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Star Wars meets Personal Development
Star Wars meets Personal Development
After nearly a nearly two year hiatus, we’re back with a brand new episode of Path of the Jedi!!! And more than just a brand new episode, we have a renewed commitment, enthusiasm, vigor, and passion to deliver you a new content consistently through this year and beyond.
During production of this comeback episode, I realized that I needed this show much more than I knew, that it had served as an outlet to help me process my thoughts and emotional states as much as it was a content outlet for me to grow my “brand”. And if this was the case, then surely there were others out there that Path of the Jedi has helped in the few years since we started.
So, my goal for 2025 is to really grow this show. With your help of course, I want to reach 10,000 monthly downloads this year. This means that there will ten thousand people listening to Path of the Jedi and the messages and lessons we share every month!
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
First, I owe you an explanation. Two years is a long time to be away, and you deserve to know why. So give a listen to the full episode or read the transcript below.
[Preview clip: “Throughout all our lives, no matter what phase of life you’re in, we’ll experience some sort of adversity or challenge, right? Traumas, let’s call them. Big T traumas and little T traumas.
And that’s what, for me, the last two years have felt like. And, you know, when it comes to Star Wars, that’s really all of what our characters are experiencing. I mean, it’s storytelling.”]
[show intro: “You’re listening to Path of the Jedi with your host, Ronnie Cruz”]
All right.
Welcome to Path of the Jedi, the podcast where Star Wars meets personal development. My name is Ronnie Cruz, your host for this long overdue adventure. And that’s right.
Long overdue. Well, first and foremost, right off the bat, I just want to express my deep, deep gratitude to all of you who have continued to listen. For those of you who are existing listeners, followers, subscribers to the show, thank you, thank you, thank you.
You’ve continued to support, listen to the episodes in my… well, I was going to say year and a half, but it’s actually closer to two years, two year absence here in Path of the Jedi. We have it released an episode. It’s going to be two years in March.
So it’s been quite a while. And so I just, again, I want to express my thanks, my gratitude and appreciation to all of you who have continued to listen to our back catalog, who have continued to support the show regardless, well, despite that, we haven’t released a new episode in quite some time. So thank you, thank you so much.
It’s really great to be back in the driver’s seat again, producing and releasing episodes. My plan and goal is to release an episode every week, like we used to do. So it’s going to be a new episode every week in the 2025 and beyond.
So thank you, thank you, thank you.
[Lando Calrissian audio clip: “Hello, what have we here?”]
If you are new to the show, welcome. Thank you for tuning in. This is the first episode that you’re listening to.
What we like to do here at Path of the Jedi, I mean, just like I said in the intro, it’s personal development meets Star Wars. We like to glean life lessons, personal development lessons, personal growth lessons from the Star Wars universe. And of course, if you have a love of Star Wars like I do, you know it is a very, very rich universe, especially in terms of storytelling.
So there’s a lot of things that we can glean from the universe beyond entertainment and fun, right? Like it’s really, really, again, very, very rich, especially in a lot of the depth. There we go.
That’s what I was looking for. There’s a lot of depth in much of the writing that we can learn from. And that’s what I want to share with you in this show, right?
If you’re listening, chances are you have an appreciation and love for Star Wars as much as I do, if not more. And with this podcast, my hope is to help you expand and grow and deepen that love and appreciation. Because, I mean, honestly, I don’t think there’s anybody out there, or are there any other conversations happening out there like this one here at Path of the Jedi.
It’s just a different way of talking about Star Wars, really. So, yeah, that’s my goal. Hopefully, it’ll help enrich and deepen your love and appreciation for Star Wars, while also, well, helping in your day-to-day life, right?
Sharing a perspective with you that you can potentially use in any kind of challenges or adversities or things that you might be working through in your life, right? So, yeah, yeah, it’s a passion of mine. Personal Development, I came up in this industry — I guess you can call it, the personal development, the self-development industry — it’s been a big part of my career as a network marketer, and I’m not going to really talk about that aspect of it, but it’s been a big part of my career. And of course, Star Wars has been a huge, huge part of my life. So I wanted to marry those two things in this show, right?
Two things that I’m very, very passionate about. And it’s worked out quite well… except for the fact that I’ve been gone for almost two years. I haven’t produced and released an episode for almost two years.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about today, right? Just for you to understand what has happened and why it has happened, and why I’ve been absent for so long. I owe you that explanation.
[Rey audio clip: “So classified, really? Me too. Big secret.”]
Okay, so let’s go back to 2023. That’s really, well, it’s not where the story starts, but pertinent to today’s episode. And, you know, sitting here thinking about it, it feels like that was a lifetime ago because so much has happened.
So much has happened since then. 2023 was, well, I kicked off the year incredibly busy. I was full on producing a second podcast at this point, which I started back in September of 22.
But my goal with that podcast, I was recording and releasing an episode every day, right? So it was at that time called Path of the Network Marketer. I’ve since then re-branded it to be called the Redefined Podcast, if you want to check that out.
But anyways, it was at that time again, Path of the Network Marketer, producing and releasing an episode every day. I was learning marketing, I was teaching myself online marketing and social media marketing, while also teaching online marketing and social media marketing in my content.
So, in tandem with learning all this stuff, this stuff that’s completely brand new to me, marketing, I was teaching it as I went, right? Teaching basically, yeah, teaching in real time the things that I was learning about online marketing. And I was incredibly busy, because so there was the podcast, the two podcasts actually, and then there was the content creation that was helping me grow my audience and get this message out there.
And then into 2023, my goal was to start teaching, right? To start launching online courses and virtual courses. So incredibly, incredibly busy, right?
Like I’m learning a whole new aspect. I’m expanding my career into uncharted territory for me, stuff that I had never done before, again, i.e. marketing. And it was incredibly exciting, incredibly fun, and I was fully into it.
The problem was, I was really, really very close to maxing out my bandwidth, both from a time aspect, my workload aspect, and even just like my mental bandwidth was maxing out very, very quickly. I decided then in March to put Path of the Jedi, this show, on hold, just to make space. I really couldn’t juggle it anymore.
I had a live course, my first paid live course that was scheduled for April of that year. And I needed to put all the focus and attention to that live course, because I’d never “done it before, and I wanted to have a successful launch. So something had to give, and of course it was this show, given that this show was really just kind of a passion project, right?
It was the one thing that I could be okay with putting on pause and coming back to it. And of course, all of this is on top of, you know, my existing network marketing business, and you know, how busy that keeps me. So I decided in March, and I’m looking at it right now, it was actually March 16th, 2023, was the last episode I released here for Path of the Jedi.
Again, with full intention of picking it back up again once I could take a breath from all the other stuff. So I had my first paid live online course, virtual course, it was a marketing course that I did. Launched very well.
I feel like it was incredibly successful given the fact that it was my first one. And yeah, everything was all well and good, and I was ready to kind of pick up Path of the Jedi where I left off after that, because I was giving myself breathing room after that launch. Shortly after the launch of that course, my dad got really ill.
Well, his health had been declining for quite a while, and it was around that time of April, mid to late April of 2023, that things kind of started to take a turn for the worse, right? It was getting pretty bad. And so I went to stay with mom and dad.
I have that freedom of time and location, so I went to stay with them. And by the end of May, dad really… we were pretty much just waiting in vigil by the end of May.
So he passed away in May of 2023. And at that point, I just was… I don’t know.
I just needed a break from everything, right? Like everything that had been going on with life. And I’m not going to go into detail about what was going on in my network marketing business.
I needed to take a break from that. You know, with dad dying, I just needed a break, right? Like I was closer to a burnout point than I had…
Well, that I’d realized. And so I did. I took a break.
What that meant was, you know, stepping away from all those things and, you know, the marketing and the content creation and all that stuff, also meant that it was further delaying Path of the Jedi, the, you know, re-release or picking Path of the Jedi back up. So summer 2023 was really just for me spending time there at, well, spending time with mom, staying over there pretty much the entire summer, which allowed me to reconnect with old friends that hadn’t, you know, spent a lot of time with over the years. So it was nice.
It was nice. Through that, through the rest of that year, I ended up having to step back into working, quote unquote, with my network marketing business. There was a lot of volatility with the company that I’m partnered with.
There was a lot of volatility with the, with my team, my sales team. And I, you know, I got back, I stepped back into the field much sooner than I had wanted to. Excuse me.
Sorry, I hit the mic. And I got incredibly busy and tied up with that, right? Like trying to kind of, you know, put out fires, if you will.
So that was pretty much the rest of my, that was like October, November, 2023, and that led into 2024. I started picking up the redefined podcast, my other podcast, back up again, just to get it going. But like I had really, because I was stepping back into the fray sooner than I had wanted to, and perhaps sooner than I was ready for, I wasn’t fully in, right?
I wasn’t fully into everything and being back in life. You know what I mean? So Path of the Jedi just kept getting pushed and pushed and pushed to the back burner.
2024 comes around. More volatility and struggle with my network marketing business at the beginning of the year last year. And again, I can’t believe it was just last year.
2024, this particular event in 2024 seems like a lifetime ago, but it hasn’t even been a year. Around February, March of last year, about half of my team, my network marketing business decided to leave and join and partner with another company. So that was just a shot in the gut, really, for me.
It was a kick in the nuts. You know, after all the years of having built that team and been in the field with so many of those leaders that left and developing all those relationships, I mean, there’s a lot of baggage there, right? So, you know, that was a kick in the nuts.
And that really kind of put me on the sidelines again, right? Put me on the sidelines again in 2024. So 2024, you know, I started after a while, you know, when the dust settled from all of that, you know, I started getting back into the swing of things.
I really needed to focus on rebuilding my business. I wasn’t even paying attention to marketing anymore. The other podcast, the redefined podcast, I started focusing less on marketing and teaching that stuff and really started shifting towards mindset and personal development, because again, that’s something that I’m really, really comfortable with and comfortable in.
It’s a space I’m comfortable in, and it’s a space that I’m very, I feel like I’m really well versed in. And so the redefined podcast really, really was, yeah, it was me kind of stepping back into the ring, but I still didn’t have it have it in me enough to pick up Path of the Jedi. Poor Path of the Jedi.
Now that I recap this story to you, I feel so bad that this show has gone for so long without, yeah, well, it’s been neglected for this long, but here we are, here we are. So 2024, we decided towards the late spring, early summer that we’re gonna move my mom here to the mountain, sell her house, because she was basically by herself there at the house for the most part, and it was a good way to just, yeah, now she’s up here on the mountain and she has company, but all of that entails years and years of stuff, getting packed, getting moved, getting thrown away, getting cleaned, getting the house ready, you know what I mean? So most of my summer was taken up by the transition of having my mom move up here with me to my house, and my sister, of course, my sister lives up here as well, move up here to the mountain.
And that’s a major life transition for everybody involved, right? For mom, especially for me, having another person in the house, which again, that’s why you might hear the TV in the background, because I have another person in the house. Yeah, yeah, so that was a major adjustment.
And if you haven’t gone through that yet, if you haven’t… if you haven’t had… if you’re not in that phase of life where your parents are starting to age… yeah, it’s a big transition. I mean, losing one parent is already a major transition, but then having a parent move in or moving in with a parent because they’re alone, that’s another major life change. But it is a chapter that many people go through and experience, and that’s the chapter that I’m in right now.
And so again, lots of adjustment, right? Lots of adjustment. So the summer was adjusting to, you know, her being here, et cetera, et cetera, and me kind of adjusting to all of that.
And then what ends up happening in the fall, and this is where things really just start like one thing after another, right? So Hurricane Helene, I call it, I pronounce it Helena. I mean, that’s how I, when I read it, I was like, oh, it’s Helena.
But then I started hearing other people pronounce it Helene. Anyways, the hurricane, massive hurricane plows through Appalachia, Western North Carolina. That was a major, major event.
It was, I mean, catastrophic event. It was, it was a natural disaster, unlike anything that this region has ever seen before in, in, you know, recorded history, really. So that was, that was huge.
That was like, that was pretty much preoccupied my mind, not preoccupied, occupied my mind and, and, you know, everything that, that I was doing, everything that I was focused on and still, still very much focused on it today with the relief effort and everything like that. So, that was a major event. Not long after that, I lost a friend, a dear, dear friend of mine.
And when, yeah, a dear friend of mine was killed in a drunk driving accident, he was hit by a drunk driver, completely unexpected. And of course, I mean, those things are always unexpected. But you never, you never think it’ll happen to you or anybody that you know, right?
You know, like you hear how often it happens, and it happens way too often. But you never think, you never think that, you know that that’s something that you need to expect or wait for, right? So it was quite a shock.
It was quite a shock. And yeah, it’s something that I’m still kind of grappling with. Then the election happened.
And, you know, I think for those of you who have been listeners to the show, you know, I’m pretty left-leaning. And most of you that follow the show are left-leaning. So the election results that were right on top of me losing a friend was just, again, it was basically the last two years feels like one kick in the nuts after another, right?
Right when I was catching my breath from the previous kick in the nuts, I was getting kicked in the nuts again. And then, you know, top it off at the beginning of December of last year, my dog died, right? It’s like a fucking country music song, like a country song.
All the things that could happen happened. All those things that country boys cry about in their songs, I could cry. I mean, like, the only thing that’s missing is my girlfriend left.
And that’s, you know, I don’t have a girlfriend. So, you know, like it’s an incomplete country song, I guess. So it was one, it was one, it was one frickin kick in the nuts after the other.
And it was tough to focus on anything really, but like, I’m still kind of getting over everything. And part of, I think, my recovery and healing process here at the beginning of 2025 is picking this show back up. Really, it’s just been, it’s just, yeah.
I think I’ve needed it more than I’ve admitted to myself. And it feels really, it feels like a warm blanket now that I’m here recording and producing an episode here for you guys. So, you know, if there’s, I don’t know, tying it back to Star Wars, we all, throughout all our lives, no matter what phase of life you’re in, will experience some sort of adversity or challenge, right?
Traumas, let’s call them. Big T traumas and little T traumas. And that’s what, for me, the last two years have felt like.
And, you know, when it comes to Star Wars, that’s really all of what our characters are experiencing. I mean, it’s storytelling, right? You know, you have your antagonist, or sorry, you have your protagonist, your hero, experiencing some sort of, you know, challenge or adversity.
And that’s, the challenge and adversity is what drives the story forward. And it’s what drives the evolution and the growth of that character, of that protagonist. And that’s exactly what life is.
I mean, that’s what storytelling comes from. It evolved from sharing our own stories, right? And over the evolution of human beings, it’s become a creative outlet, but it is still, it is no less a reflection of the human experience, right?
The human experience. And if you look at Star Wars, there is so much trauma. I mean, Order 66, hello.
There’s so much trauma there. And I mean, you look at Andor, shit. Like there’s so many things that you can pinpoint as, at the very least, an adversity or a challenge.
And it’s those adversities and challenges that our characters have to go through. And this is what… Those are the things that causes, you know, causes evolution and growth in the character, in the characters.
And also the reason why we latch onto them so much, right? Like Andor was such a good show, and I’m so glad they’re coming out with season two. But Andor is so good because we can relate to so much of it on every level, right?
Like, no matter, like, I feel like that particular show, I mean, I love all the Star Wars, right? But that particular show, just thinking about it, there’s so many things from from all sides of it that you can relate to because it is so human. And that’s the beauty of Star Wars, right?
It is so it is such a beautiful reflection. If you take the time to really examine and look at it, it’s a beautiful reflection of of the human condition and and things that we go through every day, those those traumas, right? And those challenges and those adversities and how to deal with it.
So if there’s anything that I can share with you today, sharing my last two years with you here on today’s episode is please work on addressing, addressing those traumas, right? Addressing those things. I think it’s really, really important.
And again, coming back to this show is one of those ways that I pro, I mean, for if nothing else, this is this is me dealing with with my own my with my own stuff. Right. But but addressing trauma is incredibly important.
If you look at Order 66 and let’s talk about Kenobi, right? Excuse me. You see, especially at the beginning of Kenobi, but throughout that that particular show, how the different characters have dealt with Order 66 and the trauma, you know, that they experienced through that, right?
You have Riva, who arguably hadn’t processed the trauma that she experienced in a very healthy way. Even even Obi-Wan, you know, he at the beginning of it was in hiding. He had cut himself off from the force.
He also, I would I would say, did not process his trauma very well. I think through the course of through the course of the show itself, he processes it and, you know, he kind of accepts what happens. And he also learned some new things.
Of course, he learns Darth Vader is actually Anakin, all these things. So it’s his growth that we see and him processing his own trauma through that show. And so you see why it’s so important.
One of the things that and maybe this is the last thing I’ll leave you with for this show, because I had no kind of notes or outline that I’m following. I’m just kind of speaking off the cuff. But one of the things I can definitely say helps when you are feeling despair, right?
When you’re feeling hopelessness, when you’re feeling depression, coming out of Hurricane Helene, yeah, I felt pretty lost. I mean, thankfully, we weren’t that affected here at our place on our property. Like, we barely actually saw any damage.
A couple of trees down, and we lost power for two days, but that was about it, right? Like, we got off really, really well. We got off lucky.
But I didn’t feel any less despair, because I mean, I’m part of this community. We’re part of this region. I have a deep love for this region all my life, and now having lived up here 10 years this year.
So I was feeling a sort of despair. I mean, again, it was a catastrophe. It was a natural catastrophe.
What I learned from that, especially the immediate after effects of the hurricane, was I put my focus, putting my focus, well, I immediately turned and started looking for ways I can help, right? Ways I can help. And I saw and I felt within myself starting to feel better about, not about the situation, but just feeling better and shifting my focus away from the despair and the hopelessness and the chaos and all this stuff.
And like, you know, it’s, yeah, all this stuff that you experience after a trauma, right? Right? I shifted and I started, you know, that seeing where I could help, seeing where I could be of service, really shifted my mindset and my focus away from all these other things.
And I started to actually feel better, right? I started to actually feel better. So if there’s something, and even for the show, right?
Now that I’m here, now that I’m recording and producing, and I’m finally back after almost two years, I realized that being in this chair, being in this driver’s seat of producing and releasing this episode, it provides some sort of service. And it helps me not only process that trauma and process the things that I’ve experienced, but shifting that focus away from how crappy I might feel at any given moment and focusing on how I can serve through this show or through whatever medium, whether it’s helping at a relief center or recording a podcast, shifting that focus from the trauma and the service. I’m not saying avoid the trauma or ignore it, but shifting that focus away and shifting it over to service and to giving.
I know it sounds pithy and can sound pithy and even cliche, but it really helps. It really helps because then I think one of the biggest things that it does is it shifts your focus away from you being an island to you being part of something bigger, right? Because when you, at least for me, like my experience in in depression, my experience in, you know, anytime I feel like I’m in despair, it feels very lonesome.
Like you feel alone in the world. And when I’m giving, when I’m helping, when I’m working to be of service, I start to feel like I’m part of something, and I start to feel more connected. And just that little thing allows me to, well, it just, I just feel better.
I just feel better. I don’t have any scientific research or, you know, empirical evidence behind it. It just makes me feel better.
So, I mean, okay, so tying it back to Star Wars, if you look at the difference between the Empire and the Jedi, the Jedi are always, always about service. And, you know, they’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I think that helps them become better adjusted individuals, especially given the amount of trauma that they face, and they have faced through their lives.
So, if there’s something that you can do for somebody, and it doesn’t have to be anything big, it doesn’t have to be like, you know, you’re out on search and rescue or anything like that, just sitting and being with somebody, you know, helping an individual, helping somebody that you know, or a friend or a family with something. Just be of service. Give of yourself to others, and it will help you kind of process and shift your focus away from feeling bad, really, from feeling bad and from feeling depressed or despair.
So that’s one piece. Of course, there’s other things that you can and should do if you’ve dealt with especially big T, big T traumas, capital T traumas. I’m not a licensed therapist.
I’m not a doctor. I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist. So I encourage you to seek help, right?
Seek help, please seek help, especially if you’re in a really, really bad way, if you’re in a really bad mental state, if you’re, if you’re, you know, your well-being is being affected by by depression, anxiety, seek help, seek help, whatever form of help, you know, that whatever form that comes in, again, whether it’s therapy or or, you know, clinical psychiatry, psychology, Reiki, acupuncture. I do acupuncture. I go to acupuncturist.
That’s helped a lot over the years. So whatever form that comes in, please go seek help. Right.
This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I hope it helps. But I’m not equipped to help you with the deeper things that you might have to face.
So I encourage you. And these last, I mean, if your last two years, the last two years for you have been anything like mine, you’ve dealt with a lot. And you deserve help.
You deserve help. So go seek help, professional help, and then go give help. That, I think, is the best message I could leave for you today on this show here at Path of the Jedi.
Yeah, yeah, it’s good to be back. It’s good to be back. Like I said, this is as therapeutic for me as it is educational and entertainment for you.
Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for tuning in. Yeah, I usually do a thing here with announcements and shout outs.
I will get back to doing shout outs. For those of you who have podcasts, please let me know. I would love to check it out and give you a shout out here on the show.
My thing is, I want to create and build what I call the shout out network, where podcasters are shouting out each other’s shows within the network to their audiences. Shows, of course, shows that you like and that you enjoy to their audiences. So the shout out network, shout out community, I’ll call it community.
The shout out community helps each other’s show grow and gets exposure to other people. So I will definitely continue that. And of course, shout out to just any individual.
So if you have anybody in particular in your life that you want to give a shout out to, and you’d like to hear them celebrated here on the show, I am a very, very, yeah, I’m a huge fan of that. I’m a huge fan of celebrating people. So you can email me.
I think there’s an email button now. If you see it on the podcast episode, the description of the show notes, the description of show notes, and the show notes of this episode, there should be an email, email us link. If not, you can email directly to info at pathofthejedai.com and put shout out in the subject matter.
And let me know who you want to shout out. If you even want to record an audio clip, I’ll play it here on the show. But yeah, shout out to anybody that you want to, that you want to shine the light on in your life.
That’s been a blessing to you or that’s, you know, just somebody that you want to celebrate. Again, it’s info at pathofthejedai.com. Just put a brief message and I’ll read it out, or you can record one yourself.
You can email us or just hit that email button in the show notes. And that’s going to do it. That’s going to do it for today.
I’ve rambled on long enough. Again, I appreciate you. It’s great to be back here on Path of the Jedi.
Cannot wait. Future episodes, what we’re going to do is… Well, in the next episode, I’m going to…
What was I going to talk about? Next episode, we are… Well, I wanted to talk about…
I can’t even think of it off the top of my head. We definitely do show to show, episode to episode. There’s been in so many shows since the last two years that deserve episode to episode discussions, I’m sure.
I think I’m going to go with Ahsoka as the first show. Oh, that’s what I wanted to talk about. In the next episode, I want to talk about family and just some things I observed about myself, about my family, and kind of like what that looks like within Star Wars, and how that all ties in.
So maybe some insights for you, and family and relationships and things like that. So that’s going to be the next episode. But after that, then we’ll get into the episode by episode discussions of things like Ahsoka, the Acolyte.
Man, I love that show. So disappointed that it’s not getting a second season, but I really enjoyed that one. And all the other stuff, right?
Like we had, I think they had Visions season 3. I didn’t even talk about Visions season 2 yet here on the show. So there’s a lot.
There’s a lot to cover. So it’s going to be an exciting time. It’s going to be a time for us to, again, grow and deepen our love and appreciation for Star Wars and also to grow and deepen our appreciation for ourselves in this journey we call life.
So thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Again, thank you for your support.
We will catch you next week with a fresh new episode. So until then, be well, be safe, and may the force be with you.
[Disclaimer: This podcast is not endorsed by the Walt Disney Company nor Lucasfilm Ltd, and is intended for entertainment, educational, and informational purposes only.
The official Star Wars website can be found at www.starwars.com. Star Wars, all names and sounds and any other Star Wars related items are registered trademarks and or copyrights of Disney and their respective trademark and copyright holders. All original content of this podcast is intellectual property of Path of the Jedi unless otherwise indicated.]
[Yoda giggle audio clip]
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