Season 2 – Episode 1: Leading from Being: Season 2 Kickoff with Dr. Cameron Martin
SOLO EPISODE
In the first episode of Season 2 of the Path and Purpose Podcast, I dive deep into the concept of living and leading from one's soul's purpose. As a spiritual coach and leader, I reflect on my journey, the show's evolution, and the powerful year 2024. I discuss major life changes, including my move from Hawaii to Los Angeles, and significant spiritual experiences in Romania and Istanbul. This season introduces solo episodes and explores a fresh perspective on leadership by integrating spirituality and authenticity. I share my vision for 'being centered leadership' and invite you to embrace your soul's essence to create a lasting impact. Tune in to discover how to navigate personal transformations and lead from a place of true being.
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Episode Transcript:
Welcome to the Path and Purpose podcast, where we explore the journey of living and leading from your soul's purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Cameron Martin. As a spiritual coach and leader, I've dedicated my life to helping change makers, creatives, and conscious leaders align with their soul's calling. In each episode, we'll be talking about how we can change our lives. We dive deep into the stories of those who are paving the way for a more conscious and compassionate world.
My purpose is to explore the intersection of spirituality and leadership, offering you practical insights and inspiration to live and lead with authenticity. Join me as we discover how to embrace our soul gifts, overcome barriers, and learn to lead from being. This podcast will inspire you to live in alignment with your soul's purpose and create a lasting impact one conversation at a time.
Welcome to season two of the podcast, everyone. This is your host, Dr. Cameron Martin. I'm excited to be here with you in this first episode of our second season of the podcast. We've taken a little break between season one and this one, and now I'm fully ready to step in and I'm excited to share all that season two has to offer with you.
This episode is a solo episode, which if you've been listening to the first season is new, uh, this is one of a few new things that are coming in this season, and I wanted to share a little bit about my journey, about the journey of the show, how the show's evolved and kind of a glimpse at what's coming in this season of the show.
When I was sitting down to think about what I wanted to share in this first episode, I was really reflecting on what. The year 2024 has been for myself and for my clients and for many people in my life. And that kind of comes down to one idea, which is this idea of navigating changing ideas of ourselves.
2024 has been an extremely powerful year for me, but really every year since my awakening in 2018 has been fairly powerful. But this year something is different. This year the energetics are very different. I have moved from Hawaii to Los Angeles. Many of you already know this, but if you're listening for the first time, maybe you don't.
And Life has changed pretty dramatically in external ways regarding business and friends and things like that. But a lot has been changing internally, especially over the last few months. I had an opportunity to go to Romania and Istanbul at the end of May and early June. And much like my first experience in Romania and traveling Europe last year, Many things shifted within me this time, and I felt a very deep resonance.
With not only Romania, but also Istanbul. And when I came back from that trip, so many things had shifted and changed within my being that, to be honest, when I returned to my home, I didn't recognize it anymore. It didn't feel familiar to me. And I realized that, wow, I had really changed in a pretty big way energetically.
And now I was just starting to see that in my external. 2024 has been filled with energetic shifts for me and for my clients. And so really, as we embark on season two, Of the podcast. I really want to explore this idea of navigating changing versions of ourselves. Now on the show, if you've been listening, you know, that I share the journey of people's spiritual awakenings and the journey of living in alignment with God.
their purpose. But our purpose is always shifting, and our evolution is a constantly moving target. And so to understand oneself and what you're being asked to do in a particular moment is really important, but it's equally important to recognize that we're always evolving. We're always growing. We're always shifting.
Many of you know if you've been listening to the show that I grew up a Roman Catholic. Very, very devout. I thought even as a child I might become a priest. I was in the choir. I was a choir director. I was a cantor in several parishes. I used to be really involved and my identity was really connected to who I was in the church.
And I also, my first career was in teaching. So I was a high school business teacher. I taught courses in marketing, accounting, business fundamentals. This is what I was really wanting to do for a very, very long time. Ever since I was a little kid was be a teacher. And when I got into that career, I was very interested in becoming a school principal and stepping into school leadership.
I earned an MBA and a master's in school leadership and was really met with, frankly, a lot of internal resistance at the time. If we go back to the year 2018, really 2017, 2018, not a great year for me professionally in terms of feeling misaligned with the work that I was doing, even though I was, you know, working on this master's degree and.
I liked teaching. I was having a very difficult time in the school that I was working at. I was working under some really poor leadership and frankly it kind of felt like my dream of being a teacher was turning into a nightmare very quickly. I was extremely stressed. I did not like The work that I was doing, I came in and was anxious all the time.
I, a lot of my behaviors were not particularly positive we'll say, but I was pretty avoidant of my supervisors and of my principal. I wasn't feeling empowered in any way. And what I was seeing around me was just the impact of poor leadership and what it actually can do to an environment around you. And I watched, in a matter of months, a brand new principal come into the school and completely destroy the culture that had existed in that place.
And not only that, it built a lot of mistrust and fear and worry and concern in the culture of the school. That it became very clear to me that I wasn't going to be able to stay there much longer. That started me on the journey of looking. And asking different questions about leadership, because quite frankly, I was seeing day in and day out the effects of really horrific leadership.
And I kept thinking, my gosh, there is something we're missing about this. Leadership can't be about manipulation and control and trying to change others to fit into your mold. And the more we have leaders doing this and leading from their egos. The more destructive that this force of leadership can be.
And it became very apparent to me that the ways in which we were thinking about leadership, this old paradigm of top down, I'm in charge, so I control, I make the choice, you just do what I say, was not only very destructive, but I saw it as deeply unconscious. And so I started to really internally look around what is this thing about leadership and how can I potentially change this, which led me to apply for my Ph.
D. in leadership studies, which I got into the program. I was accepted the University of San Diego and in 2018 moved to San Diego from where I was living in Massachusetts. The period of June, late June to early July 2018 was the most intense of my life, although I could argue that the past few months has created a lot of shifts and changes internally as well, which I'll share.
But in 2018, in a matter of two weeks, everything I understood about myself, my identities as a teacher, as a student, As a romantic partner, as a son, as everything that I knew about my life as a Catholic changed because in a matter of two weeks, I left my entire life behind to move to San Diego and begin this program and leadership studies.
And it was extremely difficult for me. And I felt very much untethered. from a life that I knew. And the silver lining of that was that that led me to have my first astrology reading. And if you've heard my other episodes, you've probably heard this story before, but essentially I was so lost in my life that I felt like I needed some help.
And I had been to tarot card readers before, and I had been to psychics before, but I had never seen an astrologer. I knew a little bit about my astrology because I looked it up on cafeastrology. com, which a lot of people do. Co star wasn't a thing back then. Uh, but I decided to have my very first astrology reading.
And that experience changed my life because for the first time ever, I felt truly seen and acknowledged for who I am A soul in a body with a mission and a purpose. And I remember in that session, um, being told that I had a really important purpose to teach and to share a message of spirituality. And I remember asking more about astrology and I asked that astrologer, you know, do you teach?
She said, yes. I said, well, you teach me. And she said, no, scratching my head going, what do you mean? She said in a few years time, you'll be better than me. You are your own teacher. You don't need me. And I was like, um, Okay, lady, like I'm six figures into a PhD program in leadership. I'm thinking becoming a superintendent or school principal is what I'm being called to do, not this astrology thing.
She smiled and said okay, and I left completely changed and at that point I I wouldn't know, I didn't know then, but I certainly know now, that my world just totally opened up, spiritually. And so at that point, uh, any book I could get my hands on, any YouTube video I could get my hands on, I wanted to know more about this thing called astrology.
And what happened over the next few months, I can only describe as remembering. It wasn't so much learning something new as it was remembering what my soul knew from other times and other places. It was as if I was unlocking things that I knew, but I didn't know why, or how, or where it was coming from, frankly.
I started doing readings for friends, for family, And people were asking me, how do you know this? Like, I'm like, I have no idea. I'm just looking at symbols on a page and they mean something to me. And I remember thinking, wow, this is pretty profound. I should follow this thread because I don't know where it's going, but clearly this is some sort of gift and I'm meant to share it.
And perhaps as you guys might. Uh, a deep experience of imposter syndrome came over me because I'm starting to do readings for people and they're asking me, well, how do you know this? And how do you know that? And I'm literally not sure. It doesn't really make any sense to me where this is coming from, except that I understood.
astrology and the power of it. And I was having these experiences with people that were deeply healing, that were deeply transformative, and that were helping them to understand who they were at a deep level. Now, it was very clear to me toward the end of that year that I was on this planet for a spiritual purpose, but I didn't know what that was going to look like.
In early 2019, I went through my spiritual awakening and experienced what The yogis speak of as samadhi, this experience of no mind, of complete emptiness, of knowing yourself as all that is, like I knew myself as the plant, and as you, and as this person, and as that person, and it was no separation of consciousness to be experienced within my being at all.
And it felt amazing, and I was like, oh my god, this is, this is, this is the spiritual enlightenment, like I finally reached it. But unfortunately in a matter of. You know, a few days, I kind of came back down to earth and the ego returned. And I, uh, although, uh, it didn't feel as great, I still had this remnants within me.
I understood that experience and I knew that I was on this planet for a deeply spiritual purpose. And I understood at some level of my being, that my work was about helping people to understand who and what. They truly were. I kept following the thread and Eventually I was guided to Start a business and that's exactly what I did.
That's when I created Path and Purpose which at the time was just astrology readings and Events every few weeks for the new moon and full moon and I was teaching and sharing astrology in that way But was also happening in In my consciousness around that time was I was really starting to ask deeper questions about leadership because remember, this is sort of the beginning of the journey to begin with, but I started asking questions about how astrologers are leaders and how astrology can help inform leaders and how have they informed leaders throughout their lives.
All of human history. And I started asking questions of consciousness in leadership and how can we develop a leader in consciousness? How do we help them to understand themselves spiritually? And what would the impact of that be in leadership? Now, I'd like to point out that my studies with the university of San Diego, and I am forever grateful.
For the school of leadership and education sciences. Interestingly enough, that's called souls. And the work that I do is with souls now, although a different, not the same acronym, but I do think that's an interesting synchronicity. Nonetheless, it's a Catholic Jesuit institution. And so I'm sitting in classes and Jesus is over the door on the cross and I'm sitting here.
with people in the room who are religious leaders and political leaders and military leaders and school principals and superintendents. And I'm asking the questions of consciousness and leadership. I'm asking the questions of astrology and leadership. I'm wondering how we can help leaders understand themselves more deeply.
And of course, a few people were definitely scratching their heads, although there were some yogis in the room that were very supportive of my thought process. It was much a surprise to me as it probably was to anybody else. That I ended up writing my doctoral dissertation on the use of astrology as a tool for self discovery.
I wanted to know how astrology could be used as a tool to help develop leaders and to help people to reflect on their own paths. So that they could lead from a place that was more authentic. And I wrote my dissertation, which to this day has been downloaded many, many times. Over 3, 000 for the date of this recording, which to be honest, It still feels surprising, but also maybe not, because very few dissertations that have ever been written about astrology, much less dissertations focused on leadership.
I share all of this with you because this has been part of the journey and my business and the work that I've been doing in the world with Path and Purpose since 2019 has shifted and evolved over time. As I've grown in my own spiritual journey, I've grown in my astrological understanding. I've also grown in my leadership understanding and my application of astrology to group dynamics, to leadership dynamics, supporting leaders and their teams in retreat scenarios and in experiential opportunities to get to know each other more deeply.
I learned quantum healing hypnosis technique, which is a form of past life regression that helps people to understand and release. And I've been teaching my clients for the last several years all about learning to connect with their higher self. And this has looked different along the way. And Path of Purpose has grown along the way and has shifted.
And this podcast was a birthing that happened in 2023 as an evolution of my work in the world. And now I'm in another major evolutionary moment and a major moment of shift and change. So many of us have been, as I alluded to already before, 2024 has been a big year of change for me. Predominantly, coming back into the awareness of The importance of leadership and the connection between the soul and leading.
My work has been about supporting people in living their soul's purpose. This podcast all through the first season has explored different journeys of living our purpose, but there's a why behind that. Because as we come to understand ourselves more deeply at a soul level, as we start to align with our soul's purpose, and with our gifts, and with our abilities, and with the blueprint that we set for ourselves before we came into this lifetime, that alignment with our being starts to shift how we show up in the world.
And that shift in our being is leadership. Now, whether you are a person who has an official title of leadership as a CEO or director of something or as a principal or as a marketing manager or anything like that, where you have a team that you're supporting or not. We all lead when we connect with our soul's purpose.
And I call this leading from being. And my teachings with my clients has been around this concept of this idea of being centered leadership. How do we. Come to know our being, our soul, our essence so deeply that our natural expression of our being becomes leadership, meaning how does our natural expression of being influence others and has an impact and makes change in the world.
This is something that I've been working with in some respects, sort of in the background for a while. Season two of the show is going to bring this to the foreground and the I want to share my understanding of leadership because as I went through my PhD program, it was very obvious to me that although there is great work being done in more conscious and spiritual and authentic forms of leadership, as I was studying in the academic space, there really was a lot of old understanding of leadership of more managerial or organizational behavior.
This idea that I am the leader, I have influence over you, and I sort of have an ability to manipulate or control you to meet some sort of organizational outcomes. This is an old, old, old. Old paradigm of leadership. And if you look at the planet right now, it's dying. We're watching systems that are based in this old paradigm of leadership of somebody higher controlling and making things happen for somebody underneath who's following.
We're watching this fall apart in our political spheres, in our economic spheres, inside of our organizations. We've seen a lot of things, a lot of cracks in our leadership ever since 2020, but even before then. And now in this recording in 2024, we're seeing this really exacerbated. And in the years to come, we're going to continue to see this old paradigm of leadership continuing to fall away.
But what's coming in its place? Because if there is a lesson, That Gen Z is showing us. And if there is a lesson that's been coming from the pandemic and people wanting to work from home and people creating their own businesses. And if there's anything that my work has shown me over the last few years, it's that the world is thirsty and ready for a new way of leading for a new paradigm of what it means to lead.
We need to understand leadership differently. And it's happening quickly. And so in season two of the show, we're going to continue to explore the spiritual journeys of my guests. And we're also going to be exploring how those journeys. Have led to a new form of leadership. This leadership that I've been grappling with ever since I was in my PhD program.
So really this started to come to me in early 2019, but in 2020 as well, I was really asking myself the question, but what about people and their being and their essence and their soul? And what about honoring the gifts of the people in, that we lead? And what would the world look like if we actually honored people for the fact that they are souls in bodies, not just pawns in a game?
Which led me to really understand leadership in a very different way. And so, as we come into season two, Of the show. I'm going to be sharing this idea with you more, this idea of a more being centered leadership. My definition of leadership is that leadership is the act of creating space for people to be the act of creating space for people to be.
And what I mean by this is an essence. Being a leader is about creating space to honor the soul, the essence of the beings that we are. Each of us have come to this earth with divine gifts and divine rights and a blueprint for the life that we wanted to have. And I think it's important for us to remember that when it comes to everything that we do, of course, and aligning with our purpose, but in our leadership as well.
And so, of course, if we're asking the question or a different paradigm of leadership as an act of being, it certainly brings up many questions like what does it mean to be and what does it mean to honor one's being and how do we lead as an expression of being? As I've said already, whether you think you're a leader or not, if you're doing your soul work, and if you're in your own ascension journey, and if you're healing yourself, and if you're shifting your own internal consciousness to align with your soul.
If you're listening to this show, I know you want to do that at some level. That is our, uh, there's resonance if you're listening. But if you're doing that, then you are leading. And you will be leading your leadership is a natural byproduct of your being. And so we're going to explore this much more deeply in season two.
Uh, there are many changes on the horizon, uh, which I'm excited to share with you. As I mentioned, there's been a lot of changes in my own personal life. Uh, in my own spiritual journey over the last six months or so and coming into deeper understanding of the connections between astrology and conscious leadership or astrology and being centered leadership.
Ultimately, I want this show in this season to provide a space to be support for your inner change and for a deeper integration of self. This is happening all over the world, and if you're listening to the show, then you know that things are shifting within you. But I want this season to really be about that.
About helping you to integrate new selves and allowing your old self and old versions of you to die away just as we allow old versions and old systems of leadership and control and manipulation to die away to leave space for a new earth that is More loving and kind and compassionate and more being centered.
That is honors the soul of each of us. With that said, there are several changes coming to season two, and I'm not going to tell you about them all yet because I want to leave some surprise, but the first thing that you're going to see is that I actually am going to be doing solo episodes. So this is my first solo episode where I will share my thoughts and my ideas.
My audience, that's you guys, and share teachings that are connected, of course, to what's kind of going on in the world, what's going on in leadership, but also what's going on in my own shifts in consciousness to help you to really step into greater aspects of your purpose. So the solar episodes are new and that's different for me, of course, because I'm used to having conversations with people and having guests.
And so this would be a sort of growth edge for me. And I'm excited. for that. You're also going to see some formatting changes in the episodes themselves. As I mentioned already, there is a slight message shift while we are still exploring the path toward living Your Soul's Purpose, we're also exploring what it means to lead from Your Soul's Purpose.
This is something that has, uh, As I've already shared, been coming through me for years, and it's very clear to me that now is the time that I speak specifically to leadership and leading from being, as I've described, because for many of you have been listening to the show already, you feel this internal call To shift something within you to have an impact, to make a difference in this world.
And if you are one of the change makers, lightworkers on this planet, it's my job and my mission to really support you. And so that's really what this season's gonna be about. But some other changes, you'll, here's some formatting changes to the shows themselves. One thing I'm very excited to share is in my episodes.
Where I am interviewing guests. I'm actually starting each episode with an astrology reading so I'm going to be sharing a brief reading for each of my guests so that as As we talk and share about their spiritual journeys, we also ground ourselves in what was their blueprint and what was the essence of their soul signature as they came into this lifetime.
I know the power of an astrological birth chart because I use it all the time with my clients and I know just how powerful it is to share that wisdom, to show people the impact. That astrology can have in leadership. And also it's fun. So I'm starting each episode, sharing a little bit of information about my guests, birth charts.
So that's new. Also, you're going to hear that our conversations while still focused on the spiritual journey, our conversations will sound familiar in that way. We're going to take the spiritual journey a step further into this place of impact. As I talk to my guests, we'll learn about their journeys, but we're also going to be learning about how that's impacted their lives and their leadership and the things that they've created and the impact that they're leaving in the world.
Also this season, I'm very excited to share a new opportunity with you to connect with me and my guests directly. In season two of the Path and Purpose podcast, you can join the beyond the show opportunities. Beyond the show is something that is held inside my free Path and Purpose community. And it's going to be an opportunity every single month for you to connect with me and one or more of my guests from the show.
It'll be a live Q and A session where we can co create together and take our conversations beyond the episode. I'll share more details soon about how you can join and attend one of the Beyond the Show opportunities, but be on the lookout for that as well. For those of you who don't think you're a leader, I invite you to open up to the possibility that, in fact, you are.
And as you continue to do this work, you will be leading as a natural expression of being. So stick around, and I invite you to really open up to that possibility within yourself, because that's the greatest gift I think that season two has in store. I think as we all change our understanding of leadership and learn to empower ourselves, we're going to see major shifts happen on the planet rather quickly.
And ultimately that is my mission to help people to live in alignment with their soul's purpose and to lead from that place. So as you can see, there are many things that are shifting and changing in me and in my business and in the show. And my intention is really to take. Everything that I've been doing a step further to really serve you in your spiritual journey, but also the impact that your soul is meant to have.
on this planet. So I'm excited that you're here. I'm just excited that I'm sharing season two with you. I have so many great episodes coming with so many wonderful guests. And really, I think you're going to see that there's a different flavor to season two, but I think you're going to find that we're going to go much deeper in what it truly means to live and lead from your soul's purpose.
So I'm very excited to have you here with me this season. This is episode one, and I'll see you in the next episode. A heartfelt thanks to you for tuning into this episode. I'm Dr. Cameron Martin, and it's been an honor to support you on your path to self discovery. As you reflect on today's conversation, remember that the journey toward living and leading from your soul's purpose is ongoing.
You're never alone in it.
Until next time.