Are you running on autopilot? You just might be, without even realizing it. And that could be keeping you in an unhappy relationship with yourself and your life.
Claudia Velandia went from a low place, unhappy with herself and her life, to finding her inner peace, joy, and love. According to Claudia, she was able to do this by gaining a better understanding of what’s going on in her mind so she could take control of her life and maximize her potential, and she’s here to help guide you on the same path so that you can improve your life and your self love.
In this episode, she shares actionable advice you can use to be more conscious of the day to day decisions you are making and how you can begin to control and direct your mind to work in your best interest. Tune in!
About Claudia Velandia:
Claudia is the author of the best-selling book Wake Up! How to Get out of Your Mind, Stop Living on Autopilot and Start Choosing Your Best Life. Claudia has a degree in engineering, holds MBA & MA and she is a certified professional coach. She helps people to master their minds so that they up-level their performance and maximize their potential, and she helps them to feel a heightened sense of purpose, fulfillment, and happiness.
Claudia was born in Colombia, pursued her education and career in Europe, and now lives in Canada. Her international background and personal experiences have equipped her with a global perspective and an understanding of the human psyche essential to her work.
Before founding Quantum Thinking, Claudia developed a successful international career, working for renowned global technology companies. Claudia’s mission is to serve our world’s evolution and well-being by empowering people to raise their awareness and be more conscious of how they lead their lives and business.
To learn more, you can visit Claudia’s website and connect with her on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Mentioned In This Episode:
- Wake Up! How to Get out of Your Mind, Stop Living on Autopilot and Start Choosing Your Best Life by Claudia Velandia
- Claudia’s website
- Connect with Claudia on LinkedIn
- The Present by Spencer Johnson
- Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
- The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma
- Tony Robbins
- The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma
- Better Than Today
- Find more Hope resources
Transcription:
Lindsay Recknell 0:0
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Hope Motivates Action podcast. I’m your host Lindsay Recknell. I really get to meet the neatest people and this week’s guest, Claudia Velandia, is one of those cool cats.
Lindsay Recknell 0:15
Claudia is the author of the best selling book wake up how to get out of your mind, stop living on autopilot and start choosing your best life. Claudia has a degree in engineering holds an MBA and an MA and she is a certified professional coach. But she helps people to master their minds so that they level up their performance and maximize their potential. She helps them feel a heightened sense of purpose, fulfillment and happiness. She was born in Colombia, she pursued her education and career in Europe and now lives here in Canada for international background and personal experiences have equipped her with a global perspective and an understanding of the human psyche essential to her work.
Lindsay Recknell 0:53
Before founding quantum thinking, Claudia developed a successful international career working for renowned global technology companies. Cloudy, his mission is to serve our world’s evolution and well being by empowering people to raise their awareness and be more conscious of how they lead their lives and businesses. This is exactly what we speak about in this episode. So let’s get into it.
Lindsay Recknell 1:15
As a reminder, if you’re interested in any of the books, resources and tools I mentioned in this episode, all the links you’ll need can be found in the show notes of your favorite podcast player or head to the blog and pod page of my website at www.expertinhope.com you’ll find them all there too. I truly believe that the future will be better than today by taking action over the things we can control. And conversations like this really reinforced that hope.
Lindsay Recknell 1:41
Hello, Claudia, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here.
Claudia Velandia 1:45
I mean, very, very happy and excited to be part of this show as well. Thank you for inviting me,
Lindsay Recknell 1:51
oh, it is such a pleasure. I really loved the you know, our introductory conversation and how we got to know one another. And I’d love for you to share with the audience, your story and how you use hope to motivate action in your life.
Claudia Velandia 2:05
Yeah, sounds go like, Oh, my story where to start, like everything is started 10 years ago, around 10 years ago, when I found myself in a very low place. I was finding no meaning no motivation. I was feeling empty without purpose in my life. I was in this mode in the motion of life, going to work going and partying and drinking and being hungover on the weekend. Finding validation in man going dating.
Claudia Velandia 2:37
And all of those just put me in a place where I was not happy with me. I honestly, I didn’t like myself. I actually I hated myself, I remember many times being hungover and throwing up and say, Gosh, I hate myself like what am I doing these so so it was at this period of my life that I needed to do something to transform my life. And that can put me forward in a path of federal personal growth, personal development, to now I can see looking back, connecting the dots that I was going through the journey within to get into know, myself and my core and loving myself unconditionally, and accepting for myself fully and completely and I feel whole. At that moment.
Claudia Velandia 3:32
I didn’t know that. But that’s how it started all this process. And later on, I will say like, that was one of the private pivotal moments in my life. That caused me to the transformation then, later on. Four years ago around there, I was in this romantic relationship that I felt that it will be kind of forever kind of thing. And then he decided to enter the relationship and it was something when expected. And for me it was gonna the rug was removed from my outfit. I felt so much pain on my heart. It was a very hard moment of my life. And then is when your question about her comes in because that’s when I really connected even more with my faith because that will help me and for me, faith and truth to know who I am.
Claudia Velandia 4:29
So in that moment, what I did, I was grabbing I felt like the image that I have on myself is grabbing God, the universe, the divine for every place that I could in order to trust and have faith that the situation even though it was painful, had I had a greater purpose even though that I was not able to sit at the moment and I can see now how was that moment that decision that he took was a transformational for me because allow me to know myself.
Claudia Velandia 4:59
Not Hold on a different level I, my spiritual growth has been exponentially after that after that moment. So now I understand the purpose so that those two moments in my life are one of the pivotal times in my life to get me where I am, and do what I do.
Lindsay Recknell 5:20
Amazing, amazing. And tell us a little bit about what you do. And then I’ll dig deeper into your story.
Claudia Velandia 5:26
Yeah, so what I do, I love, I’m a transformational coach, and conscious leadership coach. And I work with people to help them to master their minds. And that way they can achieve higher performance. And I help them to feel a heightened sense of fulfillment, joy, happiness in their life.
Lindsay Recknell 5:47
Amazing, amazing, because who doesn’t need a heightened sense of joy and fulfillment in their life? We all need more fulfillment in our life, if you ask me. Claudia Velandia 5:59 Yeah exactly. Lindsay Recknell 6:00 So thinking back to your sort of the beginning of your journey, 10 years ago, when you’re not feeling your best, you’re not loving yourself the way that you do now, and the way that you will continue. That that first pivotal moment. What, what was the catalyst to make you take that first step? And the reason I’m asking is I had a conversation this week about, you know, we want to lose weight, we want to exercise more, we want to eat better. And we say we want to do these things.
Lindsay Recknell 6:35
And then someday something clicks, and we do one of those things, and it becomes a lifestyle choice. I just, I’m curious and interested to know how you made that change, and have continued on to make it just part of who you are now.
Claudia Velandia 6:52
Yes, so for me was not like that moment, I didn’t have like the click for a moment that I will say I need to make a change now. It was progressively getting worse and worse and worse, that I was suffering. And I was so much in pain, and I didn’t find a way out. So I needed to make a change in my life. That it was like, Okay, this is I need to do something to make a change.
Claudia Velandia
7:20 So I started doing like a small, modest small steps though. The inside me a it was in like, Okay, I’m going to just go and transform it at 180 Right now, I remember that it was the key small steps is more promises to myself, like, I’m going to only drink one day or the weekend like only Friday. So Sundays, I get to go to the gym, I can get to read, I can get to do some more healthy choices. I bought a book about healthy eating, I started going to the gym more often.
Claudia Velandia 7:56
So I can do those things is that gonna incrementally become in a way of living too. And that’s kind of his territory was in one moment that say, Okay, I’m gone, I need to make a change.
Lindsay Recknell 8:11
And I think that’s probably the experience that many of us have where, step by step, we do the first thing and then we do the next right thing, you know, and it’s positively snowballs after that. So it’s yeah, that feels like it would it would be the way that it would go. And what kind of like, what kind of support did you have? Or where did you look for help on this transformational journey? I mean, did you find a coach like you, did you know, what, how did you go?
Claudia Velandia 8:48
So it’s interesting because my friend, my best friend and mentor, he gave me a little book called the present. And like the very much and I don’t remember the answer, and I got curious about it. And he wrote the same book about Who Moved My Cheese. And then my mentor gave me another book, Robin Sharma, the monk who sold his Ferrari. So it was one of these books that as I was reading, I was practicing the teachings of the author. I was practicing things that resonated with me.
Claudia Velandia 9:24
Then I went to look at Robin Sharma and then suddenly I discovered Tony Robbins because Google, so you can then start listening to his videos and is there so it wasn’t like a person that I went to? Like, I didn’t even know what coaching existed to be honest either. So for me was going to breathing through videos, and those whose were my coaches, those were my teachers, and as I was practicing what I was learning from them.
Lindsay Recknell 9:56
Like that resonates so so much because anybody who’s listening to this She knows that lifelong learning is my number one value in life. Everything I do comes from reading and Google and talking to people and all of these things. And so it’s very cool to hear. Jim Rohn, I think is the guy who wrote Who Moved My Cheese. Like I can see the cover of that book in my head. I’m a huge Robin Sharma fan, my favorite Robin Sharma book, I don’t know if you’ve read it, it’s called the 5am. Club. It was it.
Lindsay Recknell 10:28
So the book itself is about the science behind training your brain to get up to get your butt out of bed, because I’m the worst feet, the floor is terrible for me, once I’m up, I’m up, I’m good to go. But feet, the floor is terrible. So I read this book, in expecting it’s going to tell me how to change my brain so that I can get my feet on the floor. And it turned into so much more this book is magical is inspirational. It taught me how to get my feet on the floor, but not because of rewiring my brain just because it gave me that boost in the direction that I needed to go.
Lindsay Recknell 11:06
So all of those words to say that I am totally in alignment with mentors who don’t necessarily even know that they’re mentors to us, you know, exactly. And I think that’s something that people forget, you know, when they’re in these dark places and don’t know where to turn next. Maybe don’t start with Google because that can get down a dark path down a deep rabbit hole really quickly. You know, Google Robin Sharma look on YouTube for Tony Robbins and things like that. So I like having that up.
Claudia Velandia 11:45
And from a believer that if the ones who are people who are listening, never trust him, the universe faith or whatever they call divine that we always will be guided to what we need. And those features come into the moment that we need to learn from, because that was something that I experienced in my life.
Claudia Velandia 12:04
As I was growing on my path learning through outdoors reading through go straight into videos, I start noticing that other authors that come into my life I hear from for someone said and then I saw the book on the child, and then I just go and get it untreated. Then afterwards through through my journey after my second be will tell moment, I I started working with coaches, that they came into alignment to continue supporting me in my growth and evolution that fast forward. Me I didn’t have to do it alone this time, because I knew what a coach was Lindsay Recknell 12:41 from all the books. Claudia Velandia 12:44 So it helped me to I still read the online learning and I continue training, continue learning from others. But that’s gonna definitely how I continue running this journey just looking into trusting that what I mean, they will show up as well. Lindsay Recknell 13:01 Speaking of books, I know you’re an author. Yes, I would love for you to share what your book is all about and what that process was like writing it and what inspired you to write it? Could you share a little bit of that as well? Claudia Velandia 13:14 Yes. So my book is called wake up and subtitle how to get out of your mind is totally in autopilot and start using your best life. So the book came out two years ago, it’s gonna be this December in an Amazon self polish. And my book is intentional. My book is to help people to understand really what’s going on their minds. So that way they can take control of their life. Because one of the things that I learned my journey after looking back and connecting some dots, I realized that I was really an autopilot. Claudia Velandia 13:44 And what I’m talking about in autopilot is only going to, to work eight to five and then go into the groceries in the weekend and be an adult on the weekend and then go back to the red rope again. That’s one part but he goes a little bit more deeper. And that is the most of us going out of Beiler when we are not aware of the belief system that we have, we have beliefs, we have fears, and those beliefs have become our conditioning. And that conditioning has been created from our society, from our past experiences, from the media, from our peers from our colleagues. Claudia Velandia 14:19 So and that programming we are not aware of what’s happening our subconscious mind is the one who is dominating our life. Because if we think for a moment Lindsay when when we go out in our life, we have sensory input situations happen other side world and we react to those situations. We say something in a meeting, we make decisions about buying a house we make decisions about going to travel, make decisions as we go through life, we are not aware of conscious of where the decisions are coming from from what belief are we doing or what fears that we have and when we are not conscious enough of those decisions. Claudia Velandia 15:00 Then we are living on autopilot, because it’s coming from the subconscious programming from our conditioning. So my intention in my book is to help people to understand my readers, what’s going on in their minds. And that way they can take control of their life and start choosing as well as choosing your best life that choosing the best life for them. But it’s their own programming themselves and connecting them to their higher to the higher wisdom to the higher self. Claudia Velandia 15:27 So they can lead their life in hyper, like, that’s when, when I’m talking about like a highly, highly like maximize your highlight potential. When I’m talking about how to maximize your high potentials, when you connect to your heart, and you live from your true self, or your higher self, from your, your spiritual self that is guiding you to maximize what is possible in life. Lindsay Recknell 15:53 It’s so beautiful. When I when I heard that concept, or when I learned of this concept, you’re talking about the kind of the unconscious place of decision making where we’re on autopilot, making these decisions, because of lived experience because of other people’s expectations, because of how we were raised whatever it was a bit. I don’t know the word to describe it kind of terrifying. Lindsay Recknell 16:19 Because to that point, I’d always thought, Well, I’m in control of my decisions. I’m in control, you know, the logic of why I’m making a decision or, you know, how I’m how I’m behaving. Naively, I was thinking this is all being made in my conscious brain, but you’re telling me it’s happening in my subconscious brain? So how, how do I? How does a person how do I start to reverse some of those subconscious or, or at least pull them out and examine them to decide if they’re really still serving me? Claudia Velandia 16:57 Yeah, and there’s many ways that you can do it, the one that comes to mind that I one that I use a lot, and I teach to my clients, is to work on your triggers, every time that you that you have uncomfortable emotion, not feeling good emotion, something that is going against you as inside of you a trigger, get curious about why instead of a three year while believes was fears, what is really going on within you that cause you to experience that emotion. Claudia Velandia 17:30 Once you understand what is happening within you, you can understand where does that come from. A was a past experience, probably from your parents, it was someone happening in the school voice of fear that you have, once you recognize the root cause then you can heal and I’m talking about heal is if was a past experience given a different meaning. If you is for happened when you were a kid, understand what you were needing, at the time, given so much love to your past the case so much love to yourself, because you do discover that you are not respecting yourself as I discover some monster my journey. Claudia Velandia 18:07 So then how can I give more love to me and appreciate me even more so that you can start working with that healing, that part of you that the in that way, when that outside event happens again, it does not trigger you because you have heal. So that’s one, one way people can start. The other one that is highly important is that to start bringing more awareness to what’s happening in your mind. So not allowing their mind to go without your conscious sedation without you being aware of what’s happening in your mind. Claudia Velandia 18:39 So if you find yourself thinking about the future, thinking about the past or greener boss who stands to, to stop and is focused on the present moment. That way, you can start bringing to your start training your mind to be in the moment that you are the one who’s directing your mind and not the other way around. Because one of the things that is if you are for instance, when we are eating right, how many times we are in watch, let’s say watching TV, and then suddenly we have a nurse and then we just go to the cabinet at up and a chocolate bar or just a bit of chips that we have in there. Claudia Velandia 19:15 And we just do that automatically without stopping and saying, Do I really want this? Or what was really going on within me like I’m bored or just just go in that autopilot mode. So then when we start recognizing those impulses, where we got going into our mind that we are taking a conscious control of our mind, and we studied it in our life with purpose by our own choice and no autopilot. Lindsay Recknell 19:40 Were you looking at me peeking into my house earlier before this podcast when I went to the fridge at that money to snack and then I thought no, I do not need a snack. I just want a snack because that’s so resonates that autopilots so resonates and being present in the moment and being intentional about calling back those things and going, you know, sort of examining the why or the how or the any of that, that, that feels very important. That’s a really great, really great thing to bring up. Claudia Velandia 20:11 Yeah. And the interesting part of that is that when we are not aware that we’re an autopilot, that’s why so much suffering we have in our life. So then when we start recognizing those moments, then we can remove those a pain for the minute that we came into our painful experience that is causing the suffering. Because that’s happening automatically in our mind. Lindsay Recknell 20:35 Yeah, amazing. Amazing. So transformation is hard. changing our lives is hard. And it’s not only hard for us as the person going through the transformation. It also has impact on those around us, our, you know, our primary relationships, our colleagues at work, probably our friends, especially, you know, I can imagine in your scenario 10 years ago, your partying friends wanted you to go out on Friday and Saturday night. Lindsay Recknell 21:05 And now you’re, you know, staying home and watching Tony Robbins on Saturday. They did they judge? How did you deal with the others around you? Because sometimes that’s something that gets in the way of people making these transformations is what will people think of me? Claudia Velandia 21:23 Yes, absolutely. So one of the things to start making better different choices, I started separating myself a little bit more of them. I was it wasn’t really honestly realize in that moment that they are, we’re not really my friends. In a sense, it was more party than anything else, that we’re hanging out for party so I can start taking so so MySpace, one of the things that I have noticed in my life as well through my transformation is that as I change, everyone around me change to as I was observing them how I was, I was experiencing them in my life. Claudia Velandia 22:01 So that was beautiful as well. So it’s honoring myself and honoring my space as well became very important to start choosing my relationships. And one of the things that I noticed too, is that they start apart the negativities. It just happened naturally to people that were not a for my highest good. This happened naturally, that start separating for my life. And I didn’t even I didn’t do an effort as well to go and contact them to continue the relationship. So it just happened very naturally too. Lindsay Recknell 22:36 When you work with your clients, do you help them with boundaries or help them navigate these new relationships? Claudia Velandia 22:46 Yeah, absolutely. Because what’s happening like when we are because one of the things that we don’t do is have those uncomfortable conversations. And, and then because we don’t want to hurt others. So but when we don’t want to do this, we don’t want to feel bad about perhaps the outcome. So then when my clients are having to hard to manage those conversations, so in that way they can feel in their integrity, and why they do what they do, and they don’t want to do and that autopilot way of living. Claudia Velandia 23:18 So when you say about boundaries, for me, it’s called healthy boundaries. Because sometimes boundary sounds like a wall. So when I will use the word health is like more open, that is about me, I am important. And I deserve to be treated with respect, and I deserve my time to take care of myself. So when we come from that place of self love, then having those uncomfortable conversations to create those healthy boundaries, it becomes easier. Claudia Velandia 23:48 It will be challenging for our relationships because they don’t, they don’t respect those things they like how we are and then the said you change that then it is knowing that you’re doing that we’re doing this for our highest best from a place of self love. Lindsay Recknell 24:04 I love that the highest best. That’s beautiful, and self love, you know, which I talk a fair bit about self care on the show and how self care is not just your stereotypical bubble baths and candles, but it is taking care of yourself first. And I truly believe that setting boundaries is one of those ways that we can absolutely take care of ourselves first. Have a ton of conversations about that. And I don’t think we talk about it enough. So I love that you do that with your people. Claudia Velandia 24:33 Yeah, thank you. Yeah, definitely is important is something that is truly a believer that we start from within us, they start from us, and from their weakest going to the overuse analogy of fill your own cup and that you can give from the overflow. And that’s when we are able to give our best to others to the best to our loved ones because if we are empty and we don’t feel whole with ourselves, we cannot give our very best. Claudia Velandia 24:59 So then psychedelia self is so selfless, selfish, but actually selfless because from that place of completeness and wholeness that we are from a place of self love, then is when we are able to let to give to others without expecting them to, to make us feel happy or to make them feel complete, or make us feel joyful, you know, or fulfill, so then it becomes more or sells the act of love to our loved ones. Lindsay Recknell 25:25 Yeah, internal validation instead of looking for external validation all the time. Claudia Velandia 25:30 Yes, exactly. Lindsay Recknell 25:31 Yeah. Amazing. How do you recognize hope in others? Claudia Velandia 25:38 I will say that is when I recognize the most when it comes from the heart, the fate, they see it. That’s how I recognize when they feel grounded in their heart. Lindsay Recknell 25:49 I love that beautiful. And, and I feel like a lot of the work that you do, and a lot of the work you’ve done personally is in an anticipation, I guess, of that future better than today. Lindsay Recknell 26:03 So my definition of hope is that the future will be better than today, by taking action over the things we can control. And hearing you tell your story was that I know action is a big part of your story, but was feeling like you had a sense of control over your own destiny or a sense of control over your own future. Did that factor in at all? Claudia Velandia 26:28 Absolutely. 100%. I knew then, in then, in that moment, that 10 years ago moment, that it was only me and only me who was in control of my life. And I was the one who needs to make the decisions to make a change, and no one else will do it for me. So that I knew and I still continue living in that Lindsay Recknell 26:47 100% Yeah, amazing. Beautiful. Love it. Um, well, I can’t believe that we’re coming to the end of our time together. And I always asked the same question of all of my guests. And that is Claudia, what gives you hope, Claudia Velandia 27:01 faith, knowing who I am at the core. That gives me hope, knowing that it’s more than this body, that we are just having a wonderful life experience. Lindsay Recknell 27:14 So simple yet so beautiful. This has been such a joy. Thank you so so much for sharing your brilliance with us. I so many resources that you’ve shared, we will link to all of those things in the show notes, including your book, of course, and tell us how we can get a hold of you when we need our transformation to be possible for us as well. Claudia Velandia 27:36 Thank you very much for having me, I’d really enjoyed this conversation as well. And I trust that the ones who were listening, enjoy it as well. So it can find me on LinkedIn. That’s my social media of choice. So Claudia Velandia via LinkedIn. That way you can find it. You can find me on my website as well. But I know you’re going to put the show notes there. Lindsay Recknell 27:56 Yes, I Well, I absolutely. Well, thank you again, for shining your brilliance and your love with us. It’s been a real pleasure. Enjoy the rest of your day. Claudia Velandia 28:05 Thank you. Take care. Lindsay Recknell 28:10 I hope you enjoyed this latest episode of The Hope Motivates Action podcast. These episodes are a labor of love inspiring conversations with hopeful people make my heart happy. If you also love this episode, it would be amazing if you could go to Apple podcasts and leave a review five stars if you’re into it. It’s these reviews that encouraged Apple to promote this podcast to their network and the more people that listen, the more hope we can spread into the world. Lindsay Recknell 28:33 Don’t forget to check out the show notes of this episode to find all the links to my guests’ books and other resources referenced in this episode. You’ll also find the link back to my website where you will find additional support and resources for you, your team and your community. I truly believe that the future will be better than today. By taking action over the things we can control and hearing from these guests on these episodes. I know that an even more hopeful future is totally possible. Lindsay Recknell 28:57 I’m always looking for inspirational guests so if you or anyone you know would like to be a guest on the show please reach out you can find me on the contact form of my website at expertinhope.com or by email at Lindsay@expertinhope.com. Lindsay Recknell 29:13 When I was a teenager and my sisters were leaving the house to go out for the night, I always made it a point to remind them to call me if they need me. It was my way to tell them that I cared and would always be there for them. I’d love you to know the same so all of you listening out there Call me if you need me. Lindsay Recknell 29:28 Again, thank you for your love and support this podcast, my work in hope and your intentional focus on making your future better than today. After all, hope without action is just a wish
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