The Agony And Ecstasy Of Living Your Dreams With Daniel Gutierrez

 

What is it truly like to be living your dreams? Many people want a high-paying job, a beautiful family, a fast car but will it truly make them happy? If your soul is unhappy maybe you should let go of yourself. Take the leap of faith and do something you enjoy. Stop trying to fill the hunger for success. This is what Daniel Gutierrez did. He left America to live in Peru, and it was only then that he found peace with himself. Daniel is the owner of the Catalina Retreat Center where he brings people together. He was once a high-powered executive and in-demand consultant, but he found that there was more to success than money. Listen and get inspired by his story today as he powerfully shares it with Corin Grillo.

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Listen to the podcast here:

The Agony And Ecstasy Of Living Your Dreams With Daniel Gutierrez

“To get to the highest chops, one must explore the deepest depths.” Nobody knows that truth better than my friend, Daniel Gutierrez. During the past years, he’s led quests to the heights of Machu Picchu, the depths of the Amazon and the top of the Himalayas. Once a high-powered executive and an in-demand consultant, Daniel realized that there was more to success than a seven-figure earning potential. He is now a Wisdom Keeper bringing communities together with the Catalina Retreat Center in Pisac, Peru in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. One could say his journey was one from the boardroom to a medicine man. Welcome, Daniel. I’m glad you’re coming on. It’s a suspicious time on the planet. What I love about the work that you do and your life is that it’s almost like you are willing to take bigger leaps, bigger risks than almost anybody that I know when I feel into it for the positive risks.

I moved here at the age of 55. I’m thinking to myself while I’m in the process of making this move, “You’re no young cop. What are you thinking? You’re not 22 years old. It’s all right. I’m going to take one piece of luggage and have

A fish doesn’t know it’s in water until you take it out and then it starts flopping and gasping for air. I didn’t know how conditioned I was around certain things. One of them is, how much do we buy? How much of a consumer mentality do we have in the US? Here they don’t have the kind of income. I would go into someone’s house. It’s a dirt floor and I’m going, “I ain’t eating at this place.” It hit home for me one holiday because there’s no Frosty The Snowman or Santa Claus Coming to Town. None of that stuff exists here.

I realized how much realistic I had been all those years and almost overcharging my cards to make sure people liked me. I bought them something because I was afraid that somebody wouldn’t like me if I didn’t buy them something. I remember asking a friend of mine, “Show me your holiday costumes.” I have only Santa Claus in the whole valley. She took me to the village and says, “You have to buy a nativity scene.” I said, “I do?” “You need to have your baby Jesus and the nativity scene in your house.” I said, “Let’s go buy one, I obviously do not have one.”

We went and bought the nativity scene. We had to buy the special grass, put it together and she goes, “You can’t put the baby Jesus in there.” I went, “What do I do with the baby Jesus?” She says, ”You have to stay up until midnight.” That was already hard for me. I’m in bed by 8:00. “Let’s stay up until midnight then at midnight, we drink the certain tea, burn a certain incense and put the baby Jesus. That was it. Nothing else. That was the whole celebration.” It was special because I thought, “If I was in the US, I’d be stressed out of my mind figuring out how to buy things. Who was not going to let me because I didn’t buy him something?” I didn’t remember wanting to give him a card. I would have never seen it, had not been here. Things are simple here. That’s the one thing about being here that is different about the US. Having a young son, I was always stuck in soccer and you know the drill. I’m taking him here and there. Here it’s just living.

Successful people don’t wait. They fly by the seat of their pants to do something because otherwise, they will never do it.

Is everybody with each other?

That was the thing too. With COVID, it’s been restricted but there are so many holidays that they observe, both religious and ambient, spirituals. It’s amazing. There’s a word here called ayni. It means, “You today, me tomorrow.” It’s something that the Incas built their whole empire on. I thought this was crazy. I was like, “This is the way you’re doing?” If somebody dies or a girl and a guy gets married, everybody goes and they support each other that way. When the field is ready for harvesting, everybody comes and then they go to the next one. You don’t see that in the US. It’s, “Me.”

It’s very centered on the individual. In order for you to make the leap, how long had you been dreaming of moving to Peru and opening up a retreat center?

As a seventeen-year-old, I was a licensed Baptist minister. I already had a church. I was on the radio and studying Hebrew and Greek. It was back then when I said, “I wish I had a place that people could be loved without any conditioning.” That’s where it started a long time ago. Things that are set into your subconscious and mind go into motion. Every once in a while, I was thinking about it when I was in a country where I was visiting. “That was a great place for me,” I remember saying that about Nepal too.

 

The first time I thought about being here was about years ago when I did a video that said, “Spirits told me it’s time for me to move here and open a retreat center.” It’s on YouTube and it did happen. That’s where I had the thought. I was bringing groups here for many years, three times a year. It became home. Following your dreams is hard when you look at your life and you’re tethered to everything, your mortgage, job, marriage or kids. There are a lot of reasons that people don’t jump. I had a moment in time years ago when my mother passed away. She was everything to me. Her name is Catalina and my son was graduating high school. I realized that there was a gap in my life.

 

For those of you that have ever had children move on after high school, they don’t exactly hang out with you, movies with you, you don’t like the same movies and all of a sudden you’re left. There’s no fishing, no camping, no nothing. I was in that gap. I said, “What am I going to do?” I remember taking a bus to Puno, to visit lake Titicaca and going, “I’m going to be alone. I don’t have anybody. Now what? That was a moment where I think that we all have these moments in our lives, where we have an opportunity to do something different and most people choose not to because they’re scared. I don’t want to move across town, across country or continents like I did.

There was a moment in time where I had an opportunity and that was to move. Nobody believed I was going to do it in my son. My son graduated on June 15th and on 16th, I was gone. I had absolutely sold or shredded everything and moved myself to Peru. If I think back to the real moment that I thought about having a retreat center, it was when I was seventeen. When I think about that pivotal point in my life where I realized, “This is my chance. If I’m going to do it, do it now.” All the things that we all think about for me came up like my age, “I don’t know the country. How do you just go open a retreat center? Is it even possible? Spirit said, ‘Go and bring nothing with you. Shred your past.’” I did. I literally posted on Facebook that, “I didn’t even know you could hire a truck to come to your house with a shredder in it to shred everything.” They shred my past completely. All my baby, my mom’s, son’s, my pictures, all these accolades I had, books, paintings, everything.

I remember when they put the wastebasket thing in there, it was gone. All my clothes and furniture I gave away. I had a friend whose house burned down and he didn’t have anything, I said, “You can come to my house and take everything.” I did come here with nothing except two suitcases and that was it. I remember for the longest time, “Why did I do that? Why did I get rid of all those memories?” It was hard for me because I was, “I cannot undo it. It’s done.” This is why I talk about the difference between transformation and transmutation. The caterpillar does not transform. That’s the sexy way of telling the story. The caterpillar transmutes. It dies to itself in order to become a beautiful butterfly. Basically, what I was doing was, “How do I let go of the executive? How do I let go of this guy who has won the cover of four magazines? I’ve done all this stuff. I don’t want not let go.” In my time being here, COVID taught me that because I had so much time on my hands that I had to come to grips that the Daniel Gutierrez that people know on a bio is not the person I am now. That person is gone. It doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just the bio.

We are talking to Daniel because it’s important. A lot of us are percolating especially after 2020 that we had. There’s a lot of inspiration and ideas coming to us and a lot of them are truly divinely inspired. Many of us won’t cross that threshold, force ourselves or take a serious look at it because it seems impractical. Daniel, you moved through that demon, the impractical and challenged every single role that you play. Who are you as a father, leader, author or speaker? You challenged that most people will turn away just from having to challenge one of those roles. You got the shredder out and shred all the holes and puppeting roles that you were playing. There was something new emerging. When a lot of people talk about fulfilling their dreams, they keep all the good parts and don’t talk about the shadow part of pursuing, claiming and realizing your dream. Tell me the reality and some of the stuff as much as the highs are high and the awesomeness is awesome. What’s been your biggest struggle in making this leap?

There have been a lot of them, to be honest with you. There’s the financial burden of having no guest here for over a year. Thank goodness that when I moved here to Catalina, I looked at it as my home. I didn’t look at it as a retreat center, even though it was what I was doing. Sometimes on Facebook, I lost my cookies during the beginning of the pandemic and it was 90 or 120 days into it. I was, “F you,” to everybody right on Facebook. I later thought, “That probably wasn’t a good idea.” You made a comment on it.

You have to take risks. A fish doesn’t know it’s in water until you take it out.

You were like this, “F this and that.” Someone goes, “How did that start?” It’s because someone said I said on Facebook, “It’s a real tragedy, I’m out of the mission.” Someone sends me a note and said, “That’s not very spiritual of you to be eating baby pigs.” I lost it. I F and F everybody. I remember somebody from Costa Rica said, “My husband is listening to you and he said, ‘Did Daniel say fuck?’” I said, “Get the F off.” That was one of those moments where I lost it. I just broke. The reason why that video was so popular was that there were a lot of people feeling that way. I happened to be a leader that people follow that lost the shit on Facebook. There have been a lot of tough times.

I have taken a group to Peru at Daniel’s retreat center.

It’s like almost only your mom listens to the radio show that you’re doing. That’s the first group. Then you guys, the real group came in. We didn’t know how to do anything but it’s not easy to jump and follow your dreams. I don’t want to ever make it look that way because I was somebody who tasted that baby pigs are delicious. I’m going to answer it this way, someone asked me, “How do you know the decision you made to go to Peru was the right decision?” I said, “I have an answer for that. In the mornings when I get up, I get my cup of coffee. I let the dogs out and I always walk around the property. I go check out the chapel and make sure that the animals have food, go pick the eggs up so I got breakfast. Something happened to me here I’ve never experienced before.”

When I was in the US, I never seemed to be anything to fill the hunger for success. I was going from one thing to the next. That’s why I did so much. I was just, “Nothing’s filling that happiness hole. I’m going to keep at it.” Here, I have less and when I take that walk in the morning, my soul smiles and is happy. That’s when I know that I made the right decision. I’m always a business guy but I don’t have this overwhelming desire to go open another one. My soul smiles to be here next to mountain Lindley and the ruins. To be able to see that out of my window I say, “Why did it take me long?”

I don’t think it matters how long it takes. It’s just that you eventually do it. Unfortunately, most of us never get there because we’re chasing the dream. I realized was in Corporate America, which I worked in quite a bit, they dangle a carrot in front of everybody called stock options, pensions and people buy that. They chase this carrot all the way to their health until they have nothing to give then they have to take all that money and buy their health back or trying to. There are a lot of things in the world we can pay people to do. Your health is not one of them. If you’re safe, you go to that bed, sit there and deal with it however you deal with it. Going back to your question about darkness, I cried literally for weeks by myself, nobody around, no long-term friends, family or my son. It was hard. Not once that I think about going home or going back to the US.

 

Somebody called me, “Why don’t you take one of these repatriation flights?” It’s where they take Americans back during COVID. They were flying people back. I was asked, “Do you want to go home?” I said, “I am home.” He said, “Why don’t you leave?” I said, “I didn’t come here to be a tourist. I live here. I’ll stay here with the people.” They appreciated that. I’m talking about us. I’m an American. We get conditioned to believe these things, carrots, all the monetary buying stuff. I love America. It’s been the country that made me, that gave me the opportunity to become who I am but I did realize how unhappy my heart was chasing that carrot.

I remember once I was the President of an organization called PRIMER. It was a C-Suite organization of people in New York City and around the country that were either a CDO, CFO, average income, $300,000 a person. I remember once I had to go to New York and leaving Los Angeles at 11:00 at night to be there at 6:00 in the morning. I had a meeting on the hour, every hour until 10:00 PM. I thought to myself, “Why am I going to pay $500 if my flight is at 4:00 in the morning?” I went to the airport and slept on the benches. I remember booking up with this guy with the big Zambonis, cleaning the floors and I thought, “Who’s happier him or me?” He looked pretty happy pushing that Zamboni. I was not happy at all. That’s when I realized, “There’s something wrong with this picture.” All to get back on a flight and get back to Los Angeles.

I think that the hard stuff, when you’re alone and for the longest time, maybe that was just something I had to goes through. I had to realize I wasn’t alone. I had the Pachamama and the energy but I’m missing that human companionship and my son who I’ve never been away from and now I’m gone. It was hard. I cried every night. I thought, “What about that?” I start through it and took that. People think every chasing dreams is easy. It’s not even close to easy not because it wasn’t the right moved. It was because, in order for you to appreciate life and what it has to offer, every mountaintop has a valley. You have to walk through to get to the next one. You are all on the top of the world, you look down and going, “I got to go down.”

When I’m talking to groups in my communities, when people are making a big bid for power, which is the equivalent of going for a big dream, there is a level of sacrifice. Some of the big dreams are smaller or little sacrifices. The bigger bid for power, the bigger the dream, the more the identity has to die.

I’ve never shown this part in the book. COVID was a blessing for me all at the same time but there was a moment in time, that day after I did the F-bomb on everybody on Facebook Live, I said, “I probably should stay off the internet for a little while.” I decided to just go inward and do a ceremony here by myself and I realized, “You’re still hanging on to that old Dan. You may have sold everything but you didn’t let go of your past, the bio or that person that you think you are. In order for you to appreciate what you have here, you have to let go of who you were, you cannot become something new if you’re hanging on to something you were.”

Stop trying to fill that hunger for success. Sometimes it’s better to let your soul be happy.

It was like a vivid and this is something new. I remember the mountain saying to me, “When you came here, you did it despacio and asked if this was your property or place and, ‘Should I move here?’” I did. I came here and then I went back to the start. I said, “Yes.” “Then you move here and you have people mulling, cleaning, gardening, you’ve never touched the soil. What I need you to do is to treat me the way you treated your dying mother. Put your hands in the soil and feel me. When you do that, you’ll find that you made the right decision that who you are now is important that you got to let go of that Daniel Gutierrez.” I was in tears.

You could imagine this is a big place you’ve been here. There were no employees because they couldn’t come to work. It was just me. I had to learn everything like the pipes. I’m outside with this weed eater. I thought, “I’m going to mow the lawn.” If the dogs could talk, they would look at me like, “He’s a freaking cartoon. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” I had to go on YouTube because I couldn’t start it but I mowed the whole property myself and it felt so good to connect with Pachamama. I felt good to go, “I get it.”

That was that moment in time where I said, “Too much is given, much is expected.” A couple of girls had come by because I asked them to sweep me some blue corn tortillas so I could eat. I said, “How are things in town?” I haven’t been to Písac either. I’m twenty minutes out. They said, “It’s sad. The government is sending money to the municipality and they’re stealing. People up in the mountains don’t have food.” I was like, “I’m going to do something about that. I don’t know how.” I snuck into town and I ended up meeting the former Mayor of Pisac. We’re in a dark room. We can’t turn off the lights and I’m going, “How can I help? How can we take provisions to these people?” He says, “Tell me how many people are in each village and each community?” Long story short, that day I was transmuted into who I am now.

I’m a leader in all of those communities. They all know me. I went up there and fed 4,000 people. I pay for everything from some that I have and some of the people online. I would leave here and the military with harassment because we were still in martial law. I would have to show him a paper and they would go, “You’re American, what are you doing here”? I was harassed everywhere I went but I said, “I’m going to do this.” That creates a shift in me that, “This is where you’re supposed to be. You did the US, your success, leadership but we need you here now.” I want to share a quick story because it’s going to bring you it’s all together. The very first time I ever did plant medicine, I remember being in front of a bunch of Pachatusan which is on the other side of this mountain. They asked, “What do you want to know?”

Somebody might appreciate this or relate to it. All my life since I was five, I knew things. My mom would hold my little hand and when her friends would see me they’d say, “There’s something about your kid. Look at his eyes.” I related that to, “I’m not supposed to look at anybody,” so I would look down. Even in business, I would sit there and get a download about the person I was talking to. I didn’t know shit about them. All of a sudden I would know what or somebody could walk by and I say, “When did you get divorced? They go, “How did you know that?” I said, “I don’t.” Do you know what I’m talking about? This has always been happening.

 

I was in front of Pachatusan and I said, “Could you please tell me how I know this?” I’m a business guy, I wasn’t tapping into my spiritual gifts. I honestly thought everybody did it. I didn’t know. I’m sitting here and this mountain, the condor appears to me and says, “Are you ready for the answer now?” I said, “That’s why I’m doing this crazy medicine. Let’s do this.” He says, “Look at the top of Pachatusan.” I look at the top of the mountain and he says, “Do you see the people?” I went, “Oddly, yes. I see them.” He says, “Do you see the flame?” “Like you have a few people in that flame? Yeah.” “Those are the lifetimes and all those lifetimes you were their medicine man. That’s what you brought into this life. That’s why you know what you know.” I remember that changed my life. Fast forward, I’m helping these people here.

I remember I got up to Ambay and there was a moment when I’m looking at this older lady getting her little bag of stuff that I bought everybody and I thought, “Why do I care? Why am I spending my time, money and energy?” I was angry looking at these people like, “Why me?” I then snap back to that moment I just shared with you about the mountain then I started crying. I realized that these were the descendants of the people I saw on the mountain. That’s why I had a big heart for them and I gave so much. I still do every day. Even when I didn’t have it, I would say, “I’ll help you.” That’s been the relationship but that didn’t come until I was willing to die on myself. That’s why I laughed when you said the bios. I don’t care.

When you chase your dreams, you going to be willing to die a little bit inside of letting go of that craziest idea of, “Who you think you are.” What is a bio? This could be all over the world but in the US, it’s what we hang our hat on. If you have a strong bio, people are impressed but if you think about it, you’re impressed about what? Something you already did in the past? What about now? Who are you now? Who am I now? You can read that bio and I’ll probably go, “I don’t know that guy,” because now I’m in a different space.

There’s a quote by Eckhart Tolle, “The secret of life is to die before you die.”

My connection, dreaming and life here is much different than when you saw me the last time. You’ll see that with the people. I’m posting videos all the time because they invite me to these beautiful dances and want me to be a part of them. They feed me, we dance, laugh and it’s like, “I feel like I’m home.” Now, when I go into these homes that have no floors, they’re dirty in bathrooms, every time I go into a bathroom, I want to take a picture because their shower and their bathroom are together. I don’t mean there’s a tub. They’re together. They got wires hanging out this way, you look over the things that you used to take a bath and they have no hot water. It’s just cold. I look at that and now I’m doing okay. Before, I wouldn’t even walk in and like, “I’m not going in there.” It’s amazing.

You have to make sacrifices. Every mountain top has a valley you have to walk through.

It sounds powerful and I can’t help but feel more into what you’re saying, “Look in my heart.” I can feel this massaging that’s been going on for almost like this breakdown first and that massaging into deeper layers of your heart. It seems what you’re describing is that you have never been more yourself than you are now.

Why do I have so many animals? I wanted them as a kid, I never had them. I’ve got rabbits, chickens, dogs, cats and I like a llama. The other day, the one in the community says, “Can we give you a baby alpaca?” I said, “Yes, everyone.” Sometimes I giggle myself when I think about my $1,700 suits, custom-made shoes and ties that I don’t own anymore because I don’t have to confess. I did bring one tux with me. It was custom-made and expensive. I don’t know why in the hell am I going to wear a tux here. I don’t know why I brought it. Maybe I’ll wear it back to the United States one day.

Daniel, you’ve shared a lot of your story of the big breakdown. I think it would have been challenging already and then COVID hits. You have to deal with all of that of probably funding the whole year by yourself as opposed to bringing these amazing groups. In your mind, what is the next division? You are living the dream already. Where’s this dream going?

If you asked me when I lived in the United States, I wish I have a list, “This is where I want to go.” I have a very famous quote, I found out that Frank Sinatra sang a song about it. It is called, “I want to live until I die.” For me, that’s been like the overarching theme. I’m living the best days of my life. I miss my son and people but I’m still living the best days of my life even during COVID. During COVID, it has been hard because what I did publicly was to hold a bigger vision than a broken-down gut in Catalina. I built a chapel and it was inaugurated by the priest. I was addressing the people that had come for the inauguration, “You probably want to know why I built the chapel?” This is an elaborate, beautiful chapel. It’s not like a little thing.

I saw it. When I’m there, I want to get a relationship blessing from him to nun. Do you think you would do that?

 

Yeah. I was crying because I’m so happy. I said, “Why would I build a chapel on my property? Why do I need a chapel? I don’t need a chapel but spirit said, ‘Build it,’ and I said okay.” It took me nine months to build it. It gets done fast. I said, “Also in August, people needed work and I didn’t know how to do that so I decided to build something so they would have work.” The lookout that’s up on the mountain so you guys can climb up there and do meditation. I did that to get people to work. What I was doing during that time was going, “How do I lead from this place?” I remember looking up many times going, “Ho

w do I serve you from this broken place? How do I do that?” That’s when I learned to go help, feed the people. I was constantly bringing work here. That’s why Catalina was beautiful. The pool, chapel and massage center are open and little by little. We got a pizza oven now and the kitchen looks beautiful.

I remember Catalina’s anniversary is the 14th of July. I had a party when I wasn’t supposed to have a party. All of the communities came down, dressing in their dress, brought food and the former Mayor of Písac that was the emcee. I was about to speak. He said, “Look at your family, nobody comes.” I was about to cry, “Nobody has been able to do what you did and bringing these communities together. They never show up together. This is your family now.” I looked out there. I could see them in a little outfit. It was beautiful and I thought, “Wow.”

Daniel, I feel happy to know this side of it from you and you’re making those real bonds at a heart level. The people there are beautiful. It makes me happy that you’ve been able to share your heart and understand your value, which is not in what you have done in the past. It’s just your heart and your generosity. I am more excited now than ever to go.

I think we talked about this, I said, “Everybody wants to see Machu Picchu. I’ve seen it 37 times. Do you know what I think they really want? The people. Let me take you to their communities, bless them by buying their stuff and let them make you a quinoa soup and some papas.” It’s beautiful because you just don’t see envious, backstabbing, competition stuff from them. They’re heart people. One of the other things that were touching for me was I got invited to a ceremony in Amaru.

People need to understand what you mean by a ceremony.

Live the best life you can until you die.

This is different. This ceremony was a tradition amongst the Incas that the people still do and that was a hair-cutting ceremony. The little boy has long hair because they don’t cut their hair until they have this ceremony. What they do is they put the little boy’s hair in braids, people come in and you cut a lock off and then you make a little donation for a little boy. I’ve never been to one so they invite me. They have music, dancing, food and this ceremony. When it was my turn, I broke down and cried. I said, “I’ve never been part of anything like this. You invited me, I appreciate you felt that I needed to be here.” They were just glad I showed up.” I said, “I appreciate it.” I’m like family to these people and they call me, “Call Daniel, please bring him. Tell him we’re going to do this and that.” To me, you can’t put a price on that. That’s why I say, “This is my home.” I’m going to go visit the US but this is my home.

It’s breathtaking because I know that what you’re experiencing now did not come for free.

Not just monetarily but emotionally, spiritually. All of it has been rough. Now I still don’t have the charges and I shrugged my shoulders.

You’ve been through it. You know what to fret about and not to fret about. I’ve been loving watching the improvements that you’re making at Catalina. It’s been fun like the pizza, animals and you have a San Pedro garden too.

I have 25 San Pedros and they are growing. That was a gift. I bought three. Someone said, “I want a garden but I can’t find them.” I came home one day and they were planted. I said, “What do I owe you? They said, “You give enough. Thank you.”

Daniel, it’s beautiful. Is there anything that you want to share with the people who are dreaming or in the middle of this dream they don’t know quite what to do with it?

There’s never been a crime in our history as a globe that dreaming was more important than now. Why is that? Because now a lot of the things we thought we were or we had have been taken from us. This is the time when that canvas is ready to be painted, take the opportunity because as soon as whatever normal is becomes normal again. We’re all going to forget. We’ll quit dreaming again and get caught up in our crazy-ass lives, running down the freeway or doing whatever it is and then it’ll like a stock bubble go away. This is the time to do it, look in the mirror and ask yourself not just, “Am I happy?”  but, “Is my soul happy?” There’s an old Baptist hymn that goes, “All as well with my soul.” I think about, “How do we make our souls happy?” Our souls are old, smart, a lot of wisdom and we don’t pay enough attention to them. That’s where the dream comes from. If you have a dream act on it.

I said this when I was in Bhutan. When that final day comes I take my last breath, I want to say, “I’m glad I did instead of I wish I had.” Think about that. If you’re still wishing then you’re not fulfilling yourself and that’s what I found. I told my son, “Aaron, your dad would take his last breath. I’m not going back. This is home. This is for your dad’s biggest last breath. I didn’t do it to make you sad, mad or anything. I did it because I often tell you to pursue your dreams. If I was unwilling to do that myself, I couldn’t tell you to do it either. Now you’ve seen that I’ve done it.” Not only dream. Do something about it.

There’s something that I realized as I started to following my own dreams and stepping out of my box was that your dreams are often not your dreams but they’re God’s dreams creating through you. In your case, Daniel, your dream to go to Peru seems like many people’s dream in your community, that you are the fulfillment of something that they had been dreaming of and making that connection. They dreamed of a new family member. It was never your dream. It was God and people’s dream that you’re connecting with at such a beautiful level.

I don’t ask them. Every time I have people come, they lay flowers, dance, play their music, kids come and dance for them. This is what they do. They said, “Can I dance with your people?” I said, “Sure. It’s was beautiful.”

I was going to go for 1 or 2 weeks. Can I just stay for three months? Do you mind?

I always say Machu Picchu is beautiful but Peru is even more beautiful. There are a lot of places I’ve been to here. Even where Machu Picchu is at when I was there, they took me to a waterfall that is prohibited to go to. They say, “Can we show you our waterfall?” “Sure.” I went and they told me that they were going to open it to the public. I want to take people out there but there are also others besides Machu Picchu. They said, “Could you come to stay a week? We’ll take you to all of them.” I said, “I’ll do that.” This is the beautiful part. They all want to share their stuff with me, I’m like, “I want to see that.” I get to share that with you because the experience that I want people to have here is not just a spiritual experience for themselves but also a wonderful experience of connecting to the people in a much more real and authentic way than I ever could have imagined.

With that week that we were there, the way that you get to understand Pachamama, the Earth and do a ceremony, it’s already pretty mind-blowing. Even if it’s just a week, you quickly understand the consumerism of your life that the different framework that people are moving from that is very heart-centered and simple. It wasps. You absorb it into your cores and it’s medicinal and healing on so many levels. I can’t even believe it because I already got that vibe. It’s like this whole level of beauties. Thanks for the work that you do, Daniel. You are an inspiration and a tough bad-ass cookie.

It’s good to see you, I can’t wait to have your group back out here. For those of you that are coming, that I’ve already been in Machu Picchu. We’ll do two different things. There’s a lot we can do that I could offer you for the first time.

If anybody’s interested in joining us on September 5 to 11, 2021. You can go to PeruWithCorin.com. Daniel, where would you like them to check at work and they go to see what you’re up to and doing?

There are two websites, CatalinaRetreatCenterPeru.com and DanielGutierrez.com. If you go to one or the other, they’re both connected. I know we’re supposed to update them but I don’t have time for that. I got to go walk my animals.

Something else you should do. If you can find him on Facebook, @DanielGutierrez. Friend him because he posts these cool videos of whatever new animal, his garden or whatever he’s doing. It’s a beautiful slice of life happening in the world. You can check out PeruWithCorin.com or ask questions even in this thread if you see this. Thanks, Daniel.

Thank you so much. Bye.

Important Links:

• Daniel Gutierrez
• PeruwithCorin.com
• CatalinaRetreatCenterPeru.com
• @DanielGutierrez – Facebook
• www.CatalinaRetreatCenterPeru.com/Live-Virtual-Retreat

About Daniel Gutierrez

To get to the highest tops, one must explore the deepest depths. Nobody knows that truth better than Daniel Gutierrez. During the past 10+ years, he has led quests to the heights of Machu Picchu, the depths of the Amazon, and the top of the Himalayas. Once a high-powered executive and in-demand consultant, Daniel realized that there was more to success than a 7-figure earning potential. He is now a Wisdom Keeper bringing communities together with the Catalina Retreat Center in Pisac, Peru in the Sacred Valley of Incas. One could say his journey was from the boardroom to the medicine man.

And the author of his upcoming book, I Want to Live Until I Die: The Agony and Ecstasy of Living Your Dreams.

People come from all over the world (virtually and in-person) for an exclusive retreat and immersive experience into the Peruvian culture. Guests are invited to experience special ceremonies, traditional food, music, Shamanism, Peruvian textiles, and more. All while learning the techniques and tools of Radical Mindfulness to stay present. Daniel provides groups and individuals a safe, sacred place to go on a deeper journey that creates lasting change in their career, business, relationships, and personal life.

A beloved mentor, intuitive coach and sought-after motivational speaker, Daniel’s style of coaching is direct yet caring and stems from a place of wisdom, love, peace, and tranquility. A natural storyteller, he is a bestselling author of the books Radical Mindfulness, Stepping Into Greatness and is currently writing his forthcoming book, I Want to Live Until I Die: The Agony and Ecstasy of Living Your Dreams. To learn more about attending the next Live Virtual Retreat, or book Daniel for your next speaking event: www.catalinaretreatcenterperu.com/live-virtual-retreat or www.danielgutierrez.com.

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