We were lucky to catch up with Don Cadora recently and have shared our conversation below.

Don, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

As a meditation—haha—I’ll answer the question by comparing these different areas of my life. I’m a Singer, a Meditation Teacher, and a Marketing Director. I call these my 3 M’s—Music, Meditation, and Marketing.

Check out my debut solo single Infinite Minds on all streaming platforms and on DonCadora.com.

My big break in music was at the age of 10 or so, being accepted into the All-American Boys Chorus, who I refer to as the arch-enemies of the more famous Vienna Boys Choir. I never learned to read music but all the vocal exercises and learning the dynamic of vocal harmonies—how to keep in tune when the people around you are singing different notes—stuck with me.

I remember this exercise we would do where the conductor would play a note on the piano and direct your chorus section (bass, baritone, alto, or soprano). He’d point to your group and play a single note on the piano, cycling through and changing the overall chord all of our voices were making. It would change from major to minor chords at some points. The overall effect was surreal and mysterious—something I’ll never forget.

In high school, I was the singer in Holden. We started out as a Misfits cover band. The Misfits were a horror punk band, polar opposite of a boys chorus. But the crooning vocals sound like Elvis or something. I was in various bands in my 20s and 30s including San Francisco cult favorite, Parts For People. We supported acts coming though town like Band of Horses and Sonic Youth.

Being in a band and trying to create compelling performances teaches you about keeping the music tight. You want to keep some parts quiet and draw the audience in. Then you want to rock!

Performing live gives you instant feedback from the crowd. You can scan the room an feel where support and resistance is coming from. If you’re good, you can sometimes tactfully engage the crowd, usually without words, and break through the resistance.

You want to convert the non-believers. Actually, it’s better if they leave the stage area and head to the bar if they don’t like you. That’s better than having them drag down the vibe of the show. I believe live shows are a collective experience. It’s not all on you as the performer. However, you are steering the ship and bringing the listeners into your universe. What they do there is up to them!

This is a great note to shift into my story as a Meditation Teacher. In so many ways it’s similar to playing a song to a group. You are telling your students a story, asking them to tune into different layers of their mind and body. In the same way I mentioned, it’s not all on the meditation teacher. I offer suggestions and imaginative invitations but I can’t meditate for you. It’s a bit like a painting workshop. I give guidance and helpful tips but all the colors, flavors, and tones come from you.

I call my meditation classes workshops because they’re really spaces where individuals come together to explore their own inner worlds. There is no “right way” to meditate. But just like a good rock and roll show—or soft rock, rather—there’s something to getting together with a group of people that creates a collective power you can really feel.

Whether it’s listening to music or group meditation, engaging with other people with similar positive intention and focus creates a powerful suggestion that actually makes it easier to do these things—tuning in, we’ll call it. This effect seems to work even in remote online groups.

The goals of meditation include regulating your feelings, calming the mind, relaxing the body, and attaining mental silence. Aside from being a time to create personal sanctuary, relief from the mad mad world, it’s also a great tool for gaining daily inspiration, for clear thinking, and creative exploration.

Silence is a big part of meditation but I can’t just start a class and then say nothing for 40 minutes. So I use a method I’ve developed that unifies the body and mind as a launching pad for inner exploration.

I was raised Catholic so I have to say prayer is a solid foundation for meditation. It’s my belief all of the global spiritual teachers throughout history meditated in some way. Prayer is active, meditation is receptive, and eventually more like listening than talking to the divine.

My mother was Catholic but she traveled the world for 10 years in the 1960s learning to love and respect the myriad cultures and religions she encountered in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. She displayed books about Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, and Judaism on the shelf at home.

I attended UC Berkeley and snuck off to the nearby Berkeley Psychic Institute where I learned to meditate in college. It was new age mix of Buddhism, Yoga, and Mystic Christianity you might find in the Rosacrucian groups. Yeah, a little culty but not any more than any mainstream religion or subculture. They basically had practices similar to Kundalini Yoga, meditating on the chakras. They had some healing methods similar to Reiki as well.

Everything I learned became consolidated and enhanced when I started practicing Yi Chuan Kung Fu, a Buddhist-inspired internal martial art similar to Tai Chi that utilizes a standing meditation practice. It also teaches the self-healing methods found in Chi Gong, engaging the same energy channels Acupuncturists work with.

Again, I have to emphasize that all of the global spiritual teachings reflect and interact with each other. There is no right way. The best teachers will tell you, YOU are your own master. I’m just telling you how I learned the craft.

Although I have a deep respect for what Yoga and Buddhism call lineage, I’m against Guruism. Sometimes, real skill can skip generations in a lineage. In addition, some austere title might make desperate students bow down to a teacher as if they were a deity or something. Unfortunately, there are too many stories to tell of naive students being abused by such teachers.

If any meditation teacher tells you that you have to destroy your ego—and listen solely to them to progress in life—run!

You can join my free (and guru-free) classes with Los Angeles Public Libraries or take prerecorded classes with me on OLAguides.com. OLA means wave in Spanish and I like the idea that meditation can bring us to the wave state, as opposed to the particle state described by quantum physics. Maybe the particle state is our material experience as normal people. The wave state is beyond.

Okay, on to boring old marketing. Poor little marketing, sorry for putting you last.

Well as a Marketing Guy, I am the face of a company. I got into marketing at the dawn of the social media working with the first social media marketing agencies out there.

The promise of social media marketing was transparency. You have to toot your own horn. I’m good at doing that, if you haven’t noticed yet. However, it’s not all tooting. Because customers could instantly interact with your brand on Facebook, Instagram, and the likes of Twitter, there was a necessity to be honest in your marketing.

I’m not sure if that is how it has panned out but I still believe in transparent and honest marketing.

People love stories and it helps to have a compelling and authentic story.

However, the big marketing tip, is to put the compelling authority first. Unlike this bio I’ve been giving of myself, you don’t have to move chronologically. You put your authority—your titles, big wins, star clients—first. You put your origin story last.

In my marketing work (find me at DonCadoraConsultants.com) I tend to work with mission-driven businesses—what I call conscious companies. These include leaders in health & wellness, natural supplements, the arts, natural skincare, you name it. If it’s organic, I’m on it.

The other key component of marketing is testimonials. This is where having a stellar product, outstanding customer service, and a tangible community of customers pays off.

If you are just starting out in your business, get testimonials from anyone you can. Give away your product in exchange for testimonials.

In the end, you need a Pound of Proof. This includes testimonials, lists of mentors (your lineage), big wins, credentials of you or your team, and anything else that cultivates trust.

Then tell a compelling story. The story should illustrate how your product or service solves a real problem—a pain point.

You can find common pain points by exploring the negative reviews of a competitor. What do people despise about that company or their offering? Try to solve that problem with your product if you can.

Full circle…your customers are your community. Treat them like VIPs. If they buy from you, they are in your tribe.

Don’t betray them by reversing a deal you said would be a forever thing. And reward your most loyal and high-spending customers.

It may seem like marketing is very different from my other M’s, music and meditation. However, at the ground level, my marketing practice benefits a lot from my artistic endeavors. Copywriting is an essential part of what I do, definitely influenced by my education in English Literature at UC Berkeley and later training in Column Writing with Tom Graham, SF Chronicle Editor of Pulitzer Prize-winner Herb Caen (authority-drop!).

Copywriting and crafting advertisements is also a lot like good songwriting. First you go wild, brainstorming. It’s like jamming. Then you refine and hone the song or the writing. Ads have hooks, compelling lines that draw you in, just like pop songs have hooks.

I hope everything I put my hands on can inspire and help people to make good decisions.

Don, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

If you have a mission-driven business and you need marketing help, feel free to find me at DonCadoraConsutants.com. We run a boutique marketing agency, with limited space for new clients. We prefer to work with businesses in Health & Wellness, or businesses that want to bring more good to the world.

We’ve grown leaders in the nutritional supplement space from zero to millions of dollars in revenue as their sole marketing agency.

The main services we provide are Facebook & Instagram Advertising—along with supporting Google Ads. I’ve worked with so many amazing startups and leaders in conscious business. So we are great in business development, helping you hone the mission and model of your company. We also work with consultants who can help with Local SEO, getting your local business on the map.

Again, I hope people will go to DonCadora.com—now my music site—where they can find my debut solo single, Infinite Minds. Recorded with some of L.A.’s top musical talent (Sean Hurley on Bass, Jake Reed on Drums, Ben Burget on Horns, Produced By Matt Koelsch), it’s streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, and almost everywhere else.

I hope to keep a solid recording and release pace so I can give the people what they want. I think I’ll keep doing singles since that’s the trend. People give as much attention to a single as they would to a whole album. The feedback on Infinite Minds has been amazing. We’re getting comparisons to Paul McCartney and David Bowie in terms of ‘warm and intimate’ vibes. I’m not comparing myself to them! But we have multiple music magazines that gave us coverage, this feedback comes from them not me.

Infinite Minds is a new age song of inspiration calling for positivity and a spirit of adventure. Meditation has taught me that, no matter what is going on the crazy world, I can return to my spiritual home every day and reemerge to express myself and have fun.

In the meditation realm, I have some exciting programs coming out on OLAguides.com. These are courses you can take on your own time covering various topics and meditation tools.

I teach Mind-Body Integration, Breathwork, Feeling-Based Balance, Grounding / Centering, Self-Love & Compassion, and Visualization.

I’ll drop. one quick tip. If you meditate, you may have heard of it. It’s called the Inner Smile. When I meditate, I sometimes naturally find that I start subtly smiling. This happens on its own. But the Inner Smile is a technique you can use to cultivate inner energy.

Instead of smiling at a person in front of you, or across the room, you smile at yourself. You can simply feel the energy it creates. You can try pointing the smile towards different parts of the body. In our meditation class we do body scans, starting at the feet, then rising up to the head. You can use the Inner Smile as part of your body scan.

Smiling into the belly—the location of the second chakra, known as the hara in yoga, the dantien in Chi Gong, and the core or gut in the West—can nuture positive and balance emotions.

Your inner smile doesn’t have to be big and annoying, like the smile your mom made you do when she took your photo as kid. It can be a barely percentile smile. Just for you.

I’d like to emphasize that meditation is great for business people.

On the basic level, meditation helps entrepreneurs and business leaders manage stress. Multiple famous CEOs have come out of the closet, admitting they are regular meditators, including Ariana Huffington and many others.

Meditation can teach you how to leverage intuition to support and enhance intelligent decision-making. Here’s an example. You’ve outlined the positives and negatives of two potential e-commerce software vendors. The problem is, your final two choices seem about the same. How do you choose? You can meditate. Then once you’ve achieved a balanced and clear state of mind, you can ponder your two options. You visualize the two options on the screen of the mind. There are more advanced ways to do this that I teach but the outcome is this…you’ll get inspired and have an intuition—or hunch—of which company is the best choice.

Some people might follow their intuition naturally. However, if you’re a meditator, try applying these methods to your work life. It can give you confidence in your actions. Don’t get too obsessed with the right answer, meditation can be a practice of no-effort. Sometimes when you let go of the effort the answer you seek just comes.

In addition, meditation is great for creative brainstorming. It can help you see your big-picture goals.

Finally, once you know what your goal is, you might be honest with yourself about your obstacles. Meditation. Can illuminate conscious and unconscious obstacles.

How do you overcome those obstacles? Meditation can give you the paradoxical change in perspective that opens you up new horizons and possibilities. What does that mean? By pulling back for a moment, your inner resources can settle and reemerge offering you an answer that only you know. It will show you the next step. Whether you take that step is up to you!

As always, you can join my weekly Free Classes with the Los Angeles Public Libraries via Zoom. I also offer One-on-One Coaching where we can come up with a custom meditation for you. Find these on OLAguides.com.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I don’t have a massive social media audience, it’s small but growing. This is partly because as a marketer I spend my energy building up the following of the brands I work with.

That said, I think I should chime in here because I do social media marketing for a living.

My core intuition and advice is that personal brands and big businesses alike need to do a mix of Organic and Paid Social Media Advertising.

Most of the influencers and successful personal brands do organic posts alone. This is great and these folks deserve tremendous credit for the platforms they’ve created from scratch.They obviously are delivering value to people whether that involves giving their audience advice, tips, entertainment, or compelling artistic content. (If you are trying to build a following from scratch these days, Instagram Reels and TikTok are the best. It was easy to build a following in the early days of social, but no more. TikTok and their imitators on Insta Reels are still new so the platforms give you free impressions. Otherwise, you have to pay to play.)

However, there is a misconception that everyone has to do it that way—organically. You don’t have to have a huge following to reach millions of people.

In addition, you don’t have to post all day, every day to have a successful business.

The key is Evergreen Advertising. You can create content and ads that keep reaching new people. If an ad works you can keep it going for years, I know some people will argue with me about this.

Organic is great for expressing yourself and your brand and seeing what people naturally resonate with. Once something is a hit organically, you can try creating an ad from that post.

Red alert! This is for people who care about marketing…Advanced marketing reaches different segments. Broad Targeting or Brand Awareness (top of the funnel) is a shotgun method that gets your content in front of as many eyeballs as possible. However, these people may not be your ideal customers. They may not be interested at all. But some of them will keep you on their radar and eventually become fans or paying customers.

The middle of the funnel is a Warm Audience. These people have engaged with your posts but they haven’t done anything with high value, like visiting your website or checking out a product.

The bottom of the funnel is your Hot Audience, what marketers call your Retargeting Audience. It may get easier to retarget people in the future but for now, this is kind of an advanced setup that you might hire an agency to do. Retargeting is when you engage with an ad, then you start seeing the brand’s ads all over the place.

It can be done tastefully. That’s part of why you hire an agency or a marketing expert, to retarget your audience without annoying them.

Eventually, you have a nice content flow. Certain content hits the broad audience. Warm audiences get the opportunity to learn more, get educated, or dive into your brand. Hot audiences get special offers that make them feel special.

These tactics apply to artists and musicians as well. Artists and musicians tend to think they have to build a huge following organically. However, they can benefit from using some low-budget ads in combination with organic content.

But don’t get lazy. Big brands with big advertising budgets still have to have an organic content strategy. Successful organic content actually brings your Paid Advertising costs down because the social media algorithms can see you have content people really want to see. That keeps people on their platforms, so they reward your for it.

The point is…you can learn to get off The Social Media Hamster Wheel with Evergreen Advertising. And organic content can allow you to test out content, express yourself, and have fun.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

This is about setting the right pace.

I came from a very active family, we were always on the go, like a lot of Americans. My mom was a world traveler, as I mentioned. Back at home, she was always trying to help us find the next adventure—going to concerts, going to Disneyland, or traveling through California.

When I was young, I was always on overdrive—racing around. In fact, I felt uncomfortable if I stopped.

My life definitely runs at a different pace these days. This could be due to my meditation practice. It could also be due to old age!

However, sometimes that racing energy creeps in, that drive to go-go-go even if I don’t have a particular goal. I might simply be describing a high adrenaline or high cortisol state (I learned this marketing the world’s premier natural anti-anxiety supplement—check it out at Levium.com).

At any rate, what I discovered was that this way of being just doesn’t work for me anymore. I end up burning out or exploding in the end.

At some point, I started to look back on my past. Whenever I was is a racing and frantic state in a business, things went wrong. Bad decisions were made.

The problem is, we are taught that to get anything done we have to be racing around like chickens with our heads cut off.

It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, many successful business moguls emphasize that calmness is key.

Of course, having high energy can be a good thing. You definitely don’t want to have low energy. But there is a way to have a calm and smooth vibe while you push forward towards your goal.

It took me a long time to let go of frantic energy. It took even longer to realize that letting it go is actually good for me, my business, and my clients.

Everything has (at least) two sides. Ying-yanging this point, we also have to admit that sometimes meditation is used as an escape.

I’ve said this before, some meditators come to devalue hard work. Their goal is to escape the rat race completely.

Becoming passive and inactive is not the right way either.

There must be some middle path of calm perseverance, a mindset that sets goals, admits obstacles, and moves forward with creative solutions.

I haven’t found the perfect path yet but I know how to get relief from racing mind and emotions. I also know how to cultivate strength and energy while maintaining a sense of calm and balance.

I’m not perfect but I know the old way just doesn’t work!

Contact Info:

• Other: Here are the websites for my 3 M’s…Music: DonCadora.com
  Meditation: OLAguides.com
  Marketing: DonCadoraConsultants.com

Image Credits

Margot Roberts, LaPetitePhoto.com