Ep 10: Tapping Into Your Genius And Building with it, With John Castagnini

Most of us at some stage in our life have felt that we lack any special skills or talents that sets us apart . What if i told you that you were absolutely wrong. What if i told you that we all have a genius in us. Some of us have discovered it and begun to tap into it while some of us are yet to tap into our genius.

Are you wondering what does it take to tap into that genius in you and let it flourish? How do you actively keep yourself on the lookout to tap that genius in you? What if we could incorporate that genius within us into a successful venture? This would lead to fulfillment in what we do and fulfillment is the end goal for every person out there.

We have with us Mr. John Castagnini, Author, speaker and Founder of Thank God I, a series of self help books . He is here to share his insight on how we can turn our Genius into a successful business.

Podcast Highlights:

00:10  – Introduction
00:44  – What means tapping into your genius
03:12  – Relating your inner genius to your business
07:00  – Gaining clarity
11:50  – Thoughts on meditation
16:54  – How to discover and liberate your genius?
20:32  – Turning genius into a successful business
26:15 – Manifesting resources
30:35  – Finding John online

Guest

Special thanks to John Castagnini for joining this amazing episode. This is incredibly advantageous if you have your own podcast to promote, since the audience is already listening to podcasts, meaning they’re much more likely to subscribe to your own podcast.

Transcript:

RK: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Growth Launchpad Podcast, where we present to you some of the heart to heart conversations with influencers and thought leaders who share their journey with us. 

This is Rk, the founder of WebNamaste and your host. In today’s episode, I have a very special friend of mine, who has created a complete transformation in the lives of over 1000 people through his initiative called Thank God I. You can check out his website on thankgodi.com and I am going to interview John Castagnini, the founder, and we will talk about how to tap into your genius and build something great with it. Over to you, John.

John Castagnini: Okay, we’re talking about tapping into your genius. Well, nature really doesn’t duplicate itself. So we all have something unique to contribute and really It’s about tapping into what that unique contribution is that we have. And how do we consistently tap in deeper and deeper and express that into the marketplace? Because what we discover, as we tap into our genius is that we experience a state of fulfillment. 

We experience a state of creativity, we experience a state of presence, where we become able to see the different resources that are already present around us, that are there to help us manifest that genius. So it’s about being able to and about consistently tapping into one’s higher mind, which is where we get the intellectual capital, the intellectual genius. And from there, we get ideas After idea after idea and linking those ideas together, that we manifest our genius.

RK: Absolutely, this brings me the memories of the conversation that we had a couple of years ago about, you know, how I can tie in my musical genius with my business, which is digital marketing and I thought that, you know, it was absurd, when he told me about how I can marry music with digital marketing. And the way that you gave me an explanation of how I can tap into that to create an orchestration because everything, when you look at it, is components, musical instruments, right? 

So when you want to create a symphony, every musician plays their own role in creating that symphony together. And you told me that I can bring several parts of the digital marketing together to create a symphony for a business. And that was a great insight that you had actually, you know, shared with me, you know, a couple of years ago when we met, so do you want to explain a little bit more about how people can relate their inner genius, you know, to the business even though then they may not be completely related, how we can actually bring a link to it to create a successful venture.

John Castagnini: It’s about making sure that you consistently tune into your higher self, like on a daily basis to make sure that am I on point, am I functioning from a place of what I love to do because in that love to place you, you tap into the greatest stuff, you tap into the stuff where you can’t be there’s no comparison to you in the marketplace. In marketing, you call it a unique selling proposition, right? Everyone’s looking for a unique selling proposition. 

RK: Yes!

John Castagnini: Your individual genius and your individual creativity and the unique reason why you’re here and the unique message is and products and services that you have to share in your own unique way. That is your USP and you if you’re tapping into your higher mind, continuously beyond the emotions that we have on a consistent basis because we all have challenges, right? 

We all get brought into, firstly drama, dealing with challenges dealing with finance, dealing with a relationship dealing with whatever you’re dealing with, right? Not that it’s bad or good, it’s there to guide us. But it’s up to us to allow it to guide us so that we go back to the place of where am I What would I love to create? Why, what is my mission, vision, and purpose when we gain greater clarity? See, it’s in that it’s, the more certain you are in your clarity of purpose, the easier it becomes to be able to manifest that genius into what you’re doing continuously. And that in and of itself is a music. It is a song. Your business is a song. Your entire organisation is a song, everything you’re building is a small symphony being put together by you. 

If you’re looking for it that way it becomes play It becomes people actually care to join you in your song because they hear that you’re doing something different, you’re doing something special, you’re doing something that moves more than just the mind moves the heart.

RK: Absolutely! because it’s a unique story, and it’s a unique thing, you know, like, it brings perspective to people that they never thought was possible before.

John Castagnini: Right. So if you’re tuning into any great achievement is about the person achieving tuning in to a higher self-tuning into their own magnificence, right. It could be in a sport. It could be in with an instrument, it could be within a field. 

Great part of doing it within the businesses, especially with the internet is there are so many creative ways to be able to do it uniquely. and express yourself through it and your organisation and your community and organise the talent that you attract. wrapped around you into that unique genius, which you in business would express as the unique vision, mission and purpose of an organisation. Because those are the ones that thrive when you have a thought leader that is manifesting based around an idea to serve a community that aligns with a group of inspired people in order to manifest solving specific problems that exist in the marketplace. And if you’re doing it genuinely because you care to and love to, then you’ll get results in the marketplace.

RK: Absolutely can’t agree with you more on that.

John Castagnini: Stop it! you can’t even stop getting results

RK: You brought a very interesting point about gaining clarity, right? And clarity is something which all of us struggle with, especially entrepreneurs who are venturing into something new. Or, you know, let’s say expanding into a different vertical. The clarity is something that I always feel is the missing link between what they can accomplish. So how do you think we can accomplish clarity through introspection or through the marketplace,

John Castagnini: Being dedicated to that clarity in the first place, knowing that you’re growing, and your organisation and your business is growing every day. So while it’s important to set routine and to create consistency in an organisation and business realise that it’s a road, it’s a continuous road to discovering that clarity. 

Even an organisation like McDonald’s is consistently discovering greater clarity, they realised one of the, you know, the largest corporation on earth, realised they made some mistakes and they corrected some of those mistakes. You know, the end they were fast food and the lines were too long because they weren’t fast food anymore, which was causing a problem for the organisation so they dropped part of their menu. And then they realised breakfast worked all day, people wanted, the consumer kept saying we want your breakfast all day they eventually, or offered their breakfast all day, they listened to the consumer point being this is an old Corporation that’s been around here, I think since the 50s, even before I was born, and they’re still growing and evolving with their community. 

So while it’s important to create a routine, and know your products and services, and be consistent in the market, it’s just important as important to tune in every day and know that it’s okay to evolve greater clarity and to take the time to do it. Which is involves ultimately getting to your heart and mind. 

So moving past the emotions that are in the way of evolving your mind from a state of fear to a state of love, consistently and making sure that you’re performing from that place. If you think about the greatest artists or the greatest Like I said, sports plays for performers. They could only do a performance for three or four hours in a day. And there are breaks even in between those two, three hours, mainly to, but they’re in a zone as much as possible when they’re at the place of peak performance. We owe that to ourselves in our day in our business every single day. and if we don’t demand that of ourselves, no one’s going to do it for us. 

RK: Absolutely. 

John Castagnini: How do you get the clarity? You make sure when you wake up, you demand and bring in your mind to that place, test whatever else is happening in your life, to have to make sure that that’s at least part of the day. Some days will be better than others, right? We all have, quote, good days and bad. Um, and you’ll, you know, you’ll have more resources attract differently each day. But it’s with the consistency, where you begin to attract more and more of what you would love into your life and into your business absolutely. 

That each day becomes a little bit of a building block, even if it’s only one thing, one person, one conversation, one resource because we can’t plan out everything otherwise, we would know exactly the way things are gonna go and how they happen. But you know, the world and the universe doesn’t provide that for us so we’ll have this shot, that shot, this change, that change. So dealing with that change and being adaptable, and it’s part of growing something on the internet. You hear about agility and adaptability. Well, the CEO and the person in charge of the business being us, it’s important for us to make sure that we’re adaptable to delving deeper and deeper and deeper into that clarity.

RK: Absolutely. 

John Castagnini: Clarity brings certainty to us. So that we’re more clear, we’re certain that yes, this is the way to go. This is the way to make it. And then and to become comfortable with not being clear also so it’s okay to not be and let it come.

And to know when it’s now it’s right. 

RK: Right

John Castagnini: I tell patience and patience, faster and faster, but sometimes it involves that.

RK: That’s profound. That’s really profound. So someone, someone in a once said, regarding in relation to clarity, that it is the only way out. That is, you need to go inside to really understand clarity.

Okay, and in that, in that sense, do you think meditation is a very crucial component for every entrepreneur to follow?

John Castagnini: I‘m fortunate to have learned meditation with an Indian monk. I’m in my 20s very, very fortunate to have an wrote a book on it over 20 years ago. So I’m a strong proponent for meditation. When you hear the word meditation, it means a lot of different things to a lot of people, right? So, learning how to open one’s mind and focus one’s mind is critical, whether it’s through prayer, or meditation, whichever way people get there and ultimately, it’s about opening yourself up to align your higher mind and your heart consistently. If you do that through meditation. Great however you get yourself there. But meditations certainly one of the most amazing ways to get there. 

RK: Perfect. 

John Castagnini: As a yoga practitioner, not an advanced one, but a practitioner. I attempt to have my mind there consistently every day to make sure I’m tapping into that deeper part of itself. 

RK: Do you recommend any practices meditation practices for someone to follow? Probably you can share with me a link I can add to the show notes.

John Castagnini: A little biased here because my particular practice is more along the lines of something called calibration, which is based upon sorting through one’s own emotions, so that they can see which emotion they’re having that they’re elated about, or depressed about and then noticing the patterns around their thoughts and their relations and their thoughts and their depressions because what that does is it gives greater insight into the patterns one’s living and into their own addictions, right, their own and their really their own downs.

So the process of calibration is what I mainly practice because it as one tunes into their own emotions. Get a greater understanding of themselves. They also get a greater understanding of the people around them, because they noticed the elations and depressions, and the patterns of the people around them. Which, if you’re building a business, ultimately you’re building a good part of what you’re building is people.

Otherwise, you’re not building a business. Today, it’s your could be your customers, it could be your partners, it could be the people that your employees, whatever it is, but ultimately, you’re not going to be able to build any people. If you become better at building people, the better you become able to communicate with people. Now you become better able to communicate with people if you understand your own emotional patterns and triggers and their emotional patterns and triggers and you understand your voice and values and you understand their voice and values. So then you become better able to build together. 

What do you say a practice for me? The practice of tuning in seeing one my own emotions, and then allowing myself to ask questions like, what I love to do, why would I love to do this? What’s the reason I’m manifesting and making sure that my actions are staying in tune with that, why as consistently as I possibly can, um… isn’t meditation

It’s a meditation that I take a break to do, but then when I have the emotions in, when I’m outside of the meditation, it actually brings it into, beyond just the meditation practice into actual living.

RK: Right, that’s a manifestation that’s when it happens.

John Castagnini: Well, because what I’m trying to relate is this as meditation and removing oneself in order to become clear and focused and in tune is wonderful and important. At the same time, when we enter back in into our work. Bringing that meditation into the present when we’re actually performing is the key, in my opinion, so that we could actually continue to perform in that state of grace, that state of being that state of focus so that when we have our own emotional fluctuations, or they’re happening around us, we could bring the meditation into the present moment during our work. That’s what the process of appropriation does.

RK: Perfect. I can’t think of anyone you know, putting it in a better way. It’s great. Thank you for sharing your insights. So let’s get on to a heart to heart conversation segment. Here’s the first question. How do I discover and liberate my genius?

John Castagnini: How do you discover it? It goes into it comes down to asking the profound questions consistently.

What am I? Why am I here? What would I love to accomplish? who would I love to serve? Why would I love to serve this? What do other people get out of this… Me serving it? What is humanity? Get out of it? What do I get out of doing it physically, mentally, spiritually, financially? How does this help me? become who I would love to be asking questions like that is critical, but not just asking it, asking it over and over until you actually believe what you’re putting down there. And making sure that as you become more and more clear, you’re in it you’re in a state of presence so that it really feels truthful to you that this really is my gift. 

This is really why I’m here because we have you know, 10s of 1000s of marketing messages hitting our brain every day looking for space and time other people, you know, around us bombarding our brains. Um, so knowing when the distinction between the things on the outside is pushing you which, and you’re resonating from a state of I have to! I got to! I need to! I ought to! I really would love to make sure that you’re getting clarity, to the answers to those questions from the I would love to place and to follow the love to place beyond the fears that can limit the answers to those questions. 

RK: Right 

John Castagnini: Making sure you’ve elevated yourself past the fears of, but I really can and I wonder if I could, I don’t know if I have and what if this doesn’t happen? So you keep asking those questions until you know you’re past those illusions and to keep asking them and to keep looking and to reevaluate. Am I still here? Am I still doing this Because here’s why I’m doing it and what I truly see and how I’m served and living my legacy.

RK: Very well said, Yes! it’s interesting, you know because you said to a point, you have to ask yourself to a point that you love, you know, you would love doing it, right? It’s so interesting sometimes that how much of a shift it can create when you start doing things that you don’t like, but you start doing it with love anyway.

Yes, that’s another point you when you start loving what you do you do what you love. 

That’s the other lesson is that sometimes there are tasks that we might not be so inspired to do that are on the list. But if we actually take the time to say, well, this is for a reason, and let me appreciate going through this and see the value in doing it and perform from a love to place we actually shift it and then we move further into the love to play. So there is also that dynamic also.

RK: Great.

John Castagnini: new you get to do what you love.

RK: Yes, absolutely. Both have to coexist.

RK: Great. So this my second question to you, how do I turn my genius into a successful business? 

John Castagnini: Oh, well, the reality of dealing with a business which involves dealing with money, organisations, structure, people challenges. There are certain realities to structuring the business, which includes finances and I’ll mention finances more specifically because that’s one of the greatest challenges.

People often have in building a business, which is valuing finances and linking financial well being to whatever they’re doing. Whatever they would love to do, often you’ll see there’s a disconnect between business finances, and a person doing what they would love to do and that could be I there are many reasons why that could be a challenge, um, being willing to get paid for what you do, being willing to manage the money that you get paid to do well, so that you appreciate finances in and of themselves for yourself, planning your finances for the business itself properly allocating expenditures, there’s a lot to learn, right in order to actually build a successful business. I know I’ve gone through it for a couple of decades, and it’s quite a learning curve for me, right? Fortunately, I did spend my life tuning into what I’d love to do, and for me, there was no plan B for It was Plan A, that’s it.

So what, what’s important to do is to link the value of finances, and wealth accumulation, and being successful in business to what you love to do. Meaning that, if you don’t take the time to link wealth building and building a business to what you’re doing, it most likely will be a hobby.

This means that a person’s doing other work, that they’re not so inspired to do to make money and the habit that they have consistently is a hobby, which is fine if that’s all the person wants.

But usually, true mastery will happen with something when the resources are attracted so that you’re doing it consistently and you’re mastering it consistently. And that doesn’t mean you need to learn to do everything. It means you It’s important to lay enough of a structure so that you know enough to attract the right people in order to help you build what you would love to build. 

For one of my companies, now I have a tech genius, actually, who is a percentage owner of the company who I met through you, right? tech genius with an amazing marketing company with hundreds of people that I couldn’t manifest. And that’s not my expertise, but he’s a partner in the business.

The other person owns an accounting firm for 40 years. So he’s a financial genius, two areas that I know enough about and manage, but they’re not where I’d like to focus. I’m more focused in the area of brand identity, messaging, ideas, overall management, structure resources, communicating with people getting clarity on the idea, so I get to focus now where I’m strong, but I know enough so that they filled in pieces to build a company.

With an inspired idea that I had over a decade ago, I thought, well, wouldn’t it be great if my mother could send me a text because she said,  I would love to get one on my birthday. And now I have the resources to manifest that idea. It’s turning into an app and a company now.

RK:  Absolutely. 

John Castagnini: It was an inspired idea. But yeah, to learn, there was inspired that came from the heart that could serve a lot of people. Right? And I said, Hmm, well, you really need a marketing team. You really need somebody to build that. You’re not gonna build anything. You really could use quite a bit of money to make mastery out of this fight. Right? So I stood in tune with the inspired idea that came from, hey, a lot of people could be helped by communicating with their loved ones forever, you know, continuous conversations that way, what is the connection between people generationally?

RK: It’s so futuristic idea. And I think it’s the right time because we have the technology that is needed to accomplish this. Interesting There was also a series about it, it’s called upload. Yeah. So anyway, we are living in a very crazy world where everything is possible.

John Castagnini: And only more is going to become possible. And as I pursued this, we’ve really expanded into what can be accomplished in copying the human mind, and how far we can take this and all the different problems we can solve in becoming more and more accurate and doing that which really inspires me because I get to study what I love to study, which is how the mind works. Continuously psychological part, the biological parts, my degrees in biology, I went to school to be a chiropractor, but I’m in tune with now how does that apply to technology and we’re building something around it. So it tunes into my studies that I get to… getting paid to read what I love to read,

RK: Right. 

John Castagnini: I’m fascinated by learning. 

RK: Yes. Great. So which brings me to the third question. And the final one? How do I manifest the resources to build a successful business?

John Castagnini: Okay, well, we know that the first step is tuning into your genius and what you would love to do. See, everything is already present. If ultimately, if everything exists in one big now, and I’m a true believer that everything does continuously exist in one big now and time is relative, as Einstein would share his time is relative to light, and we’re perceiving things through light, go to a black hole, it’ll shrink. 

You know, if you put a clock in your attic, and you have a clock in your basement, the clock in your basement will lose a fraction of a second every year. Now, what does that mean? It’s only 30 feet to 30 feet. difference and you losing time, it’s slower if it’s close to the centre of the Earth. So what that shows to me is how relative time is based upon the distortion of, in this case, we call it gravity, which we’re still learning what that is. But point being ultimately times relative in the mind. So we perceive things through time. 

What I’ve discovered is that when you’re in an emotional state, you’re in a state of disequilibrium, and you’re distorting the fabric of space and time your experience is distorted. So, by practicing calibration, you balance the emotional relations and depressions and you enter presence.

That’s why the process is so valuable. When we hear of a musician they have such great presence when we watch a speech and that person has great a presence or performer or anything, we’re talking about great presence, being and now, the more that we could tune into the now, then we see that the resources we would love to have are already there in some form.

So if we ask the questions, where are the finances that I’m looking for, for this project? Where is the expertise I’m looking for for this project? The more we’re tuning into presence, the more we see in our field of vision, where that person is, where the opportunity for finances are, whatever it is, you think is missing is actually present. If you’re truly in tune with your genius, then you just have to ask the questions I’m looking for where is it and let it come into your field.

As opposed to it’s out there and I don’t have it. stay in tune deeper and deeper into your genius. And you’ll see how the resources you’re looking for arise. But you do need to become clear in what those resources you’re looking for are. I’m looking for legal help. I’m looking for people who understand these things. 

Part of it’s people that understand and know things, the right expertise in help building a company, it’s about people. And part of its in resources that fiscally can build your business as well. But they’re already there.  Tuning into presence and asking high-quality questions is the best way to manifest them. And then, and then one other thing is, even if it’s part of the resource when you appreciate so let’s say it’s, I need a million dollars from that project. Let’s just say and I don’t see where that resources a tangible example, but all of a sudden you attracted $30 are way far cry from a million dollars, but out of nowhere 30 I’m sure that’s happened to you have been every $30 comes from somewhere. Well, if you Take that $30 in and you appreciate it and you see, oh, that’s part of the resource I’m looking for. And you see that and you nurture it. The next thousand dollars comes in the next $10,000 comes.

It’s all in the way you treat that partial manifestation.

RK: Great. So it was very insightful, you know, insights that you have shared with us today. How can my audience find you online?

John Castagnini: at www.thankgodi.com Okay, my name is well, they could go to johncastagnini.com, I would suggest for your audience to go to the calibration button in the menu and there’s a free form that they can download If they put their email address and they’ll get an entire explanation on a calibration. It’s definitely worth reading. I truly believe that the process of self-understanding and understanding of other people through emotional patterns is one of the most valuable things a person can learn. Because it allows them to tap into their higher self and new genius and manage people around them from a place of inspiration, when I have a conversation with my partners that I work with them to make sure we’re tuning into who they truly are, and who I truly am so that we could, you know, manifest the highest results as opposed to lower frequency conversations. That process of calibration helps each person elevate to their higher mind. So on thankgodi.com

RK: Perfect. Thank you so much, John. Thank you. I’ll make sure to get the show notes and the links to this episode. And I look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you so much.

John Castagnini: Thank you. pleasure having you all.

***

---