Finding Your Way Back When Life Throws You Off Course

Bob Martin shares his remarkable journey from flunking out of college to becoming a mob lawyer and eventually a meditation teacher, illustrating how unexpected doors can open when we remain open to transformation.

• Born to immigrant parents who survived persecution in Eastern Europe
• Received a football scholarship but flunked out of college
• Worked as a prosecutor under Janet Reno during Miami's "cocaine cowboys" era
• Transitioned to defending the same mob figures he once prosecuted
• Discovered spirituality through a 72nd generation Taoist grandmaster
• Moved to North Carolina to start fresh and deepened his meditation practice
• Now teaches at Elon University and helps others find inner peace

Our nervous systems evolved for a much simpler environment with clear dangers, not today's chronic, ambiguous stressors
• Meditation helps create space between ourselves and our thoughts
• With just 10 minutes of practice daily for 2-3 weeks, we can begin breaking conditioning
• True happiness comes through service to others, not self-focus
• Both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions share core wisdom when we look beyond surface differences

Visit awiseandhappylife.com for free meditation resources, downloadable guides, and contact information. Email Bob directly at bob@awiseandhappylife.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Mindfulness and Compassion
• 7:56 Bob's Journey: From Hot Dogs to Mob Lawyer
• 16:20 Discovering Spirituality and Meditation
• 24:07 Guided Mindful Moment Practice
• 32:41 Breaking Free from Mental Conditioning
• 41:28 Bridging Spiritual Traditions and Perspectives
• 48:12 Finding Happiness Through Service to Others
• 52:41 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 0:03

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. I'm your host, nat Nat, and today I'm going to bring a safe landing. We're going to talk about mindfulness, our mental states and how we can be gentle and kind with ourselves. Also, you know, let us know that it doesn't always come naturally or in a gentle way. We all have to find our way in certain aspects and when life hits us, it's always learning. How do we course correct? How do we have that radical compassion for ourselves when we know that we've gone into a dead end or something that we know not to have done? Yet we're human and we're going to make those mistakes.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 0:42

So I have Bob Martin with me today and he's going to help introduce some of his techniques. Tell us about his wildlife in the beginning of his life, and some of you might be like, wow, you went from that to this now. Yet we're here to join each other and meet you as a listener, to bring some resources and some practical tools so that you can meet yourself. Bob, will you be so gracious to introduce yourself to the listeners and myself? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Bob Martin: 1:15

I'd be more than happy to. But first let me thank you for your invitation to be on this podcast. What an honor and I'm so happy to be here. This podcast what an honor and I'm so happy to be here. So let me just say this that I never dreamed in a million years that I would have the life that I've had. When I flunked out of college and was working hot dogs on the boardwalk in Queens, my biggest ambition in life was to sell enough hot dogs in the summer so I wouldn't have to work in the winter. And somehow, somehow I got to where I am, and I still have to wonder.

Bob Martin: 2:02

So yeah, I grew up in an immigrant family. My folks had immigrated from Eastern Europe. They had all of their relatives. All of our ancestors were wiped out by one group or another, my dad's ancestors by the Bolsheviks. Right after World War I, they invaded Hungary. My mom was Roma, gypsy, so everybody wiped them out, and so they just came to the conclusion that if there is a god, it wasn't one that was worth worshiping, and so they weren't anti-religious or atheist or anything like that. It's just that we didn't have that conversation in our house. So I grew up without anybody telling me how the universe worked.

Bob Martin: 2:59

But that did kind of create a certain curiosity I suppose you know about it which was fueled by a lot of reading of science fiction when I was in my teenage years. But I was a football player and I was a big boy. I was always a big boy. Matter of fact, I was so big that my nickname as a kid was Bootsy, because my legs were so big they could have been boots. As a kid was bootsy because my legs were so big, they could have been boots, okay, and I was kidded a lot, bullied a bunch. But then in high school I found out that my big body had a function and that was play football. So I got a football scholarship but I flunked out and, like I said, wound up on the boardwalk and then one of those mysterious doors just opened for me and I, you know, I still today I wonder about the difference between things like are things just coincidental? Are things just coincidental or is there some synchronicity? Are they synchronous? Is there some glue that you know ties the universe together and brings you just what you need just when you need it? Anyway, there was a fellow who kept telling me I should be a lawyer and he actually went out and earned enough money for me to buy the ticket to take the law school aptitude test and then he quit his job. He said I only got the job so that I could get you this ticket. And I took it and one law school took a chance on me and I really didn't know where I was going until I got there and I landed at law school and all of a sudden it hit me that I might make something out of my life and so I did, wound up finishing law school, got a job in 1976.

Bob Martin: 5:00

I was born in 1950. My dad was born in 1898. I was born in 1950. My dad was born in 1898.

Bob Martin: 5:07

Just to give you a little perspective of how long we've been around, I worked for Janet Reno, who was the DA of Miami-Dade County during the days if anybody's seen the movie Scarface or the TV show Miami Vice. It was those days that I was there, the days of the cocaine cowboys, and it was crazy, and I left the DA's office and because we had prosecuted some mob figures very vigorously, they came to see me within two weeks after I left the DA's office, but not to threaten me to hire me. So I went from being a prosecutor to a mob lawyer for the next few years and I have to say it was good for my pocketbook but it wasn't good for my heart and my life was kind of spiraling downwards. And I was seeing a therapist and another one of those doors kind of just opened up.

Bob Martin: 6:14

Turned out that my therapist was one of the devotees and a main student and the Miami linchpin for a 72nd generation Taoist grandmaster from the Shaolin Temple and he came to Miami often and this was my first introduction to anything spiritual. So he was the kind of guy that when you met him immediately you know I'm sure you've met people like this, nat, nat you meet him and in a moment, in an instant, you know this guy's got something and I want what he's got. And that's how it was for me and you know. So we studied under Master Nee for six or seven years and he taught me a whole different way to look at life, a whole different way to look at life, right about then is that kind of internal transformation was happening, my mob clients, who I had a very good relationship with.

Bob Martin: 7:15

They didn't ask me to do anything illegal or unethical, we understood each other. But then Johnny's son got arrested and he demanded of me things I wasn't willing to do, and so we decided that the best solution would be if I left Miami. So I moved to North Carolina and started my life over, and it was another one of those great doors that opened for me, because it was like a blank canvas. Nobody knew me. It was a whole different existence. You know, I went from prosecuting and defending murder cases to cases about killing deers with no antlers.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 8:00

Big change.

Bob Martin: 8:01

I know Big change. I know and got into meditation then because there's not too many Taoists in North Carolina but there are Buddhists and in Buddhism there's a lot more meditation. Taoism is more moving, like Tai Chi, kung Fu, things like that, and this is more sitting. So I sat, I went, and then they approached me and they said we'd like you to take the training to be a teacher. And they taught me About 2015,. I decided I had 40 years of serving justice. I decided that was enough. I retired. And then the university here Elon, reached out and they said we'd like you to come teach here. So I've been teaching on the campus ever since then.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 8:57

So there's a lot of points. I know people were like the cocaine cowboys to Taoism, to meditation, to did you get threatened or? And now you left? So I know there's a lot of curiosity that got piqued. There's a lot of colorful in the story. Before we dive deep, would you be willing to join me in a mindful moment so that we can ground ourselves?

Bob Martin: 9:20

Absolutely.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 9:22

And for the listeners, as you always hear. So if you need to close your eyes, please don't if you're driving or the visuals, yet all the other prompts you're able to do that I guide us through. So, bob, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating and, if it's safe to do so, you're going to gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose, bringing your awareness to watching your breath go in and out. You're not going to try and control your breath. You're just going to be aware of its rhythm, allowing it to guide you into your body. There may be some sensations or feelings coming up, and that's okay, Let them surface. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go, surrender the need to control. Let go Surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be, be with your breath, drop deeper into your body.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 10:37

Now, there may be some thoughts or to-do lists that have popped up. That's okay. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, creating space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping even deeper into the body, being in the space of presence, of being. Again, more thoughts may have come up. Gently, bring your awareness back to your breath Beginning again, creating even more space between the awareness and the thoughts and completely surrendering into the body, into presence, into being, just being with your breath, now coming into your senses, into this moment, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while staying with your breath how's?

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 12:06

your heart? You're welcome, you're welcome. How's your heart doing?

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 12:12

heart's doing great yeah, I introduce these mindful moments because, you know, we talk about meditation and we talk about slowing down, where I want to invite people into it so that they can actually do the practice of it and not be told to do it, that we can do it all together and, you know, start creating change in the way that we interact with each other, because this mind goes so fast at times and we forget to just put a pause and just drop into our body and see where we are feel the presence. So you mentioned a lot about, you know, being in miami in the cocaine cowboy era. You know, uh, you went from da to um prosecuting you know some people to now defending them and, of course, that would bring a different kind of lifestyle than a DA salary to a defendant's salary. So it opens up a lot of choices, a lot of places. Yet you also said that it had an impact on you. When did the noise become so loud that you realized that you had to choose silence?

Bob Martin: 13:42

I think that those two things were separated by some time. The noise became loud and I don't believe I was even skilled enough to even understand that the noise was loud, much less think that there was something I could do about it. Just like you know so many, you have a problem, you want to fix it, and the noise of trying to figure out how to fix it sometimes just adds to the noise. And so you know, I guess the first step was, you know, going to see a therapist and even admitting that I didn't have all the answers, because I mean, I was a lawyer and I was a pretty top lawyer and of course I was expected to have all the answers. So why wouldn't I have all the answers? And I don't know that I was the best therapist client, you know, I probably argued with him more than anything else.

Bob Martin: 14:55

I think that it wasn't until I met Master Ni and I had a visual example of what that silence is and what it looks like on a human being that I was able to even understand what it was, if that makes any sense. If that makes any sense, I remember one time we asked Master Nii, why do they call you Master? And he giggled a lot, he did. He giggled and chuckled a lot and he giggled at us and he says well, because you know, I have mastered life, and you know. And he walked away and we ran after him Master Nee, master Nee, what does it mean to master life? And he said when you have learned to interfere with the natural process of things the least and use your energy efficiently and yet have the desired effect, you have begun to learn to master life.

Bob Martin: 15:52

And it took us a while to unpack all of that. But when we finally got it, that urge just to do something is something that you can not trust and you can learn patience, you know, and let those urges pass. You find that all of the work that you wanted to do and all of the effort that you might have had to put out to try to fix it really just required waiting till the right time to take a more effective and efficient action and you had the same impact and I think that opened up a whole world for me. You know Taoism is. You could say it's in a nutshell it's about learning how to go with the flow. But that's a little bit more complicated a comment than you might think. It doesn't mean just taking your hands off the wheel and la-di-da-di-da. You know, merrily we go down the stream.

Bob Martin: 16:59

It means understanding the flow and then acting appropriately with it. Because you know, using that river metaphor, if it's a nice quiet river, you know, yeah, you can just float on down the river, that's fine. But what if there are rocks? And then what if there's whitewater? And what if you're heading towards a waterfall? You can't just go la-di-da-di-da, you have to do things. So there are times, you know, to relax and withhold energy and preserve it and conserve it, but there are times to expend it and learning the difference is the wisdom, I suppose, of the teaching.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 17:38

Yeah, because I think sometimes with spiritual texts it can be so nuanced that people take it literally.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 17:47

And they would like it that well, something else is in control and I don't have to do critical thinking, I don't have to do decision-making, I don't have to feel life, I don't have to feel my emotions. I would rather just really not be human. And where it's like, well, the Taoism is letting you know, you know there's a spiritual aspect, yet you still have to take care of this human form, like your nervous system has one function don't die.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 18:15

Yet if you understand spiritually, your energy doesn't ever die. Yet to experience life in this world, you need this nervous system to feel through the senses and so, as you said, like when the impulsivity comes to do something a lot of people don't realize, it's like oh, it's just dysregulation and there's some emotions coming up that you don't know how to sit and feel. You haven't learned how to process some of this stuff. You've just been in the process of doing rather than feeling.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 18:47

Exactly rather than feeling and it's a profound way because it's simple. Yet if nobody's ever shown you that process to feel, it's like what the hell? And it's messy, like when you start entering into that you're like I don't want this stuff. It's, it's. It can be a lot, especially if you don't have a proper mentor to encourage you.

Bob Martin: 19:09

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And I think that you know a lot of people place judgments on their ability or inability to feel emotions. I mean they may judge, oh, I'm too emotional or I'm not emotional enough, or I don't feel what I should feel, and there's just so many judgments. And I think that it's helpful. And you know, in my classes I try, you know, there's besides, you know, just teaching meditation. You try to teach a little bit about how human beings work and one of the things that people I think is helpful for them to understand is that this physical being that we are is not designed for the environment that we're living in. You know, if you're a creationist, you know that. You know God created us for Eve, for the Garden of Eden, and then we got kicked out and there is nothing in Scripture that says that when God saw us waiting in the TSA line with only 20 minutes to catch our plane and the line winds around you know 40 laps that God said, oh, let me go down and redesign their brain so that it fits this environment. There's nothing that says that.

Bob Martin: 20:32

And if you're an evolutionist, then we spent 1.7 million years evolving into hunter-gatherers and there hasn't been enough time to evolve out of that.

Bob Martin: 20:45

So what happens is, as you said, there's this big part of our brain that's involved with survival.

Bob Martin: 20:53

You know, our right prefrontal hemisphere is there, but this left side, which is involved with beauty, which is involved with connection, which is involved with the sense of spirituality, we are not given a lot of stimulation for that. Given a lot of stimulation for that, and the way that, if you're a creationist, the way that God designed us or if you're an evolutionist, the way that we evolved, was that beauty and connection and awe are the functions of that intuitive left side and it acts as a governor on the stress side, it is what balances and controls it. And I think that we have a responsibility to put beauty into our lives, to put ourselves in a place where we have connection, and we need to intentionally stimulate that part of our brain which is, you know, if you don't use it, you lose it and it for many of us, that part of the brain is atrophying and that's just a tragedy Because, you know, if you're only using half your brain, then life is hard.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 22:08

Yeah, it is, it very much is, and I you know, as you said there's, the spaces are more and more limited. To see the beauty, to see the connection, to see the creativity and the delight of life, we're bombarded with productivity, fear mongering, the world is doom and gloom and everything is going to rape where it's like. Well, how can I be intentional to create space? And I know that you've said. You know we're at a time where we don't need more information, Like we are a society that is over consuming, and so you know it's good to consume, but if you're not putting that in practical work, it's just looping in your mind and it's creating all kinds of scenarios, but you have to take action with it. So how can people have a better relationship with their thoughts? And what is a practice or something that you teach to break those loops, to be aware of those patterns and do a shift?

Bob Martin: 23:21

Yeah. So you know we have to say that we've lived a life of being caught up in a fog of rumination and projection. You know, we're always thinking about things in the past and things in the future, and those neural pathways, those habitual ways of thinking have become so inured within us that I can't just wave a wand and tell you to think differently, matt. I can't just wave a wand and tell you to think differently. It's kind of like, you know, you spend 10 years gaining 50 pounds and you decide to go into the gym and somebody shows you the machines. You can't just get it by osmosis. You got to get on the machine and you got to use the machine. You got to get on the machine and you got to use the machine. You got to get on the treadmill, you got to lift those weights and you got to start with the two pounders and then go to the five and the 10 pounders. And it's a practice just like anything else. But having said that, a lot of people think that it takes a long time and it does not. My students start to break out of their conditioning in between the second and third week of just practicing 10 minutes a day. So just 10 minutes a day over a few weeks, you know, with a little guidance and a little instruction, and you begin to break out of it. And the answer to your question is you have to understand experientially what it means. If I say you're not your thoughts.

Bob Martin: 25:05

Most of us are living inside of our thoughts. We are our thoughts. If I have a judgment, if somebody I'm walking down the street at 12 o'clock and somebody of a different race that doesn't look like me is walking in the other direction, I have a flood of judgments. You know, if I see somebody, well, so I have a flood of judgments, but there's no access to those judgments. They come up and they become my reality and I am them, but the fact of the matter is that I am not them. And so what?

Bob Martin: 25:43

The process, the practice of meditation, of doing exactly what you said and what you practiced when we started? The important piece that I'll pick out of it was you may have some thoughts that come up, you know, and when that happens, you know, acknowledge them and then bring your attention back to your breathing. It is that simple, because if you just do that a few times, you'll realize that you can let go of your thoughts. And once you can start to let go of your thoughts, you realize I am not my thoughts. And in our language we recognize that. You don't say, oh, I am an idea. You say, hey, hey, nat, nat, I had an idea, I had an idea, I had a thought. So we recognize that we're not our thoughts. Then we have access to whether the thought is helpful or not helpful. We can learn to let it go. We can learn to reprogram our database so that the thoughts that come up are by design.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 27:03

Yeah.

Bob Martin: 27:04

They are by design. We actually have the ability to design our thinking.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 27:11

We can. And to bring this a little bit more deeper, it's realizing like people are seeing thoughts it's actually recognizing to disidentify with the nervous system. You think you're the nervous system.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 27:27

Mm, hmm, and so when you can put that space in between the stimulus and response and come back into vulnerability, which your nervous system is protecting you from being in that space, the oneness, the oneself. You know, the abundance of a nervous system that's processing past information and biases and judgments, and all that. I can be in the space and allow possibility, allow myself to let go of the control and be in the delight of experiencing life. Is there pain? Yeah, there's no. I think a lot of people want to use mindfulness and meditation to have a life that is unscathed and you won't feel anymore, and that can be in stoicism if you want to, to always use your mind and reshift it and not have emotions. Yet the beauty is for myself, as you saw, in the mindful moment. I don't call it meditation because there's such a wrong definition with it it's.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 28:34

it's bringing that taoism and it's bringing the meditation. It's bringing mindfulness all in one and accepting the spirituality and the humanness and integrating them, because I think people are always choosing one or the other. Where it's like your spirituality needs this nervous system to experience all the senses. But most people don't even know that space and, as you said, like it only takes you about, you know, two weeks of 10 minutes of practice and then they start to build that space where, oh, I'm not, this construct of a body and these thoughts and these judgments and how I've identified and not in. I think you know how I help serve the clients that I have is to have radical compassion, recognize your nervous system is protecting you, even though sometimes it's a bothersome and it can be very frustrating and you don't understand why your behavior is doing certain things. If you come at it as protection and understand well, why are you not feeling safe? Because in your safe mode everything's open, you're in a delay. But if you feel unsafe, those defense mechanisms have to come in and they're doing their function.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 29:53

So, allowing there to be protection and context into it.

Bob Martin: 29:59

And what confuses us, I believe, is that, again, we have to remember that that entire nervous system evolved in a very simple environment where the danger was represented by a tiger or a snake. Yeah, and you could identify it. And there was a clear thing run or run or fight. You know, yeah, and there was a clear solution. But today's danger and you know, we call it stress, but stress is a sugar-coated word yeah, stress really means the sensation of danger. That's what it really is and that's what our body is reacting to. But today's stress is a missed deadline, an appointment you got to take, worrying about what the lab report's going to say Did I leave the stove on? Do I have to pick my kids up? And you've got a hundred different things. And so, rather than this being a tiger or a snake, it is death by a thousand little cuts.

Bob Martin: 31:04

And it is chronic and it's undifferentiated. And so is there any wonder that people say well, my mind is always going crazy and it's always wandering, it's always talking and I can't quiet it. Well, is there any wonder? The old mechanism of scanning for danger is now trying to scan and identify any one of these thousands of stressors and it can't do it. And so we get stressed over our stress and it's just like going down a rabbit hole.

Bob Martin: 31:41

But you know, I want to go back to something you said about the mindful moment. I think this helps people understand what the process of meditation is. So, nat, nat, I am sure that you have experienced, and I'm sure that your audience has experienced, the situation where you're telling a joke and even as you're telling the joke, there's another voice in your head that's commenting on how the people are taking it and is worrying about whether they're going to get the punchline and is thinking that maybe you're talking too much or not talking enough. And there's that other little voice that that is a very, very important function of the brain which we, it happens on its own in everyday life. The only difference between it and meditation is in meditation we intentionally listen to the other voice we intentionally want to hear that other voice because it's not our thoughts. You know, if you want to be spiritual, when I teach in churches, you know I call it the soul. When I teach, you know, in secular classrooms, you know I call it. You know your authentic self or the. You know some other psychological term.

Bob Martin: 33:05

The scientists call it metacognition, the ability to think about our thinking. Metacognition, the ability to think about our thinking. But in meditation we actually start to reconnect with that other voice because when we are connected to that voice, we're not in our thoughts. And, if I can, there's just another metaphor that I like to use a lot. So, using that metaphor of the river, so let's say, like the river itself is like our sensation of consciousness, okay, and on the river there are twigs and leaves and all kinds of stuff. Those could represent our thoughts and for the most part we live life like there's a log in the river and we're holding on to the log and whatever happens to the river, whether it's whitewater or calmness or a hurricane or a drizzle, we are experiencing it. What we learn in meditation, when we reconnect to that other voice, is that we can, even while we're on the log and even while we're experiencing life, we can also be up on the bank of the river watching ourselves go through the whitewater.

Bob Martin: 34:25

There's a calmness and there's a consistency, but, most importantly, there's a stability, and that's where that sense of peace comes from. It's not because I've divorced the ups and downs of life. I still get that on the log. I've divorced the ups and downs of life. I still get that on the log. But in this ego state, in this place, which we've all experienced before, I have a sense of stability. I know I'm going to get through this, because I always have and.

Bob Martin: 35:06

I always will, and I think that that's just a really helpful way to understand why people say that meditation is calming. Again, like you say, it's not because you don't feel the pain of life. It's not because if you cut your hand it's not going to hurt. It's not because if you don't put a Band-Aid on it and some iodine it won't get infected. It's not because if you don't put a Band-Aid on it and some iodine it won't get infected. But from that other place, yeah, you cut your hand, you don't take care of it, it starts to swell and it takes twice as long to heal. But from the other place, you're looking at it non-judgmentally and go oh hey, bob, you know that's a little bit of a learning thing. Maybe the next time you know time you'll put a Band-Aid on it, but not in a critical way, just in an observational way, exactly exactly In your book.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 35:59

I Am the Way you had a conversation with your wife and you blended Taoism with Christianity and you merged of seeing, two worlds that were apart, but you blended it in. And seeing, I guess not. I guess the language of love and listening and staying connected even when your beliefs diverge, of all these different ways to come to the river, is we're all sitting at a table and we're all eating the food in different ways and, rather than sharing the experience of what the food feels like, everybody's criticizing oh, you're eating with a knife and fork, you're eating with your hands, you're eating with chopsticks. Rather than we're all eating the same food, we're just experiencing it differently. And how are you experiencing it and how can we learn that? So it almost sounds similar to how I have the visual that you had a conversation with your wife. What sparked that and what grew in you after having that conversation and writing this book?

Bob Martin: 37:12

So thank you for the question. So I came to my wife through a life of non-religion and then Taoism and then Buddhism and a devotion to Jesus, who I've always seen as a great wisdom teacher. I don't mean to be sacrilegious to any of your listeners, but when you don't grow up being taught that there are I don't mean when I say superstitious, I don't mean superstitious but when there are creatures in another dimension, gods and angels and things, when you're not taught to believe that at an early age, it's a little hard to see that. But what I noticed about Jesus even at an early age, is that if he was a Buddhist priest he would not have taught anything differently. I mean, you know he wouldn't.

Bob Martin: 38:24

Just today I was talking to another professor who had just finished a semester at sea. She had visited 15 countries and she said when we got to Kenya we were amazed at how happy the Kenyans are and she described that to me. And she said we asked them about that and what they said was we teach our children at a very young age to be very careful about what they eat. But she didn't mean eating literally, she meant it metaphorically what they allow into. You know what they consume in terms of ideas and thoughts and the like. This is part of the way you raise a child and I mentioned to her yeah, and the Buddha said you must place sentinels at the portals to your mind. And for that moment we just looked at each other and we got it. Here in Kenya, all the way over there in China, all the way over here in the Mideast, everywhere. They all taught the same stuff over there in China, all the way over here in the Mideast, everywhere they all taught the same stuff.

Bob Martin: 39:36

And my wife is a Bible literalist. She believes literally in the Bible as an historical document. So her science was something I couldn't buy into very easily and she thought my stuff was just weird. Something I couldn't buy into very easily and she thought my stuff was just weird. But when I looked at how she acted and how she lived her life and she is a saint, she is, I mean, I'm in awe of her and I really am Just how she moves into whatever is necessary to be done without any thought, you know, of a pat on the back or anything else. She's just a marvelous human being.

Bob Martin: 40:17

And I looked at the way she lived her life and she goes well, I just, you know, I just think of what would Jesus do, and I said, well, this guy's worth examining.

Bob Martin: 40:27

So I started looking at that and listening to what she said about what she thought was Jesus's message, and it would always remind me of a chapter from the Tao Te Ching, which is the seminal book of Taoism. So eventually I looked and I said, yeah, lao Tzu wrote it this way and Jesus said it this way, said it this way. Now I have to tell you, moving from a non-God-based philosophy to a God-based philosophy is a little bit of a challenge, and then trying to maintain the same kind of cadence and poetic feel, you know, of those Chinese writings, but it was okay. So I started finding in the Bible the same lessons that Lao Tzu taught, and sure enough, they were there, and so I wrote a couple of chapters and I showed it to her and she goes wow, now I get it. And then it became like a Rosetta Stone for us. All of a sudden my stuff wasn't so weird and I really got her and I think that it made a huge difference in our relationship.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 41:38

Wow, and so I just kept.

Bob Martin: 41:40

Yeah, I just kept writing and writing. And another one of those doors opened and a publisher heard about it and I didn't have to go through all that terrible publishing process and they reached out to me and they said we'd like to publish your book and now it's out there.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 41:54

Wow, what a beautiful way of teaching that you don't have to convince anybody. It's better that we can both understand and meet each other, that you're not trying to, you know, convert somebody into your way, that you can allow them to be where they are and they can allow themselves to be where they are, and that we both listen and see what the similarities are. And if the world could engage in this, what a different world we would be in. Yet you know the, those judgments, those defense mechanisms, those belief systems and also that power when you think you have the only way, it gives a sense of ideation and people idolizing you, people wanting to come, so you feel a sense of necessity in the world, whereas, okay, I have one way and there's many ways, yet this is the way.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 42:54

But some of those religious spaces, especially in Christianity, that's the only way and that's it, and don't tell me about anything else. And it's very narrowed and and closed and I'm like, are you actually recognizing that your behavior and actions aren't actually even following what the Bible is saying? Like, do you? But the mind will use the Bible to convince them that the way that I'm doing it is served by the Bible and it's birthed from that and really showing people a different way of blending and not having to make people convert or change who they are yeah, you know, um, that, just to give like an example, um Lao Tzu says, uh, about leadership, that um know you must go where you're called to go, but never, you know, with the idea that you know it comes from your sense of importance.

Bob Martin: 44:02

And then, when your work is done, you know, finish, step down because it's the work that's important, not you. And if you think of, you know, jesus' life, he went where he was called to go and when his work was done he ascended and thus his work became eternal. And so there's just so many areas that it maps on to it. It maps on to it. And let me, if I may, a little aside, because I was just thinking about you know, as you were mentioning that and leadership, and how counterintuitive our sense of ego is. You know the strong it seems like. The stronger our sense of ego is, the less happy we are. Yeah, you know, the more important it is for me to know to be the expert, to be prettier, to be thinner, to be better. You know, smarter, more productive, the less happy I am. I mean, I don't want to get political, but no matter what you may think of President Trump, I certainly don't think that he's a happy man.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 45:19

No, I mean because of the policies.

Bob Martin: 45:25

You know, he's just always striving, always more, every little moment. There has to be more, more compliments, more this, more that, and it's so, it's so fragile, really, and um, so a little story, if I may. Um. So one time I'm having dinner with my wife not this wife, uh, another wife, uh, and uh, she ordered a fisherman's platter, you know, and it had a lobster tail on it and it came out with crab legs and she goes no, no, no, I want her to lobster tail.

Bob Martin: 46:02

I said lobster tail, this is crab legs. I don't want crab legs on a lobster tail. And I said, oh, crab lobster, you know you put butter on them. They're both good, don't worry about it. No, no, no, I want you to tell the waiter that I'm supposed to get a lobster tail. They probably don't have any lobster tails.

Bob Martin: 46:17

And I just didn't want to bother, I didn't want to be confrontational, it was all about what I didn't want. And then she said look, put on your lobster hat, put on your lawyer hat, and put on your lawyer hat, put on your lawyer hat. And so when she said that it was like there was an a shift of perception of who I was, now I was not about me. It was that I was advocating for her, I was going to stand for her. So now I had no waiter, you know, and in that little moment I kind of realized that my whole life of advocating for other people and taking a stand really had a lot to do with my happiness. And I think that it's just so important that and we get that idea that you know it's not about us.

Bob Martin: 47:10

It's about what we stand for. It's, you know. It's about making that difference, it's about being of service. Those are the ways, you know, to happiness. And if you look at all of the wisdom teachers from the very beginning, you know everybody thinks that they all came to this earth for the purpose of making you a better person, making the world a better place. And I say, maybe, not. Maybe the only interest they had was please be happy. It just so happened that the way to happiness happens to be by being a good person.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 47:44

Yeah, exactly Exactly, and the world will condition you that. That's selfish. Yes, yes, yes, your service has to be of gruel and sacrifice and lack and misery and it's like wait. You could be a service and still be happy.

Bob Martin: 48:04

You can have both, but that's not how the world conditions it. Yeah, I mean both Jesus and the Buddha and the Pope all washed their servants' feet. Exactly they did.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 48:14

They did Well. I know many listeners are like okay, where can I find Bob? Can you let the listeners know where they can find you and the books that you have written and any other services that you provide to people?

Bob Martin: 48:27

Yeah, sure, just come to my website and in the menu there is a big. There's a place where it says free resources. Come to my website and check that out and there I have a couple of free downloadable eBooks about meditation. I have a little self-assessment quiz, but, most importantly, I have over 300 downloadable self-assessment and instruction sheets about how to do a body scan or how to do a breath awareness meditation or how to choose a career or what passion is all about. There's 300. They're all categorized into sections and they're all free and downloadable. So I invite you to come and take advantage of that. And if you want to contact me directly, my website's name is awiseandhappylifecom is awiseandhappylifecom and if you want to contact me directly, just send me an email at bob at awiseandhappylifecom.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 49:37

Great. All that will be in the show notes, so it will be clickable. So, at any time while you were listening to this podcast, if you got any tingles, any shivers, any aha moments, that's your nervous system, limbic system, letting you know that Bob has something that could be of service to you. So don't hesitate, reach out to him, go on his website, send him an email. This is the first time that we had a conversation and you see how much ease and delight and openness there was and how approachable Bob is. So please just listen to your body's wisdom and reach out to him.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 50:16

I want to thank you, bob, for all that you bring into the world. And you know doing the alchemy, taking those impurities of making decisions in your life and having to navigate through like, oh, this isn't really what I want to do, and turning them into gold, yet not keeping that gold to yourself, that you're sharing it with others, sharing a way that other people don't realize that they have within themselves. So I want to thank you for doing that warrior work in the light that you bring into the world.

Bob Martin: 50:48

Thank you. What you mentioned? Check it out. Tonglen T-O-N-G-L-E-N is a meditation specifically designed to be like alchemy to breathe in difficulty and breathe out ease.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 51:05

I do it often, especially when I'm supercharged or there's something going on. It's like remember. Remember the power you have with your breath and let your system like I say, healing for me is being able to shift your perception and a lot of people don't realize that they get stuck in just one way of thinking and they don't realize that they can see it in a different way. Instead of always looking left, they don't realize you can look right. Yet that takes that inner experience and warrior work to start shifting that aspect. I want to ask you to be reflective and to go into your heart and to leave an intention for the listeners. That would empower them.

Bob Martin: 52:03

The next time your mind says, oh, I have to dot dot dot. Just stop for a second and switch that to I get to dot dot dot, I have to. No, I get to. I have to go to this appointment. No, I get to go to this appointment.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 52:31

No, I get to go to this appointment, and those are the small reframes that we can do to change our emotional state, our mental state and how we're interacting in the world. Again, bob, this has been a delight and I thank you for being here and being with the listeners and empowering each one of them. Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation. So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery call liftoneselfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.

Bob Martin: 53:47

And thank you, Nat Nat, for going through all of the work to give folks like me a platform.

NatNat - LiftOneSelf: 53:53

You're welcome. Please remember to be kind to yourself.