Ep 166: Bob Martin ~ Meditation, Mindfulness & Humble Heroism

What if the key to true heroism lies in humility and quiet courage? Join us for an enlightening conversation as we welcome Bob Martin, a criminal trial lawyer turned meditation teacher and author of "I Am the Way." Bob shares how the iconic character of Atticus Finch from "To Kill a Mockingbird" shaped his understanding of selfless heroism. Through personal stories, including a touching memory with his father, Bob illustrates the profound impact of living by values greater than oneself and the quiet power of humble actions.

You'll hear about Bob's incredible journey from challenging beginnings to a successful lawyer, thanks to the unwavering support of friends who believed in him. From a law school aptitude test paid for by a friend to another who overcame addiction to support him, Bob's stories highlight resilience, internal strength, and the transformative power of community. His insights are enriched by years of studying under a Taoist master and the timeless wisdom of Lao Tzu, offering listeners a path to navigate life's challenges with grace.

Discover the life-changing benefits of mindfulness and meditation as Bob discusses practical ways to integrate these practices into daily life. Drawing from his experience with the structured meditation programme he developed for Duke University, Bob explains how mindfulness can positively impact anyone from CEOs to at-risk youth. Tune in to learn how to distinguish yourself from your thoughts and embrace the cyclical nature of the universe. Finally, Bob provides details on how to access his ebook and further explore his teachings, leaving you inspired and equipped to face life's ebb and flow.

This episode only scratches the surface of Bob's activities and extraordinary contributions to our world.  If you enjoy our conversation, please dive into his websites and his free eBook (see below).

Find Bob here:
https://iamthewaybook.com
https://awiseandhappylife.com

Reach out to Bob for his free 40-page eBook 'Is Meditation for me?':
bob@awiseandhappylife.com

Chapters

• 0:02 Exploring Humble Heroism With Bob Martin
• 19:55 Accepting Gifts of Humble Heroes
• 29:58 Navigating Life's Ebb and Flow
• 44:59 Teaching Mindfulness
• 54:49 Embracing Life's Ebb and Flow
• 1:04:11 Sharing Bob Martin's Ebook and Gratitude

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Truth and Transcendence, brought to you by being Space with Catherine Llewellyn. Truth and Transcendence, episode 166, with special guest Bob Martin. Now you may already know Bob, but if you don't. He's a criminal, trial lawyer, a meditation teacher and an author, and his new book, I Am the Way reimagines the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching through the lens of Christian terminology teaching through the lens of Christian terminology. The link is in the show notes and it's at iamthewaycom, and Bob's main website is awiseandhappylifecom. So, frankly, if you go to that website, you will find out so much fascinating bits and pieces and stuff. So after this, please do go over there and have a look. So Bob's come on today and we're going to be talking about humble heroism, which is an all-time favorite theme of mine. There's something deeply lovable about the unassuming contributor and I think that that character resonates with a place within each of us. I think that each of us potentially can tune into that on our good days. So, Bob, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 2: 1:36

Oh, thank you so much for having me and I hope you don't mind, but the website's IamTheWayBookcom. The website's Iamthewaybookcom.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Oh, my goodness, I'm so glad you corrected me on that.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Iamthewaybookcom, but I am so listen to those things. I mean, what you do takes work, you know. It takes discipline, and it takes effort and time and a real commitment and it makes a difference. So I want to thank you for doing what you do thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 2:29

That's very kind. So you you've got this connection with humble heroism, bob um is this something you've always been connected with? I mean, can you remember the first time you really kind of noticed this notion of humble heroism and found it appealing?

Speaker 2: 2:47

I think, as I look back, I mean this sensation of um of. I mean, there are so many things that are kind of tied up with it, but one of them is a certain kind of pride. But I'm not talking, of course, of the pride that's ego-driven and is in comparison to others and that kind of what we might call, I don't know, negative pridefulness, what we might call, I don't know, negative pridefulness, but there is a certain pride that one feels about when we know that we're doing something that's on a path that is for something greater than ourselves. And if I'm thinking of it that way, I think the very first time that feeling imbued within me.

Speaker 2: 3:47

I remember I read a book, a famous book, 12 or 13, and read it in school, and I remember my father asked me about the book and we went outside and we walked around the block, maybe once or twice, as I was telling him I was so excited about the book, I loved it so much, and he just listened and he listened and we got back to standing in front of the house. He looked down and he patted me on the head and he was an Eastern European fellow, a Hungarian, and kind of in that kind of German-Austrian-Hungarian way. He wasn't much for affection and it was all about doing the job right was much more important than you know accolades and the like.

Speaker 2: 4:49

But I remember he patted me on the back and he didn't have to say it, but I could tell that he was but that I had become so excited about this Atticus Finch, who was a true humble hero. I guess that's why I connected Atticus Finch, which is a funny for those who don't know the book. He's a lawyer in the old South and winds up representing a person, a black man, in a southern courtroom and it it tells some of that story, but he's he is portrayed in every way as a humble hero. And I teach, I teach classes, and I often ask my. I ask them who do you think is the top number one hero in the American movie industry's rating of heroes, their top 100 movie heroes? Who do you think is rated? They're top 100 movie heroes. Who do you think is rated? And they go Spider-Man or Superman or this or that. But it actually is.

Speaker 2: 6:15

Atticus Finch Really this humble, quiet man who simply lived according to his values, and I suppose it was Atticus who affected me first and foremost.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Yeah, so something in you really responded to that. You must have had a kind of something in you that was waiting to meet Atticus Finch. Yeah, what did that give you? You know when, how did that?

Speaker 2: 6:47

you know you were excited about the book and tuned into the humble hero thing.

Speaker 1: 6:51

Did that add a different quality to your life? Was your life different after that?

Speaker 2: 6:57

You know I'm just thinking back on it and you have to forgive me because I may get a little weepy here. I'm sorry. You have to forgive me because I may get a little weepy here. I'm sorry, but I think of some of the scenes of the book. And he had a child. The child was told through the eyes of Scout, his young daughter, and I remember there was a scene where a man came up to the back porch Atticus and Finch were sitting there speaking and he brought a sack of corn and left it on Sorry.

Speaker 1: 7:35

Emotions are permitted on this podcast.

Speaker 2: 7:38

He left it on the back porch and Finch asked him why is he doing that, dad? And he says oh, I did some work for him. Well, how come he's paying you in corn? And Atticus said well, that's what he has.

Speaker 1: 7:56

Yeah, that's what he has.

Speaker 2: 8:12

And I don't know there's something about that, then and now, that sense of, as Jimmy Carter once put it in a quote that I love my faith calls me to do whatever I can to whoever I can, for as long as I can, and there's something about that that strikes a chord within me.

Speaker 1: 8:29

It's beautiful. Well, you know, the word that sprang to my mind when you told that story is empathy. You know he has the empathy for the man with the corn he knows that he has. He's not interpreting it from the place of someone who's wealthy. He's going in, he's recognizing that reality.

Speaker 2: 8:52

And it's not charity, and he's not, you know, he's just. This is what. For him, it was matter of fact. There wasn't anything exceptional about what he was doing, there wasn't anything particularly heroic about it. It was just what was called for by the situation, and that he was able to meet that situation in a way that had grace and dignity to it. Those, I think, are the qualities that create that idea of being a humble hero.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Yeah, beautiful, I love that and it does kind of call. There's something very different about the humble hero thing to the uh overt hero, isn't there?

Speaker 2: 9:46

flashy hero it touches something in us, a kind of a um, a beautiful place and that's nothing to take away, you know, for these acts of heroism which are uncanny the person that crawls through minefields in order to save a comrade, the man just two days ago who threw his body on top of his family to protect them from the bullets at the shooting that we had here in America just a couple of days ago there's nothing to take away from that kind of heroism and I think we all respect that.

Speaker 1: 10:29

But this is what touches me most deeply Absolutely, and of course the person who wrote the book must have really wanted to convey that particular who wrote it.

Speaker 2: 10:44

What was her name? Oh, sorry, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 10:53

Yeah, no, I can't remember.

Speaker 2: 10:54

I want to go Ernest Hemingway, but it's not Ernest Hemingway, no no, no, no, no, no, it was a writer, it was a sequel. Yeah, it'll come to me when we're not thinking of it exactly.

Speaker 1: 11:07

It'll come tomorrow when you're involved with something, and then we don't know the thing anymore.

Speaker 2: 11:13

yeah, yeah, you know it's a yeah, it's. There's a funny thing about that. So that happens a lot and people experience that a lot, and one of the things that I came across in my training and found out is that the way our minds are constructed is that when we're anxious and we're threatened, and anxiety generally and threat are very close to the same thing, although at one point we may have been threatened by a tiger in the jungle and today we're threatened by deadlines that we have to meet. But physically it is the same, the same adrenaline and the same hormone.

Speaker 2: 11:57

But what happens when we have that anxiety or we're stressed, when we're threatened, our brains narrow and constrict because they're focusing on what do I need to do to solve this problem? Because I care to survive, I want to survive and I want to do away with the problem. We relax and we are calm and we go into our eat and digest and storytelling mode. Our brains, they broaden. And here's the funny thing we literally see the world more broadly because our peripheral vision actually increases. We literally see the world more broadly and that's why it's often, as we mentioned, you take your shower and now your mind is no longer constricted and narrowed down to solving some problem. But it's allowed to roam more freely and boom, the answer pops up and it gives it to you in those moments when you can relax.

Speaker 1: 13:10

And you get an insight. Yeah, and some people actually have a pad of paper in the bathroom, don't they? They go right, jump out of the shower and towel around them. I've got to write that down now.

Speaker 2: 13:21

Now right, right.

Speaker 1: 13:22

I get that often, you know, because I do solo episodes as well as guest episodes, and sometimes I'm just relaxing and something just pops in. God, that would be a great episode. But if I sat there going right. I've got to come up with an episode by Friday. I might come up with one, but no one's going to want to listen to it.

Speaker 2: 13:42

It's going to be great Right, right, right. Not going to be a good one. Right, right, right, it's not going to be a good one. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing, the mind. I don't think we give it enough chance to do its stuff, to let it do its stuff. We try too hard to make it work, when it will do a lot of really great stuff on its own If we just give it a chance.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Absolutely yeah. I mean, I think we really underestimate the power of the different states of being or the states of consciousness that are available to us already.

Speaker 2: 14:18

Right, Already yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:19

And then then be like right, how do I go into a different state of consciousness?

Speaker 2: 14:22

Well, just just Then we'll be like right, how do I go into a different state of consciousness? Well, just stop, Right, right, so counterintuitive, so counterintuitive. We get there by not going there. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:36

I like that. We get there by not going there. That's a T-shirt right there. So how did this humble heroism thing because there you were, 10 or 12 or whatever you were, and you'd had that affirmation from your father all the more poignant because he wasn't a gushing personality how did that then play? As you then carried on through life, Did you meet other people or situations or examples of humble heroism? Did you find it emerging in yourself? How did it kind of flow in your life after that?

Speaker 2: 15:15

So when I was in well, I grew up in amusement parks and carnivals. We were the cotton candy popcorn gang trailer, wow. But by the time 9 came along we were pretty stable and I was going to school like most folks in second third grade, and I was a fairly large. I have a lot of the hun in me. So you know, my people are those guys that ride bareback on horses and play hockey with lambs heads. You know those guys.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Right people you wouldn't want to mess with, basically.

Speaker 2: 16:10

Right, and I remember it was funny because back then we had an apartment store called JC Penney's.

Speaker 2: 16:20

I remember, and JC Penney's. They had the Husky department and they were the only ones that had clothes that were made for big guys, right. And I remember my mother would be walking and she had this terrible, loud, screeching voice and it was a horrible one. We went to the movies because she thought she was whispering and she was shouting, but anyway she would scream out in the middle of the store where's the husky department, you know, and I would be mortified.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Like I'm not with her.

Speaker 2: 16:59

I'm not with her. I'm not with her but also because of my size and because the pants that they didn't fit, I always they always rode up in my crotch and so I had to kind of pull them out and all the girls started calling me cooties and and they it got to be pretty bad. Where they and whenever they came near they would yell ooh cooties. And they got to be pretty bad. Whenever they came near they would yell ooh cooties and they'd run away from me. So for several years I was bullied in that way by all the girls in my school would scream and run during recess away from me, screaming cooties. But I had this friend named Charlie Greenfield and he just stood by me. I had screaming cooties, but I had this friend named Charlie Greenfield and he just stood by me. And I remember one time I tripped and I dropped my lunch tray and all the girls were sitting around me and they were laughing and pointing and he came up and he helped me up and picked up my tray and said you should be ashamed of yourselves. He said to them and I was in third grade and so he was just my friend. So later on we graduated from elementary school and went on to middle school and there was a very interesting change that occurred between him and me. I became kind of the class clown. I wanted the attention. I would do these silly things and make myself look silly and do clownish things just so that I would get some attention. But what Charlie learned from our experience was the destructive power of group think and so he kind of focused on his piano playing and his sports and his academics and he wasn't such a joiner. He was kind of a little bit and I would say come on, let's go do this or let's go to this party. He goes no, bob, you go ahead and do that, I'm going to do this, that. And I never realized how our elementary school experience affected the both of us until one day in my sophomore year of college and I was at Boston University and he was at a place at Allendale on the Hudson in New York and I realized how he had been my friend and stood by me all of those years, without asking me to change or anything else, but he was always there and he always just stood by me quietly, humbly, and how he excelled at the things that he did.

Speaker 2: 19:52

And so I was all excited. Three o'clock in the morning I had a call on me. He was living in a dormitory and the phone rang. They had to go down to his room and get him and he came back. Hello, hello, bob, I go. Charlie, I just realized how much you have meant. I just realized what you did. I just realized I was just so excited. He listened to my whole thing and he goes. Well, that's really nice. Is it okay if I go back to bed now and didn't think much of it until a few days later? And he was a writer. And a few days later I got a handwritten letter from him and in it he told a short story of me sitting at the counter of an ice cream shop where all of the girls and I remember all their names, you know there was Dee, so-and-so, and Beverly, so-and-so. I won't say their names, but I remember them.

Speaker 1: 21:01

They know who they are.

Speaker 2: 21:03

I remember. So they were all sitting there as well, you know, with me speaking among themselves and laughing, and I knew they were laughing at me. And all of a sudden the doors blew and this plastic cootie, this little child game they had called cooties which you put together, this plastic thing and this cootie, this plastic toy cootie, walked in through the doors into the ice cream parlor and all of the girls got frightened and ran out and it was only me and the cootie that was left and slowly it began to steam and melt and finally it melted into this puddle of plastic which slowly evaporated, and then the cootie was gone, and what he was telling me was that I finally got it, I finally understood, and so he was another big moment of my life that taught me what that kind of quiet strength can mean. There were others too. I became a lawyer. There was a fellow who I was a football player, I flunked out of Boston University. I was going, I became a hippie in 1969.

Speaker 2: 22:32

We were living in a hippie pad. And there was this fellow who I was arguing over Nixon and the Vietnamese war all the time, and he kept telling me you should be a lawyer, you should be a lawyer and I said my whole ambition in life at that point was to sell enough hot dogs on the beach during the summer so that I wouldn't have to work during the winter. That was my whole ambition towards life. And this guy went out and got a job and he earned the money to buy me a $350 postal money order made out to the educational testing service, which was the entrance fee to the law school aptitude test. And he goes you should go take this. I couldn't cash it. He said you should go take this test, you should be a lawyer. And that's how I got to be a lawyer. So this test.

Speaker 1: 23:28

So this is something that tested you for your aptitude to become a lawyer, was it?

Speaker 2: 23:33

Yes, it was.

Speaker 1: 23:35

I had no idea such a thing existed oh, yes, yes, yes, you, you.

Speaker 2: 23:39

You graduate, uh, and one of the things, of course, is your record in college, but then you take this very long, day long test which tests your verbal skills and your logic skills and your rational skills and the like, and then you get a score on that and that's one of the factors they take into consideration. And one law school. You know. They decided they were going to take a chance on me and John, who was a heroin addict, and we had pulled him out of shooting galleries several times. When I got accepted to law school, he went straight and I was going to law school and he enrolled in community college to become a private investigator and I was going to be Perry Mason and he was going to be my Paul Drake. I think many of your listeners may not understand that reference, but it was an old TV show.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Listeners may not understand that reference but, it was an old TV show and he stayed with me by my side and stayed straight and I passed the bar and I was hired by the district attorney's office in Miami, janet Reno, during the cocaine cowboy days, have you ever seen the movie Scarface? Yes, it was those days. And three days after I was sworn in I was walking back to my office and my secretary came out and said do you know John Berman? And I said yes. She said well, the Miami Beach police called. Turns out he died. Three days after I was sworn in he met some girl. They decided to shoot up and he had forgotten that his tolerance had gone way down and he overdosed.

Speaker 1: 25:30

Oh, what a shame.

Speaker 2: 25:32

And so he's kind of been my guardian angel and he was just another example of somebody who showed that kind of internal strength of being able to chuck off his heroin addiction for something that he felt was greater than himself. And he stayed with it until his job was done. And when his job was done he retreated, just like Jesus. He came and did his work and when it was done he ascended. And that's what Lao Tzu, who wrote the Tao Te Ching, talks about leadership, wrote the data.

Speaker 2: 26:17

Jing talks about leadership. He said you should rise to leadership only when called, and only regretfully, and never out of a sense of pride or ambition. You do your job and you do it waiting for the day that you can step down. When your job is done, you step down. In that way, the work that you do takes on its significance and it lasts, because if you put your personality in it and you make it about you, you're ephemeral, you're going to pass, and then it takes it away from your work, and so you take all of that together and all of those experience together, and then you take eight years studying under a dallas master from the shaolin temple and you get bob martin right so you, some sort of swill happened.

Speaker 1: 27:08

Wow, what a story. Yeah I, I forgot to take a breath while I was listening. So these guys were humble heroes, but also something in you was able to receive what they were giving, because some people, the way you described those guys, some people would go these guys aren't glamorous, these guys aren't you know whatever, but you were able to receive and appreciate what they were giving you, which I think is an important quality in and of itself.

Speaker 1: 27:40

I think maybe that's another aspect of humble heroism. Actually the, the ability to receive the gift of the humble hero yes, um yes it? It sort of goes hand in hand, doesn't it? Somehmm, some of these very subtle contributors.

Speaker 2: 27:57

I think that that ability to be able to accept and receive is a big piece of it. I remember a situation I'm traveling with my mom and there was an Austrian young lady. We were traveling in Europe when I was 14, and there was an Austrian young lady we met and she agreed to take us around and show us Salzburg, and afterwards my mom took her to lunch and the check came and it was put down and my mom picked up the check and the lady said thank you, and afterwards I asked my mom why she just said thank you. She didn't have any argument with you over your taking the check and she said well, of course not. I mean, she gave us all of her time and her effort, of course, and I understand that that was appropriate. But that taking and that ease of saying thank you is something that I still remember today. You have to give people the opportunity of contributing to you and accepting it with grace, because both you and I know that it feels good to do good.

Speaker 1: 29:24

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2: 29:26

And you just can't steal that from other folks. Yeah, yeah, you have to be in a place where you can say thank you.

Speaker 1: 29:38

yeah, I appreciate that yeah, and you have to be willing to kind of get yourself out of the way long enough to just say, and just let it be and receive it and receive it and that that's not necessarily something that we all know how to do or are able to do no. So you were working as a lawyer and then you sort of suddenly went in a completely other direction. What happened? How did that happen?

Speaker 2: 30:08

Well, as I mentioned, I got a job for Janet Reno, who eventually became the Attorney General in the Bill Clinton administration, but she was the DA of Miami-Dade County and I became the head of the economic crimes division and together with the feds we hit the mob for 72 million bucks Wow and shortly thereafter left the office and within two weeks the head of that group I call him John came to visit me and basically he said you know, you got to be pretty good to get us for that much money. We want to send you some clients. So now I became a mob lawyer Not conciliatory like mob advisor, but I would just take their referrals and we had an agreement and I explained to them it's in their best interest that I not cut corners and that I not do anything illegal or unethical, because they want to be represented by a lawyer that's respected by the court, not somebody that has a bad reputation. That only hurts them. So they got it and they were smart and they were good.

Speaker 2: 31:40

Unfortunately, his son got arrested and at that point there was no keeping up with that agreement, there was no saying no, and I decided it would probably be in everybody's best interest to move to North Carolina. Right, let's get away from it. But in the meantime my life was going south and I was hanging out with them and my folks my father being Hungarian royalty and having his family wiped out by the Bolsheviks, and my mom being Roma gypsy and having her family wiped out by, you know everybody they came to the conclusion that there really couldn't be a God. So I wouldn't call them atheists, I would call them non-theists. They just didn't engage, so I didn't grow up inside of any kind of religious paradigm.

Speaker 1: 32:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:38

And so without that North Star, you know, and with those kinds of people as clients, my life started going south and my family life started falling apart, south and my family life started falling apart and things. I was seeing a therapist and I came to a big crossroads in my life and I went and I asked him, george, what should I do? And I'm paying him at that time 65 bucks an hour was a lot of money talking 1985, and he pulls out some coins, he starts throwing the coins and making marks on a piece of paper and rattling his coins and throwing his coins and writing down a number and making some mathematical calculations and finally he writes down this big number, 62, and he opens up this big book to chapter 62, and he shows me the chapter and the chapter has a name and the name of the chapter was Retreat.

Speaker 1: 33:45

Yeah, I know that one.

Speaker 2: 33:48

And I got mad at him and cursed him out because I was paying him $65 an hour to throw coins, which I didn't think was appropriate for a therapist, and I left and I realized that that was the exact one word that I needed to see. So I stopped and I pulled myself out of the rabbit hole and I did not, you know, do the financing thing. That would have lost my house. And I stopped right on the edge and went back and I asked him, george, what was that? And he said that was the I Ching, the I Ching. And I said what's that? He goes, it's a Taoist practice. What's Taoism, 32 years old? So he explained to me.

Speaker 2: 34:41

It turned out that my therapist was the English language editor for Master Watching Me, who was a 72nd generation master from the Shaolin Temple and very prolific, and he wrote a lot of books would be translated into English. And George was the editor and his disciple. And so Master Nee came to Miami often and had a group, and so I became a Taoist and I studied under Master Nee and George for eight years, and that's when I had to leave Miami. So when I got to North Carolina I was not the same person. No, not bad. So at that point my life was all about public service and doing as Jesus so eloquently put it doing you know as Jesus.

Speaker 2: 35:32

So eloquently put it taking care of the least of these, and so that's what my life was, you know, devoted to, and so that's where the change came about.

Speaker 1: 35:45

Amazing, amazing. I mean, I'm a great fan of the I Ching myself and have done many, many readings for myself or with clients.

Speaker 2: 35:53

Oh, I'm so happy to find somebody else, that's a fan of it.

Speaker 1: 35:58

Yeah, I mean, I've got a. I've got a little summary version right here. Oh, yay. Brian Brown Walker translation, and that retreat, one I have had myself. Yes, yes, you know, and it's that thing of now is not the time to try and boil your way through with your ego. Now is the time to draw back and regroup and let it go and let it go and sometimes that can be the hardest thing to do, because we're so convinced in our western world that we've got to be in control and fix everything ourselves it.

Speaker 2: 36:41

Yeah, it is the most amazing teaching vehicle you know. So now you know, of course, now I'm a certified meditation teacher, but I incorporate so much of the I Ching into my teaching, not when we're teaching you know the techniques, but when we're teaching the theory behind it, and I talk a lot about the idea of going with the flow.

Speaker 1: 37:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:12

And everybody. The moment you say to anybody, oh, going with the flow, everybody says yes, yes, that's the life I want. I want to be able to go with the flow, without really thinking of how profound that concept is. Because the idea of going with the flow conjures up a picture of sitting in an inner tube and floating down a nice peaceful river with birds chirping and a rainbow and everything in the world being just right. And I'm going with the flow, and there are times like that. But there are also times when there are rocks and there are shores and there are snakes and the like, and so I use this metaphor and the like, and so I use this metaphor. You're out in the ocean and you can feel the tide is going in and it's coming out and your goal is to get into shore. Now, I'm not talking about a riptide here, which is much more urgent.

Speaker 2: 38:19

I'm just talking about the normal ebb and flow of the tide. Normal ebb and flow of the tide. In your job, what you decide your goal is is to get into shore. There's two ways to do it. One is I cannot pay any attention to the ebb and the flow of the tide and just swim. I'm just going to swim.

Speaker 2: 38:43

If the tide's going against me, I'm going to work against it, and if the tide's going with me, I'm going to work with it. The other way of looking at it is when the tide is going with me, I'm going to swim like heck and use all of my energy because everything's on my side and it's helping me along. But when it changes and it goes against me, I'm just going to use enough energy to stand my ground, to stay in the place so that I don't get pushed back, but save up my energy because I know that the time is going to change when the tide is going with me again and I want to be in a good place to take advantage of it. So, going with the flow, it means being able to really recognize the energy that's around us and then aligning ourselves with it to take the most advantage of it, instead of trying to paddle upstream, and I think the I Ching would make a wonderful retreat just in and of itself.

Speaker 1: 39:59

I completely agree, completely agree. I've gone through periods of time where I've done a reading every morning to set my day and there comes a point after doing that've gone through periods of time where I've done a reading every morning to set my day and there comes a point, after doing that for a certain period of time, where you're just in a different place, aren't?

Speaker 2: 40:12

you, you're just in it, yes, yes. And you also start to own the different times. So, if you're talking and nobody's listening, our normal tendency is to talk louder, but the I Ching would teach you to well, if nobody's listening, then shut up, be quiet and wait until they're ready to listen. Quiet and wait until they're ready to listen. And so, by looking at it every day, as you do, then you start to recognize all of these different times, these 64 different times, and you start to own it. And then, even without having the I Ching, you recognize oh, I'm in a time of calculated waiting. Oh, I'm in a time of propitiousness. Oh, I'm in a time of calculated waiting. Oh, I'm in a time of propitiousness. Oh, I'm in a time of great advance. And then you know how to act so that you can go with that flow. And that is what master knee always pointed to and told us if you want to be a master of life, learn the I Ching.

Speaker 1: 41:24

Yeah, wow, well, what a life you've had, bob, and you've really surfed your life, haven't you?

Speaker 2: 41:35

Uh-huh.

Speaker 1: 41:35

You've kind of surfed your way here.

Speaker 2: 41:39

Great way to put it yes.

Speaker 2: 41:44

So tell me more about what you're doing now. So I'm very excited about the fact that I retired from the law doing the criminal stuff, although there is still some areas of law that there are not enough lawyers who are willing to do the case, and, of course, they don't pay hardly anything for them. These are the cases where children are taken away by child protective services and the parents have given a year to get their act together to get their kid back, and so I represent parents um in in those cases. That's the only thing I do in the law these days, which every all of my training and everything else. You know it comes, it's all the though it's, it's like the tool.

Speaker 2: 42:45

The tool belt that I have been given is such a great one. So there's that. And then, as soon as I'm retiring from going to court every day, elon University asked me to come teach a undergraduate business introduction to law course, and so I've been there now since 15, so that's nine years, and in all of these nine years I have been pushing wherever I can, trying to influence the culture wherever I could, to have mindfulness as a more intentional part of the culture.

Speaker 1: 43:38

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:39

And finally, last year they gave me a four credit meditation course to teach nice and I also teach monthly lunch and learns for staff and faculty and I coordinate all the mindful activities on campus. But I'm actually going to be able to work with 20-somethings who are going to be our future leaders and have a chance to ask them to become more mindful of themselves. I'm just thrilled.

Speaker 1: 44:22

Amazing. So you've actually woven together your kind of mainstream training and background with your more esoteric and mindful training into something that's accessible for people in a university which is phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 44:41

I'm excited, I really am.

Speaker 1: 44:43

Phenomenal, I love it.

Speaker 2: 44:47

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 44:48

May we have more and more of that in our institutions.

Speaker 2: 44:53

Yeah, it's great. Mindfulness is a hard conversation. I know that. You know what I'm talking about. You know people will always hear me mentioning meditation and they go oh, meditation, I need that in my life, I need that. Yeah, I need that. I say, oh great, are you willing to sit for 10 minutes a day? Oh, I don't know about that, I don't have 10 minutes. Well, you could wake up 10 minutes earlier. Oh, I'm not going to do that. So here's something that doesn't cost anything. You don't have to buy any special equipment, you don't have to go to a gym. Your living room chair is good enough and it takes 10 minutes and it can have this incredible effect on your life. And I ain't going to do that. So it's a hard conversation, but what I?

Speaker 2: 46:04

Another great thing that came to me is when I got to Elon. They have a spiritual center there and so I would go and hang out over there. And when people heard that I had been certified in the classical Tibetan meditation style, they said, oh, you must know Koro. And I go what's Koro? So I find out that at Duke University, between their wellness department, their psychology department, their other other other research they set about years ago to come up with a way of teaching meditation that they could research as to whether it's effective and find out what works and what doesn't work for the Western mind. So they put together a program that its greatest aspect is that it's finite. It's not. Oh, come drop into my sitting group once a week and you know for the rest of your life. It's give me five weeks. Give me five weeks. Come to my Zoom for one and a half hours a week and promise me you're going to practice for 10 minutes a day and I promise you that at the end of five weeks you'll be a different person.

Speaker 1: 47:34

Right, yeah, that is going to be more attractive to the Western world.

Speaker 2: 47:39

And they developed this digital infrastructure where they created an app and the guided meditations are on the app. So I'll teach somebody how to do breath awareness or teach them how to do body scan, and then during the week they'll turn on that guided meditation. For that, which we'll have about 10 minutes, have about five minutes of guidance and five minutes of quiet, and at the end of it a little log will come up on their app where they fill in oh, this was a terrible meditation because this dog was barking and I got all mad at the dog and I couldn't get anything out of my mind about it except how mad I was. And then the dog went off and I can't believe I didn't do anything and I spent my whole. I didn't, I failed, I did terrible. So they write that in their log and that log comes to my dashboard and I get up in the morning and I have 12, and I have 12 students right now. I read the logs and I get to respond to the log and it goes back to their app and before they do their next session, they can read my response, which might be something like wait a minute, you didn't fail.

Speaker 2: 49:00

Look at all the stuff you noticed. You noticed that the dog distracted you. You noticed that the dog distracted you. You noticed that time compressed because it seemed like you know that you only spent a minute in anger, but 10 minutes went by. So you noticed that. You noticed what the anger was. You noticed that Look at all the stuff you noticed that's all information about who you are. Look at all you learned about who you are, because now it may have happened before, but you never noticed that it's happening and you loved it and we're talking about it now. The next time it happens, you'll notice it as it's happening, not after it happened. And when you notice it as it's happening, then you got access.

Speaker 2: 50:06

Yeah, Then you have the ability to decide whether or not it's helpful or not. Yeah, and and all of a sudden, people realize oh, it's not about emptying your mind, no, oh, it's not about quieting the mind, no, no, it's just about watching all those crazy thoughts. Yeah, you know, and and so it. So now that's the method that I use, and I find it said.

Speaker 1: 50:29

They're right, duke was absolutely spot on yeah they made a good, good system yeah, wonderful, and I imagine if somebody does that five-week experience they want to, they can then move on and over a longer period and kind of immerse in it.

Speaker 2: 50:50

Yeah, many of my students will go on to take Quora 2.0, which is loving, kindness and cultivating sympathetic joy and compassion and cultivating those things which are antidotes, you know, to things like greed and hate and like, and then after that, depending on the student, we'll enter into a good conversation, usually a conversation of hours or days about whether or not we fit each other for a mentoring relationship. And so I have several students that we have a mentoring relationship and have had for several years, and they've kept their practice up and are doing wonderful things out there in the world.

Speaker 1: 51:41

Beautiful, and can people who are not part of the university work with you as well?

Speaker 2: 51:50

Oh yeah, this class that I have in the university will be the first university. Most of my students are either CEOs or just regular folks. Private folks I have mostly it's funny, it's not a whole lot of men, I got to say. The male thing is, I don't know, mostly women with a few men, women with a few men. And then I do have my special classes where I get 10 to 13-year-olds out of the criminal justice system, kids that are at risk or in foster care, and they go through the course and their comments and their stuff they they take to it like a fish to water. It's so much easier for them. They get it right away. There's not all that, you know, living that's getting in the way, yeah, all that conditioning, you know.

Speaker 2: 52:57

And one of them one of them said to me um, the other day, uh, that, uh, they um, because I teach them how to deconstruct an emotion. And so he said I was out on the playground and my friend pushed me down and I got up and I was about to hit him back. But then I went over and I sat down and I asked myself what am I thinking? And I was. I labeled all my thoughts and then I asked myself what are my body sensations? And it was mostly in my chest and some in my cheek. And by the time I asked those questions I wasn't mad anymore.

Speaker 1: 53:41

Wonderful.

Speaker 2: 53:43

Now you get that from a 12-year-old Wonderful, Especially a 12- 12 year old in foster care wow, very, very nice, very nice really really, really great stuff wow, really great stuff.

Speaker 1: 53:57

Amazing work you're doing and it's very, very enriching so if you, I mean if you think about um, there's obviously you can't work with everybody.

Speaker 1: 54:10

You've only got so much time for life, um but you know we've got, we've got people listening to this episode right now and some of those people are um in leadership positions or wanting to be good leaders in their own lives and wanting to be helpful and part of the solution and all of that. Is there something you'd like to say to those people in relation to some of what we've been talking about today?

Speaker 2: 54:36

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. And the biggest aha moment that comes, and I think the biggest thing to remember, is once you think about this and integrate this. It's like you know how you say sometimes I can't unsee that.

Speaker 1: 55:00

Yes.

Speaker 2: 55:01

There are things you can't unsee. Once you get this, you can't unsee it. You're not your thoughts. You're not your thoughts. You have thoughts. You even use that language. You say I had a thought. So who is the I that had the thought?

Speaker 2: 55:27

Because we get so wrapped up in our thoughts and identify with our thoughts that we think we are our thoughts. We see that kid walking around and his, his, his pants are halfway down along his underwear and he's strutting around and he's got all kinds of jewelry hanging off his ears and nose. And you have all these opinions and everything else. You're not thinking I'm having an opinion about this guy. That's your truth. That's your truth that he is everything that you think. Right, there's no debate, there's no access there.

Speaker 2: 55:58

The moment you get it that you are just having all of those thoughts, and the moment you get it that thoughts I don't know where they come from I'm not going to get into that spiritual question but they bubble up from somewhere and they manifest for a moment and then they're gone and they're replaced by another one and it's all they are. That's it. And we put so much power, we put so much significance in my thoughts and I'm not my thoughts. That's the one thing that I I always say. There are three things.

Speaker 2: 56:36

The one is that you're not your thoughts. You know you have your thoughts and you go back, start getting reconnected with the creator of your thoughts, because you've been distant from that creator, the creator of your thoughts. Get to know that person a whole lot better. Second thing I would say is that when you get up in the morning, whether you're having your coffee or you're watching the sunrise, remember that this day is going to come and this day is going to go, and the only thing that's going to be left in this day is whatever you leave in it. Yeah, and you're trading a day of your life. You're trading a day of your life for whatever you do in this day. So, for God's sake, let it be something that's good. And the third thing is you might have a wife and you might have kids, but there ain't nothing like a dog.

Speaker 1: 57:55

I mean look you could take.

Speaker 2: 57:57

you take your best friend and your dog and stick them in the trunk of your car and drive around for five miles, and when you open up your trunk, you see which one comes out and kisses you.

Speaker 1: 58:11

Do not try this at home, folks.

Speaker 2: 58:14

Don't try it at home.

Speaker 1: 58:17

But if you do, I've got just the guy to defend you.

Speaker 2: 58:23

I'm sorry all you cat people. I'm sorry, you're not very sorry, are you? You're not really sorry? No, I'm sorry all you cat people. I'm sorry, you're not very sorry are you?

Speaker 1: 58:28

You're not really sorry. No, I'm not. No, I'm the least bit sorry, but cat people don't need people to validate them, because they're cat people.

Speaker 2: 58:36

Yep.

Speaker 1: 58:37

Right.

Speaker 2: 58:38

You know the difference between a dog person and a cat person.

Speaker 1: 58:41

No.

Speaker 2: 58:43

Dog person getting his meal, looks up, says this person, wonderful person, puts a roof over my head, keeps me warm, feeds me, takes me in out of the rain. You know she has she. She gives me everything. She must be a queen yeah the cat in the same position said this person gives me all this food, puts a roof over my head, takes care of me, keeps me warm. I must be a queen, totally, absolutely right.

Speaker 1: 59:18

Well, I have four cats, so you can see where I come on the pecking order right at the bottom.

Speaker 2: 59:26

You got four bosses.

Speaker 1: 59:27

Four bosses. That's exactly right. So this has been such a great conversation. I could talk to you for hours. Seriously, has there been a favorite part of our conversation for you today?

Speaker 2: 59:56

I think, going back and thinking, I think thinking for myself. It was thinking about all these people that have contributed to my life and I said something that came out kind of spontaneously, but when I said it it was like whoa, and that was you know, and that made buck.

Speaker 1: 1:00:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:14

And thank you so much. I mean the ability to go back and reflect on the people that have contributed to your life and uh and helped you get to where you are and have given you that ability to be able to pass that on to other folks. That's just a big thing. Yeah, it's huge.

Speaker 1: 1:00:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:34

Yeah, and and, and I thank you for that. I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for you.

Speaker 1: 1:00:41

Well, thank you, it's my, it's my pleasure to hold this space for you, and it's been delightful having you on. Is there a you know, because we're going to finish in a second. Is there anything final that you'd like to leave the listeners with? Maybe something you'd like them to reflect on as they move away from this conversation?

Speaker 2: 1:01:04

this conversation. Yeah, I guess it's a lesson from the I Ching. Most people know the symbol of the Tai Chi the black and the white and the two little dots and the white dot and the black and the black dot and the white. I don't know if most people know that the black dot in the white field is the seed of yin inside of a field of yang, and the opposite is also true, and the symbol of it is that that seed will grow and that yin will become yang and yang will become yin. And it's a symbol of the fact that day becomes night and night becomes day when it becomes summer, and that the basic nature of the universe is cyclical.

Speaker 2: 1:02:00

Ah and what. What I would leave everybody with is what we tend to understand that clearly when it comes to day and night and winter and summer, but we tend to not be so much aware of the fact that it's also about good times and bad times, so that good times turn to bad times and bad times turn to good times, and the proof of it is that it always has. In your life there have been bad times and there have always been good times that followed it, and there's always been good times followed by bad times. And so the nature of the universe is cyclical, followed by bad times. And so the nature of the universe is cyclical.

Speaker 2: 1:02:48

And if you can just remember that, when things are going great, have a little humility and put some of those seeds away. For when things aren't so great like the chipmunk does in his mouth put some of those seeds away. And when things are going really bad, just remember the tide's going to change. The tide's going to change. So just sit back and have patience and think about what you're going to do when things get better and how you're going to move forward. Ride that cycle. Don't be so full of yourself when things are going well and don't be so down on yourself when things are going bad, because they are going to change.

Speaker 1: 1:03:27

Beautiful. They always have Beautiful. And finally, finally, you said at the beginning that you've got a special gift for the listeners, which is your e-book. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, so where do they get it for that?

Speaker 2: 1:03:39

So all of the things that I was talking about, meditation, there's so many misconceptions of the things that I was talking about, meditation, there's so many misconceptions. So I wrote a little book and it's full of like, lots of memes and lots of funny stuff and a lot of me is in it. It's about 40 pages, quick read. It's called is meditation for me, what it is, what it's not and how to do it?

Speaker 2: 1:04:02

And if you go to my website, awiseandhappylifecom, you will find you know there's contact points. You know contact me. So you can contact me, just send me a request for it, just ask for it. Or you can send it to bob at awiseandhappylifecom Excellent, bob at a wise and happy lifecom um, excellent, and I'll put all so if you just you just say please send me your ebook, you know I'll send it right out to you beautiful, and I'll put all of that in the show notes for those who don't have a pen and paper or a phone to type in right this second okay, it sounds great bob, thank you, so it's been such a pleasure.

Speaker 1: 1:04:46

I love the work you're doing.

Speaker 2: 1:04:48

Thank you so much for doing it.

Speaker 1: 1:04:50

You are a humble hero, Bob Martin.

Speaker 2: 1:04:53

Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:04:56

Have a beautiful day.

Speaker 2: 1:04:57

You too.

Speaker 1: 1:05:02

Thank you for listening to Truth and Transcendence and thank you for supporting the show by rating, reviewing, subscribing, buying me a coffee and telling a friend. If you'd like to know more about my work, you can find out about Transformational Coaching, Pellewa and the Freedom of Spirit workshop on beingspaceworld. Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.