Ignacio Mendoza Martinez
The Business Shaman. The Urban Shaman. Founder of CGS Global LLC & Urban Shaman Ministries.
Who I am
I’m Ignacio Mendoza Martinez. I am a husband, a father, a Navy veteran, an entrepreneur, a business owner, and a human being.
I am a self-initiated Urban Shaman. I am what I am because I did and lived what was. I don’t shy from it, but I don’t throw it at anyone either. I know what I have and am.
Reality first
Reality is first. I only see a particular slice of it and infer the rest, just like all of us. What I know applies only to me. I don’t speak for anyone else. Everything I share is from my perspective and what I believe happens based on the data and concepts we have built to explain it all.
Why I am self-initiated
I am self-initiated because my authority does not come from an institution, a lineage, a certificate, or a religion. It comes from direct, lived human experience.
I didn’t learn how to hold space in a classroom. I learned it by living through the friction, the mistakes, and the challenges. I took my own life apart, examined what was actually there, and built a way of understanding it. My initiation was the battle itself. When the old self died, the Shaman manifested. No one handed me this title. It was left standing when everything else was taken away.
The darkness and the battle
I went through a period of darkness. I don’t discuss the private details of it. That is my own sacred space.
On the road to recovery, I went to the Arizona hot springs alone because I like them and had been there before. I did some plant medicine and I am 420 friendly. While I was there, I felt a presence touch me. I fought it. I fought and fought. As the light faded and I lost consciousness, my essence traveled into the entity I was battling, and I realized it was me. It was the Urban Shaman battling my old self. The spark just switched containers. I left the old me buried there in the desert.
I never wanted to become the Urban Shaman. If anyone would have asked or mentioned the Urban Shaman prior to that day, I would have told them they were off their rockers. It wasn’t a choice.
The experience and background
My range doesn’t come from theory. It comes from the sheer amount of real life I have worked inside, from the highest highs to the absolute bottom.
The Navy, 7 years
I learned systems, structure, and attention to detail. With the right foundation, an organization keeps moving no matter who is standing in any one spot.
Restaurant management, 10 years
I learned operations under real pressure. Ten customers can need ten different things, the food still has to go out, and there is no meeting next week to fix it. You have to see what matters and act now.
Remote call centers
I learned people. I learned how to keep a complete stranger on the phone for 45 minutes while they get nothing for doing it. Anyone can talk when the other person has a reason to stay. The real skill is creating that reason live in the person.
Building CGS Global, 8+ years
I learned the reality of business. I’ve had wins, failures, restarts, good clients, and bad partners. I had a client I met driving Uber who I saved $150,000, and I earned $80,000 over two years. I had another client with $300,000 in earnings get stiffed by their partner, and I got hit by it too. I learned what happens when the opportunity is real but the foundation under it is not strong enough to hold it.
20,000 rides
I have sat in a car with tens of thousands of strangers from every walk of life. I know how to read a room in three seconds, and I know how to hold space.
What I know
I know how to grab the tension. I don’t flinch.
I know how to look at what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what you are assuming. I know how to find the missing step, the assumption, or the distinction that has been flattened or overlooked. I know how to make it simple enough for the room to see.
I know how to break the assumption softly, using humor or simple examples, so you don’t become defensive. You just acknowledge the truth.
I am a Flow Master. I know how to unblock people.
I know that we learn more from friction, mistakes, and challenges than when things are fine. When things are fine, you keep performing and keep the story. When things break, you are forced to ask the hard questions: What was my part? What did I see and ignore? What did I fail to build?
I know how to build the foundation under a business so the team can move without the owner standing over them. I know how to separate observation from interpretation, prediction from fact, and execution from verified results. I built PRIME, an AI governance system, because I know how to turn human judgment into a reusable operating system.
I can connect the flow of a distant star to the flow of your breath and how you came to be and what makes you, you.
What I believe
I believe reality is first. I believe the human experience comes first, and the interpretations follow.
I believe life is rhythm. Body, breath, work, traffic, conversation, relationship, business, ocean, life. Everything moves in a wave. From the cosmic down to the cellular, it is all the same rhythm.
I believe that conceptual thought lives in possibility, but embodied reality is where things actually happen. You can think “touch” for a lifetime and never touch. Reality only happens in the body.
I believe that Love knows the price it takes to achieve itself, so it never asks for the timing of another to move differently than it is moving. You do you. I know what we are.
I believe that wealth is a state, not a terrain. It is the internal infrastructure that runs regardless of the bank account.
I believe the magical and the mundane sit side by side. That is why the Buddha and Jesus sit next to a unicorn on my dashboard. I don’t ask for belief. I don’t preach doctrine. I just look at the direct human experience and let it be.
What I actually do
I work live with whatever is real. A business problem. A decision. A disagreement. A team issue. A relationship question. A complicated idea.
It doesn’t matter where we are. In a car, on a Zoom call, at a coffee shop, or across a boardroom table.
I don’t fix you. I don’t diagnose you. I hold the space so you can finally see clearly, move forward, and just be.
How I move and build
I start with what is real. I see the whole of what is already there and what is consuming the person’s time, attention, money, or capacity.
I use what already exists. I connect what is disconnected, build what is missing, and operate what needs operating.
I take responsibility for making the necessary work happen.
I keep observation apart from interpretation, prediction apart from fact, and execution apart from verified results.
I look at what actually happened and whether it worked, then I keep it maintained and notice what changes.
I build the foundation so the team can move without the owner standing over them.
The question I ask: what is still depending on this person that can responsibly be taken over and kept handled?
The person does not have to understand the system or learn my method. I carry that responsibility.
Bring something real. Let’s look at it together.
Surfs up.
Next wave.