. So the question is if I'm allowing myself to listen what life is telling me, do I need to continue being in that archetype, in that character? Is that the best version of me?
Or maybe there is a better version, but only by losing and be able to get rid of what we have. I had had of that image, especially as a lender, because as a lender, there is a lot of ego and you are the money guy. You are the big guy. You go to the best hotels and you have the best cards.
Losing that and also the image that I have in the industry, you know? And I opened myself to the unknown and deeply listening was very important in that process. Did your spiritual journey begin before this happened or did it begin as a result of this situation and you? No, I think my spiritual path began since I was a child.
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I don't remember my sister telling me when I was like 3 or 4 years old and I was playing drums with some pods and singing, hey hey su cristo a sound from about Jesus but no, I mean I remember in 2000 I got into a crisis where I was deeply questioned if the best version of me is through being a lender.
Because the archetype of a lender and an attorney are in the lower scale of spirituality. You have the coaches, you have the spiritual guide, and you have the attorneys and lenders. And I was... That's why I think your story felt fascinating and I wanted to talk to you because I'm like, how do you go from there to like here? Like... It's fun.
I remember at that time I went to visit a lady that she was like a guru, like a medium, that's medium, medium worship. And she was telling me, Gabriel, you are wrong. Everything in the universe is energy and everything is neutral. It's however you move it. And one of the most effective ways of helping people is by through money. Very effective. So, and it was so empowered.
To me that I ended up purchasing the book, the control of the chairs of my company back then in 2015. But to answer your question, it has been very relevant in my path, in my business path, my spiritual work, super relevant. Because at the end, I remember one day I heard something that says that you can only escape from a prison.
If you first acknowledge that you are in a prison. Once you get to acknowledge that you are in a prison, you can escape from it. And part of the main prisons that we have is it has to do with money and it has to do with being a provider, especially for men. And of course, a single mom, I'll talk, I mean, it's super important, but especially for men.
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Like we have to be the providers and we have no ability to fail. We're not, and we cannot access emotions. I cry because that is super, super sad because doesn't, doesn't allow us to be the best expressions of who we are. And I'm being able to break or to question those ideologies.
Imposed by society requires somehow to get into the spiritual part. I think is in really going myself and who I am, what I'm here for, what is my purpose in life. And those are not questions about if I'm going to be in one profession or the other, but how I'm going to walk on a daily basis in my life.
And if my work is in alignment with my higher purpose. And that's spirituality. So you were already asking yourself those questions when this happened, right? Like you were already in an inquiry of, am I living the best version of myself? Am I in alignment with what really matters to me? So that by the time this happened, you were able to really receive it.
Because it was very powerful for, your response was very powerful to have all this tragedy happen to you and then your response be, what's this here to teach me? What am I, what's the lesson in this for me? It's, you're talking about it kind of casually, but it's really a very powerful response. And I think most human beings would struggle with getting there.
So that's why I wanted to dig deeper and see if this really was for you, if this was birthed out of that struggle or if it was, but it sounds like you already had some foundation in place that allowed you to be in this conversation in this way. Yes, I was blessed to have some tools, very important tools in my life. And I need to add to that, to the soup.
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That was boiling my wife was diagnosed with cancer while this was happening so so So he really really put my head down to the ground and I and I knew there was a time for a hard stop I need to stop my wife was telling me to stop and I say okay and and I really stopped a lot of what I
That was in my, at the moment that I received the information that I received was to observe my thoughts, just to observe the thoughts. Because we may have a tendency to become apocalyptic. So we start, my God, what am I gonna do? I'm a failure and whatever I wanna do in my life. So.
how I'm gonna be able to pay the bills. So a lot of was to observe the thoughts, to put my mind, to see the thoughts were created from a space of fear or love. And if they came from a space of fear, if the thoughts were bad, it’s because most of those apocalyptic thoughts were just options that the bulk will never come to reality.
So are those useful for me? Does providing me a good information, it helps me or not? If not, so how could I get into thoughts based on love and allowing myself to be present there in a space.
No, I remember it was so deep that I went to a lady very terribly that does astrology and she said to me, Gabriel, you right now, you are like if a building collapses and it's full of dust, you are in that space where you are not supposed to see where to aim. You need to be there.
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And with the first glimpse of wind, you will take your cells and you will ship. You take your ship in the direction that you need to take it. But be there. It was beautiful. I mean, it was hard. Be in the no direction. Be in the sort of like, just sit in the mess for a while. Is that what we're talking about? Like, because I mean, it's interesting because even for me, when I look,
I can say I'm a leadership coach, so my instinct is to come at it from, okay, what are we gonna do? And the idea of just sitting there in the stillness of the mess and not immediately pick up a broom and start cleaning up, it's interesting. It's confronting in some ways. It's like, huh? But I can see how unwilling we are.
to just be in the stillness of the mess and be in the quiet of that and hear what they're trying to teach us and the lessons that are coming in that. It's part of the peeling of the onion. I realized I was in a prison. I was in a prison working in a certain way that I was not allowing me to flow in the best expression of myself. He allowed me to open the space for a new.
without knowing what expression shall be. A lot of listening. A lot of listening. Listening to myself, listening to my thoughts, observing again if the thoughts came in from fear or from love, observing my intuition. What is the little, little step that I want to take first instead of trying to put my resume again just to see how I can benefit from this?
How can I use this in my advantage to create a better version of me? It was hard, Gary. It was not an easy thing to do. I remember I did the Camino de Santiago to do that. I said I need to walk, I need to be in silence. So I chose to do the Camino de Santiago by myself. And I took the route that has less people so I was able to listen. I remember when I...
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I got to Santiago and I got to the cathedral. I got also what my daughter was in a big crisis. She was calling me that she was very depressed. So I had those three things in my mind, my wife with the cancer, my career and my daughter. And I started crying and crying when I got in front of the plans of the cathedral. Very deep, very honoring myself, honoring remembering one of my birthdays.
I was by myself and I took my car by myself. And I was in the middle of the ocean and I don't know in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of nowhere. And I told my son and the spirit out loud, I said, son, I'm sorry, if I cannot pay your tuition and your college, I'm not gonna do it. But I need to get out, allow me to get rid of.
all those obligations that have been imposed upon me by society. So I opened for the new, I totally opened myself to see what life would bring me and allowing myself to lose everything, including my wife. Yeah, yeah. I was present for me as just, I don't know that you would recognize it as this.
at the time especially, but what's present for me is just the courage of like sitting with your stuff. And I feel like we try to numb ourselves to that. We try to push it. We try to distract ourselves with our phones, internet, entertainment, sex.
porn, drugs, whatever, right? We try to suppress that, but the courage of just sitting with your stuffs and allowing yourself to be still and listen and be with it and allow yourself to experience the grief and the pain, it takes a great deal of courage to do that. But I think there's so much to learn from being willing to do that.
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I think a lot of us are spending a lot of time trying to run away from our shadows, right? Trying to run away from the stuff that haunts us at night, that scares us. Yeah, so I just think it's very courageous that you were willing to do that. I wanna.
I want to talk about two more things. Well, I want to make sure we get into two things. Number one is I want to just give the listeners what happened next so that people know that because we're leaving them in the down part of the story. And I also want to get into a little bit of your journey in in becoming an ancestral, a facilitator of ancestral ceremonies. And and that's how I met you through through these indigenous ceremonies. And it's a really beautiful practice. And I was I definitely want to make sure that we get into some of that as well.
So you're in the cathedral, you're crying, your life fell apart. What happened next?
the next I came back I remember to Miami and at that time I was first for synchronicity I would say Gary we have already sold our property in Miami and we bought a farm in Homestead close to Miami and at that time that you mentioned it the intention was to bring Taitas bring people that was come come to our land to offer ceremonies.
Plan B is the most. But I get back to my property and I remember is when I mentioned you that for first time I couldn't be able to create anything. I would say that I was depressed, let's put it that way. And I start sitting a lot. I mean, and with my wife of course, because my wife was with the cancer. And I sit with the plan medicines and listen. And it was a...
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It has been, too many years for me, a very important tool that has helped me overcome difficulties. It has been a very effective tool. So one of the things that when my daughter asked me about, what do you dream about? What came? I was riding a bicycle day to two days after that and I was, and I catch myself daydreaming, daydreaming of me offering ceremonies.
And since I was already a lot observing my thoughts and observing if they came from an space, an apocalyptic space of fear, or if they come from love, I catch it and I say, well, interesting. Is this a thought based on love or fear? And I say, love, because I mean, how could I offer a whole space for ceremonies with that nice space of fear?
It's based on love. So I remember I came back to my wife and we sent more dentation instead of having the land to offer other people to come and offer ceremonies here for us to start offering those ceremonies ourselves. And that was a beautiful and very important decision, not only for me, but for my wife, for her healing in her cancer. Because she also...
got from the plants that say you will heal, but you will heal through service. so we say, okay, let's start with the church and we start with the church. And also in the meantime, since I, I, I start doing my consultancy and in the financial industry, something that I know, I mean, the industry that I know, so I can continue paying the bills in the meantime. And that's where I am, Gary.
That's what I'm doing and I enjoy my financial services. I think it's service at the end. The way that I see it is a service in people. And I'm making up for now. I'm going to continue doing that and make it back to the industry since my non -compete ends this month. So some way or the other, but not full time because for sure my passion is through Tierra Amor for our services, offering ceremonies.
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And the reason why we do is I, from my own experience, it has been very effective on me. It has been, it's probably the tool that has been more effective. Besides, of course, the support from my wife has been very important for me too. So I think a lot of our listeners are going to be new to the concept of plant medicine and these ancestral ceremonies.
And I would love to spend some time to just explain, break down a little bit this information so that people understand that these, because the interesting thing is like, they're sort of getting a little trendy right now and in a way, but these.
These ceremonies, these practices, these medicines are ancient. I mean, ancient, ancient. And they have a beautiful tradition and it's beautiful that they're getting some attention as well. But I think it's also important to understand where they came from and the connection that...
those of us, especially who have indigenous, I mean, I think everybody has some indigenous background on some level, but those of us that feel connected to that indigenous background, it's very meaningful for us, especially to participate in these ceremonies and participate in these practices. I will say, Gary, that it's a blessing that you use the word trendy. I will use the word that is
that are getting back to be known, spread the word. After the 60s, where some tools were used incorrectly, because were used in a recreational way, or in a way to escape. In reality, I mean, I was, I mean, in my experience, spread the word, I cannot let up for myself. In my experience, these tools,
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are very effective in knowing ourselves. So it's like if I go to a therapist and I can tell to a therapist my situation, first I can only tell what I have in my consciousness. I cannot tell what I have in my subconscious or what I have suppressed. Then the therapist receive information through the lenses of their experience and using their
what they have learned in college, they give us a feedback that again, we receive through our own lenses. So it's a lot of information that is lost in between. When we enter in these sacred spaces with these medicines, we're going communion with ourselves. We see ourselves in the mirrors and we have to access the subconsciousness. We tap to
get to access the mystical part and so are very effective. And there is of course a lot of things that are unknown, a lot of fear, which is okay because part of what we do is entering into a space that we are vulnerable, that we open the space of the unknown and listen and feel.
getting in contact with our emotions. So I think that's important for me to express. Also that when someone receives the call, because this is something that shall not be done because someone did it. And so let's see what is this going on. Like you go to a restaurant because you become famous. No, it's a call.
And shall be a call when we open ourselves to sit with ourselves, to become a better human, to peel from us situations that we don't need to carry with us anymore, to be able to forgive and eventually to love life unconditionally and love us unconditionally, knowing who we are.
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Capital letters that at the end is getting rid of a lot of ideologies, dogmas that we have set into ourselves that doesn't serve us good anymore. And I think for me, that's what the ceremonies are for. I love it. Yeah, and I think my use of the word trendy comes from concern.
That I have about the things that I love about you and your wife and what you're doing in Tierra Amor is that first of all, the very clear, your training is very clear, your experience is very clear, the reverence that you have for the processes that you carry out and for the experience of the participants that come through your church.
It's very palpable. And I have a concern that's not always the case. And so I think that's why I use that word, right? Like I think that there's just a lineage that you and your wife come from and have are carrying out that's very obvious in that you're carrying out these ancient traditions. And it's a really beautiful practice. And I was really moved.
by your, just the reverence that you have for the work, the reverence that you have for the medicines, the reverence that you have for the people and the love. And I wanted to make sure to distinguish that from other experiences that I had that felt trendy. I think the intention is super important, Gary.
If the person that is going to see it with the ceremonies have an intention of healing or an intention to know yourself, then you are going to resonate with someone that is going to provide you that. So you will avoid getting to a convenience with this or taking this medicine just for recreation because it is not the correct use.
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of those tools for recreation. But if the person has the correct intention, I'm sure that correct opportunity and place will come for them. What we create, what we manifest is very important. And that's not the only thing you guys do. You guys have sweat lodges. You do...
a lot of community events as well. And one of the things that I really enjoyed about you guys is that you're musicians and you do bonfires where everybody's just sharing indigenous songs. It's a really beautiful space where you guys have created. And if anyone is ever in Homestead or you wanna come travel down to experience it, it's absolutely worth the trip. I highly recommend it.
And my partner is coming to you soon, by the way. He just got the call. He just got the call, so you'll be seeing him soon. Well, Gabriel, you are lovely. It's so fun to talk to you. And I'm really on a personal level just.
very grateful to have found you and your space and special shout out to our friend Jennifer for connecting us and introducing me to you guys and I hope to be part of your community for many years to come.
My prayer is to connect, to do the work in something that really resonates with the person. That whatever we do is in alignment with our higher best expression of ourselves. And it's what I have been in my case. So, because ceremonies are great for giving us the tools. So in the daily life,
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Our daily ceremony of life is beautiful. And yes, there's grieving and it's important and it's necessary. And it's a beautiful opportunity that we can take, that we shall take. And there are tools for sure to help us through coaching, through planizing, through whatever it is for us to be able to listen if...
We are creating from a space of love, a space of fear. And what do we deserve? What do we want to create? Because we deserve to be happy. We deserve to be whole, complete, and do the things that we truly love to do. And the money follow that path, no vice versa. Instead of dancing for the money, it's dancing for life, for ourselves, with joy.
I think it was precisely Gabriel's willingness to sit in his grief and reflect that allowed him to discover what was next.
It was that willingness to sit still in the quiet that allowed him to hear what was next and begin the courageous path of pivoting his life, of letting go of his material attachments and his old identity. He didn't run away from it. He leaned into it and asked himself, what is this here to teach me? Is this the best version of me? I think asking those questions requires a great deal of courage.
To be in the void of a question unanswered, to be willing to let go of how you've seen it your entire life requires courage. And more importantly, to be willing to receive the answer wherever it may take you requires courage. In today's instant gratification world, we're constantly looking for that next dopamine hit. This means we're not always the best at being uncomfortable, at struggling.
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at having the patience to sit still in the quiet and listen to our intuition. But what if instead of reacting we paused? What if instead of rushing to figure out the answer, we allow ourselves to sit in the quiet, to lean into the void, and allowing yourself to just be? There's a divine intelligence in your body and your intuition. I've said this before on the show, we're always being spoken to at all times.
Question is, are you courageous enough to fit in the silence? As always, thank you for joining me this week. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with two or three people in your life that you think will enjoy the message. If we work together, we can spread the message of personal ownership to as many people as possible. I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Ownership Game with your host, Gary Montalvo. Make sure to like and comment on your favorite podcast platform, as well as subscribe so that you never miss an episode.