203. From Defending Mobsters to Practicing Mindfulness w/ Guest: Bob Martin

Ever wondered what it's like to defend the most controversial clients of the Miami cocaine cowboy era? Join us as we sit down with Bob Martin, a former high-octane criminal trial lawyer turned professor of wellness and mindfulness. From his early days working under Janet Reno to representing mobsters, Bob shares his unique journey into the depths of organized crime. He offers a rare glimpse into a world where trust was paramount and legal contracts were a rarity, painting a compelling picture of personal reinvention and the complexity of human nature.

The conversation takes a thought-provoking turn as we explore the ethical minefields and strategic intricacies of the legal defense world. Bob candidly reflects on upholding constitutional rights even for society’s most reviled individuals, revealing how the pressure of maintaining professional integrity can weigh heavy. His personal anecdotes shed light on the harsh realities faced by defense attorneys, including wrongful convictions and coerced confessions. Through it all, Bob found solace and resilience through meditation and mindfulness, tools that became essential as he navigated personal turmoil alongside a demanding career.

As our episode concludes, we reflect on the transformative power of new perspectives and the importance of surrounding oneself with growth-oriented individuals. Bob's journey from a world steeped in high-stakes legal drama to a life centered around mindfulness and teaching at Elon University underscores the importance of open-heartedness and good intentions. We wrap up with gratitude for the enriching dialogue, highlighting the significance of shared experiences and the impact of engaging with diverse ideas. Tune in to broaden your horizons and discover how embracing discomfort can lead to personal growth.

https://awiseandhappylife.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Mob Lawyer's Journey and Transformation
• 12:52 Ethics and Mindfulness in Legal Practice
• 26:47 Building Resilience Through Mindfulness Practice
• 43:15 Imparting Knowledge and Gratitude

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yeah, it's mindset cafe. We all about that mindset. Gotta stay focused. Now go settle for the last. It's all in your head how you think you manifest. So get ready to rise, cause we bout to be the best. Gotta switch it up. Gotta break the old habits. Get your mind right. Turn your dreams into habits. No negative vibes, only positive thoughts, thoughts. What is up, guys?

Speaker 1: 0:37

Welcome to another episode of the mindset cafe podcast. It's your boy, devin, and today we have the privilege of speaking with a special guest, bob Martin. He is a man whose life journey is honestly fascinating as well, as it is going to be transformative for you guys to hear, from his early days as a high powered criminal trial lawyer during those Miami infamous cowboy, a cocaine cowboy era, to his current role of a professor of wellness and mindfulness, a coordinator at Elon university. He has reinvented himself time and time again and honestly, that's what we're all about here on the mindset cafe. As you guys already know, it's about making your life, you know, filled with purpose, making you 1% better every single day. And what better way to do that than learn through someone else's journey and help you overcome your obstacles? So, with further ado, bob, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Oh, happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Thanks for all the work you do in putting podcasts together. Such an act of love. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Of course. So let's dive into it. I mean, obviously the first thing you know I have to ask is I've seen the Netflix. You know documentaries and stuff like that, and even my dad said he he remembers that era, you know of the co-king cowboys and stuff. So let's dive into your career as a trial lawyer. You know a mob lawyer, you know how. What was that all like and how did that all begin? You?

Speaker 2: 2:04

know a mob lawyer. You know how, what was that all like and how did that all begin? Well, well, it all began from a prosecutor's office. Starting out, you know my career coming out of law school, a lot of people for the first time to get a job, you know, either with the prosecutor's office or the public defender's office, to get their teeth cut, so to speak. But I really took to that office and my boss was Janet Reno and she actually wound up being the attorney general in the Clinton administration and was responsible for this terrible situation that happened at Waco Texas. That was, if anybody heard about Waco texas that she was the. She was the person from the government that was involved in that situation.

Speaker 2: 2:50

But anyway, um wound up um filing a civil case against a money laundering case against the mob and wound up hitting them for a lot of money. Um went out in private practice shortly after that and uh, and they came to me, uh and uh. They basically said you know, you hit us for a lot of money and you got to be good to do that and we want to start sending you some clients, uh. So, instead of being mad, it was a matter of mutual respect. Let's call it that so they.

Speaker 1: 3:31

So basically you're the, you're on the prosecutor side and then you went over to the defense side. Is what it what it sounds like? And and so, instead of them being mad and coming after you for basically prosecuting and you know taking, you know taking their money, they're like you obviously know your stuff. That means you can defend it as well. So what was what was going through your head during that time? You know cause, obviously, being on one side of the table and then getting approached by it and it's still a business opportunity as well. What was going through your head at that time?

Speaker 2: 4:02

You mean in terms of, at one point, being kind of on the side of justice and victims and protecting the hurt to the ones who are now defending the criminals, and what was that like? To switch my head over like that. Is that what we're talking about? What was?

Speaker 1: 4:25

that like to switch my head over like that. Is that what we're talking about?

Speaker 2: 4:34

No, not specifically going from prosecuting to defense in terms of, like that specific genre of client, right. Oh, I found them enchanting, actually I found them, you know, they don't have a police. They can't call the police if somebody does them wrong. So that means if they're going to do business and most of the time they want to do business to do business. They don't want to do business just to be mean or to commit crimes or to hurt people, they just want to do business. And that means trying to keep things going as smoothly as you can. And one of the ways you have to do that is you have to be good for your word, because there's nobody that you can call up and say this guy broke the contract, I want to sue him, you can't. You can't do that because it's an illegal contract, you know. So, uh. So I found them to be enchanting and good for their word and and um, pretty much just like everybody else, except they had a different kind of business that they were in.

Speaker 1: 5:40

That's, that's, that's so. It's. I mean, mean, it's so interesting because nowadays you see so many documentaries on different things, like the coquing cowboys or, you know, like narcos or like you know all these other things. You know, I've seen some of the the mob ones as well, and you know you see a side of them. It's like the family and and you know there's. They're so just regular people, but then there is that other side to their lifestyle that necessarily, you know, you can't, you know, call the police, like you said, and there's different ethics.

Speaker 2: 6:12

Yeah, as long as you know, as long as you're good for your word. But if you cross them, if you're a rat, if you're somebody who breaks your word, well then they can get pretty nasty. But I'll tell you the funny part about it in Miami, when we talk about mob, you know you kind of have to talk about the Italians who had an influence there. Now, what they were mostly involved with is bringing the stuff out of Colombia through Haiti and up to the docks of New York, where they owned the docks, and so that was their trade route. The Colombians, on the other hand, worked with the Cubans and brought the stuff in through the Straits of Miami. So it was a different trade route. They weren't necessarily in competition with each other, so there wasn't a problem.

Speaker 2: 7:06

But I will tell you this that the Italians, like most of us, think of ourselves as being scared of the model. The italians were scared of the colombians because the colombians didn't have that kind of ethic like I mean, among the italians. You know, leaving the family, you left the family out of it. You didn't mess with the family. Now, the Colombians felt very differently. If you messed with them first, they would kill your family in front of you, just so that you know that they're doing it before they kill you. And the Italians, like I say, they were concerned about those crazy, crazy Colombians.

Speaker 1: 7:57

It's so crazy. I mean I will say the resourcefulness and creativeness from a lot of the mob stories and stuff, even from the founding of Las Vegas, to you know, and so many different things. It's like you have to be creative, you know. It's almost like this natural born entrepreneurial skill as well, and mindset as well, to do some of the things and create some of the things that they do you know. So it is, it is definitely unique. You know, is there any standout story you know from that time? You know that you witnessed or you can remember?

Speaker 2: 8:39

Well, many I remember. I mean there are stories about cases which you know. I don't know that any particular one of them, I mean mostly. They didn't ask me to be the consigliere, they didn't ask me to be like the inside advisor who you know, was really privy to everything. What I was is I was somebody they referred middle management, the wholesalers and the retailers and the mules. When they got caught they were the ones that they sent me.

Speaker 2: 9:18

But I still got to know Johnny and his family pretty well and I remember one time Johnny's son got married. He sent him back to Sicily to get married and once he was married they had a big reception in New York City and then they came down to Miami and they had this huge dinner, started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and ended about 6.30, with all these courses and everything. Anyway, once we had gotten back to the dessert, all of a sudden Johnny stood up and he says okay, the lawyer is here, we have to talk. And I had no idea what he was talking about, you know. I mean I said what, what, and what happened was all the women grabbed all the children and took them out of the room and closed the double doors and it was just the guys that were left.

Speaker 2: 10:17

And as soon as that happened, everybody pulled out their cigars and started calling their bookies and started telling jokes and sitting down and watching TV and just doing man guy stuff. We did that for a couple hours until they got hungry again. They made themselves another meal. Finally, when it was all done, they say okay, we're done, you can open the door. And the women started coming back in and Johnny reaches over and he whispers in my ear never tell the women. So it was a culture that was different.

Speaker 1: 10:58

That's cool. Would you say that it was a lifestyle or like a crowd that was kind of easy to kind of get your life consumed by or kind of get engulfed in that lifestyle?

Speaker 2: 11:15

It is, and I did, and that was the problem. I mean, some of these guys were likable enough that you just wanted to hang out with them and we started doing that and going to bars. Those were the disco days. You know, those were the days 1970s, the days of discos and chrome and glass discotheques and a lot of cocaine, and you know. So I started hanging out with them and I guess that was the beginning of, uh, the next chapter of my story, because I started my. My personal life was falling apart. Professionally I was making money hands over foot, I had the respect of the courts, I was considered one of the better lawyers in miami, which was pretty competitive in that field, and and. But personally things were kind of falling apart. I was even seeing a therapist.

Speaker 1: 12:19

Wow, I mean, do you, would you say that like being being a top lawyer in Miami, especially during that time and especially with the crowd that you you know were had as clients and stuff? Would you, would you say that being a lawyer is partly a game Like, for example, I think, that being an entrepreneur and I think business itself is a game? Right, you have to know. The more, more moves you know and the more pieces that you know to the puzzle like, the better and bigger your puzzle can be is. Would you say that that was like the case of being like a top lawyer at the time?

Speaker 2: 12:51

oh sure, I mean. We had an expression that goes like this if you, if you've got the law to work with the laws on your side, then use the law, and if the law is not on your side, then use the facts. And if neither the law or the facts are on your side, then use the system what do you mean by use the system?

Speaker 2: 13:11

well, you got to know, you know getting continuances and, uh, how to play the game, uh, so that you could set the trial in the best strategic method way that you could. And just you know playing, like you say, playing the game got it uh, there's a game of it, so it is an adversary system.

Speaker 2: 13:33

I mean, the prosecutor wants, uh, you know, uh, bring you down and your job is to defend against it. So, yeah, so it's. It is very much a game, and one of the questions people ask me a lot is how can you represent people like that? Because not only did I represent his people, who all of us all of, for the most part, most part, these were just, you know, people who got caught carrying a lot of marijuana or marijuana, cocaine across the border or, uh, street dealers and the like. You know, when you talk about child rapists and abusers, people question a little bit more how you can bring yourself to represent.

Speaker 2: 14:25

And I have represented some real monsters. I represented one guy who committed a murder by wrapping his client's head up by his victim's head up in duct tape and then putting little pinholes underneath his nostrils so he could just suck enough air to be able to force enough air in, so that it took him 20, 30 minutes of trying to suck air before he suffocated. That's pretty cruel, I mean, that's pretty bad. So people ask you know, how can you represent folks like that, represent folks like that? And my answer to the question is that it's the worst of them that need representation the most, because the people would like to string them up without a trial.

Speaker 2: 15:24

They would just like to grab them out of the courthouse and string them up because, you know, the personal antipathy towards them is so great and the prosecutors don't. They want to string and they want to cut and quarter them, and so those are the times when they take shortcuts, when they force confessions, when they manufacture evidence, and that way, um, innocent people can get convicted. So what I say is that the police and the prosecutors, they enforce the law, but it's the defense attorneys who enforce the constitution, that we're the ones that hold the police accountable to do it by the book. The police accountable to do it by the book because the tendency, the, the temptation is to, you know, get around the technicalities, uh, with a little bit of uh, exaggeration here and there and the like, and it's us who stand to make sure that they don't do that. So if it wasn't for a good, strong defense bar, a lot more innocent people would be convicted.

Speaker 1: 16:37

I mean, yeah, definitely. And I think I mean it's crazy to hear of the stories that someone's been in jail for, you know, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years or even longer, and then all of a sudden they're found innocent. It's like could you just, could you imagine being that person in jail, knowing, knowing with your whole heart, that you didn't do it?

Speaker 1: 16:55

right you know like it's crazy to me, did you? I know it's a little side aside, you know a tangent, but did you ever see that? Uh, how to make a murder on a series I, I had not no okay. So it's kind of going to what you were saying. There was a murder case and there was police evidence and everything like that. But the recordings you could see them kind of coaxing the kid to kind of admit to everything and they were telling him if you just admit it, you'll go home.

Speaker 2: 17:25

Right right.

Speaker 1: 17:37

And then he was like what do you want me to say? And then they basically told him what to say and it was this whole big series. Happ Right right started really getting involved in this the scene of disco and having fun with the clients and everything like that. But also then, what was that pivotal moment that led you down the role of meditation and mindfulness and everything?

Speaker 2: 17:57

Well, as I said, I, I knew that I was spending money as fast as I was making it. Um, I was. I. I thought I was invulnerable, I thought I was the cat's meow and things just weren't working out at home. Things were falling apart.

Speaker 2: 18:20

I had two kids and things started to happen. My wife was alcoholic. Her parents were both alcoholics. One of my kids started to become anorexic and it was a mess. It was just a mess, and so I was seeing a therapist and one time, one point, and this was the seminal, this was the big thing that happened and this was the seminal. This was the big thing that happened. I came to a crossroads and I asked the therapist you know, what should I do? Should I go right or should I go left here? And instead of answering me like a good therapist, you know, he pulled out some coins and started throwing the coins on the table and figuring out some math and making lines on a piece of paper, some kind of magical tarot card weirdness. And I'm getting pissed off because I'm paying the guy 65 bucks an hour to be a therapist, and here he's throwing coins on the table and finally he comes up with a number and opens a book up to that chapter number and shows it to me and the name of the chapter, big black letters.

Speaker 2: 19:40

It said Retreat. And I mean I used the F word, f-u, and I stomped up and got out, but I couldn't get away from the word. The word was like tattooed on my head. And I went to this business that was, you know, hemorrhaging money and I told everybody it's over, I'm done, it's closed, I don't have any more money. I pulled back from some of my excessive behaviors. I went back and I asked him what that was. He said that it was a Taoist practice and for those who don't know anything about Taoism, it's the third leg of Chinese thinking. There's Buddhism, confucianism, and Taoism is a sister, it's like a sister to Buddhism. And he said it's Taoist. And I said what's that buddhism? And he said it's dallas. And I said what's that?

Speaker 2: 20:55

Turned out that he was the student, one of the top students and um and also the english language editor for a 72nd generation dallas master from the shaolin temple. You know, if you remember the movie Kung Fu, you know. So Kung Fu is a Shaolin priest and but this way this guy was the real thing. And he came to Miami and from the moment I met him I just knew that I wanted what he had.

Speaker 2: 21:29

He's just one of those guys where he was quiet and when he listened to you you knew that he was listening to you. And he didn't say a whole lot, but when he did open his mouth and say something, it was the perfect thing to be said. And you know, I mean in a funny way if you played hide and seek with this guy, you could never find him. He was just absolutely amazing. And so I started learning from him. I joined the little Taoist group that we had in Miami and I studied under from him. I joined the little Dallas group that we had in Miami and I studied under Master Nee. He came to Miami every couple of months and spent a week there and in the meantime, wisdom and the ability to you know, be introspective and like and you it it changes you.

Speaker 1: 22:45

So do you, do you think that? Or when you say intentionally, are you, do you mean through meditation, or how do you intentionally, do you intentionally dive into those things?

Speaker 2: 22:56

So Taoism is much more contemplative than meditative. I guess the foundational belief of meditation is that there is a given, a flow to life. You know the whole symbol, the Tai Chi, which we all recognize the white and the black with the dot in it. Most people don't realize that the white dot in the black, in in the, in the white dot, which is the yang in the yin, is not a dot, it's a seed, and that seed grows and the yang takes over the yin and the yin takes over the yang, which is the symbol of the fact that the universe cycles Day turns to night, night turns to day, summer turns to winter. But what most people don't get is that that same cycling occurs in our lives in terms of good times, you know, go down and bad times go up, and the proof of it is that you've never experienced bad times that have gone on forever. They always come to an end and things always get better. And when things are really great, they never last forever. And so what Taoism is about is about recognizing that cycle and where you are on the cycle and acting appropriately for it. We asked Master Ni once why they call him Master, right, why do they call you Master. And he said well, because I have mastery of life and I go okay. So I have mastery of life and I go okay. So what does mastery of life look like? And he came up with, I guess, the perfect definition.

Speaker 2: 25:00

He said when you can interfere with things the least and have the greatest impact, you become masterful Interfere with things the least, yet have the greatest impact. It's kind of like a swim into shore. If you swim hard when the water's going towards the shore, swim hard when the water's going towards the shore, but when it's going against the shore, if you just hold your spot, you don't want to get swept out to sea and you don't want to waste your energy by fighting the tide which is going against you. So if you align yourself with it and you just hold your spot and wait, and when it turns around and goes towards the shore, you swim again and wait and swim again, then by the time you get in, you've used the least amount of energy, you've been as effective and efficient as possible, you've accomplished your goal, but you've done it with the least amount of interference that you can.

Speaker 2: 26:14

And he said that if you can live life that way, if, if during the times when there's great opposition, you hold and wait until you have opportunities to make an impact, and then, when you do have the opportunity, you move forward decisively. If you could live life that way, then you know you've gained some skill. That was a lot of good learning. It wasn't until I came to North Carolina and I started attending Buddhist services. Buddhism is much more meditative, and that's when I started meditating.

Speaker 1: 27:03

Okay, and I noticed you know the bracelets and stuff that you were wearing and does that? You know, is that go? I've seen other people with them and stuff like that and some obviously might be for fashion, you know for others, but you know, with everything that you have going on, do those represent something? Are they symbolic?

Speaker 2: 27:22

Some of them are and some of them are just artistic. Yeah, because I like the color, you know, I mean I just love color and I just love to have color. I mean I often look at ladies' diamond rings and I say I wish that we wore them, because I think diamonds are so cool, I mean I think they're just neat, you know. So some of these come from Buddhist temples and they come from very important situations and they remind me of that, but some of them are just for fun okay, no, because I know that some people I had a client.

Speaker 1: 27:59

You know that him and his parents sold like crystals, I guess you know like, but like, like natural, like rocks and and you know that some are huge statues and all this kind of stuff and each one has a different. You know, this court does these things, so do you? And that's why I was kind of thinking of the bracelets and that's where I think I was kind of, you know, misled. But do you, do you believe, with everything that you've learned thus far and stuff? Do you believe in the, the crystals, or is that something that's completely different?

Speaker 2: 28:31

um, I believe. I believe that there is a group of people, uh, to whom that's very important stuff and it works for them. I? The answer is I don't know. Um, I don't know. There's so many paths to wisdom that you know you find the one that works for you. And there's so many others and I would never deny them. I just don't know about them. Just don't know about them.

Speaker 2: 29:17

And certainly the folks who understand the particular energy and how those crystals resonate and how they affect your personality certainly makes sense to me. I do believe, and even from an experiential place, I do believe, that the heart has an intelligence. I believe that it projects an energy field you know from our bodies, and I guess my working hypothesis on how the universe might work is that each of those energy fields carries our intelligence with it and somewhere it all connects and that there is a connectivity between all sentient beings that creates some kind of universal intelligence. But beyond that, you know how it exactly works and what the physics of it are and how you approach it. I can't tell you. I just my experience tells me that if I take care with good intention and with good heart, with an open heart, and I take of whatever, the next thing in front of me is that somehow my life will work out.

Speaker 1: 30:51

I mean that definitely makes sense. I mean that was, you know, that was a great answer, you know, it definitely made sense. And again, I I don't know enough about it to you know, so that's why I had to ask someone that knows more about those things. Um, but it definitely makes sense and I can relate that to you know, for me, fitness, you know there's plenty of different ways to get physically fit, to get, you know, healthy, and you know certain ways work for me. I haven't tried every single way, but it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong or that the other ways don't work. It's, you know, workout styles and so on and so forth.

Speaker 2: 31:22

So I get completely what you mean. Yeah, yeah, I mean somebody might say, you know, a plank is the way to get your core together, and somebody else may say, no, it's sit-ups. And then, and the plank guy and the setup guy, they might argue for like ever, but the net result is they both have great cores, so right exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1: 31:45

So I do want, I want to shift this because I mean your, your life is an example of you, know, you can. You can do what you want and you can transition at any point. You can reshape your life and re redefine who you are. Have limiting beliefs right, or feel that they're stuck, or that they're stuck in a fear or self doubt. What would your advice be, or how would you help them break free of those limiting beliefs?

Speaker 2: 32:22

So so let's say you want a buff body to go to the beach, right?

Speaker 1: 32:30

Okay.

Speaker 2: 32:31

You don't start preparing that when you pull your bathing suit on right. You begin working on that months before and you go to the gym and you work on your body and your physical health and it's a process and you start out with the five pound weights and then you go to the tens and the fifteens because you build the muscle gradually and you find that then your exercise is effective and it's doable because you're following a certain pattern of increasing and I'll use this word now you increase your tolerance for discomfort and what you'll find. You know as a physical person, a person that teaches this yourself. You know as a physical person, as a person that teaches this yourself. You know that people will come in and they'll be a little bit uncomfortable and a lot of people have a very low tolerance for it and they go. I'm out of here, oh, I got sore, oh, you know, and that's it. And the whole thing to leading a happy life is to build up your tolerance for discomfort so that you can engage in more things and not let that discomfort get in your way and stop you and limit you from doing the things that give you joy. And you know so. It's no different from the mind. There's very little difference. You build up muscles. We don't call them muscles, we call them neural pathways, but it's the same thing. You physically build them up.

Speaker 2: 34:29

I'll give you a very interesting example. In London, the taxi drivers have to learn the map of London, down to the last alley. So they took a picture of their brain, especially the hippocampus, which is where your sense of direction is, and then the people said about their study of the maps. Then they took the picture again and the hippocampus had grown longer, wider, taller and thicker, thicker. So they had actually used their thoughts to change the physical structure of their brain, to cause their brain to give them more strength in the area that they wanted. This is how different is that from working out with going to the gym? It's the same thing. Working out with going to the gym, it's the same thing. And what happens then is they become much more tuned into direction. They know things. It's easy for them to know where an alleyway is. So that process is the same process that we go through to answer your question, the same process that we go through to answer your question how do you become more of this and more of?

Speaker 1: 35:53

that you practice it. So what would you say if someone is? Because a lot of it you know from what you're saying and what I believe as well, is that, like you said which I love the analogy and I love the you know the you don't, you don't start by. You know you don't start when you're putting on the big swimming suit. You know, and, and it's so true, right, and but so the. What I think is a lot of people also get so overwhelmed by the process and the fact that some things take a sense of delayed gratification or just having to put in work without seeing immediate benefit or immediate results. Right, and so what would your advice be? Cause I mean, you haven't become the mindfulness teacher that you are today, off of one, that one lesson, right? Or?

Speaker 1: 36:40

that one one experience, so someone that is going through the process right now that is either feeling burnt out or feeling stressed because they feel like they're not progressing forward, or maybe feeling lost because their journey seems like it's not going anywhere. What would your advice be for someone struggling with that?

Speaker 2: 37:01

Mindset is. I mean, I can get get into specifics, but ultimately it comes down to mindset. I think that if you, if you classify it as acute and chronic issues so I'm going through something, I'm overwhelmed right now I got to solve that sense of overwhelm. Well, there's stuff that you can do. You can. You can do box breathing. Uh, you can do counting breathing. There's stuff that you can do. You can do box breathing, you can do counting breathing. There are relaxation techniques. Heck, you can put on a nice piece of music and sit in an easy chair, you know, and you can purposefully slow your breathing down, and there's something called the vagus nerve that will take a sense of safety and move it through your body. So there's lots of little techniques that you can deal with to deal with an acute situation where I need a solution. Right now. I got you a chronic stress, you know, a chronic discomfort, unhappiness, that is permeating through society these days and that most of us are part of it, and you say I want to deal with the chronic issue. Okay, then you got to go to the gym. Okay, there's nothing, there's no way around that. And you, you start. You start by learning, you know, you, you start by being curious how do I do this? Where do I go? You might read books, you might do apps, you might have fits and starts. I did when I started meditating. It was years of meditating for a couple of weeks and then stopping for a couple of months and then starting again and stopping it.

Speaker 2: 38:54

I will say this that, just like having a trainer in the gym, there ain't nothing like a coach. There's just nothing like a coach. I mean it makes all the difference in the world. There's just nothing like a coach. I mean that makes all the difference in the world. First of all, there's accountability and second, there are the tiny little adjustments that a trainer will give you. Like you're doing a bicep, they say, well, let's hold our elbows steady against our waist, because when you don't, you're using your shoulder. If you can keep your elbows steady, now you're using your shoulder, if you can keep your, keep your elbows steady, now you're using your bicep, and it's just that little bit of, you know, adjustment in the movement that's going to make the outcome and the product of doing what you want to do that much more effective. And the same is true, you know, for a meditation coach.

Speaker 2: 39:48

There's not a little bit of adjustments and little things to think about. Um and uh. A coach might say to you one day, let's say you know you're being overwhelmed by all the stuff that you have to do. And the meditation coach might suggest well, let's change our language. Let's say, instead of saying I have to do something, let's say I get to do something. You know that that little bit of change of language. You know I have to go to work, I get to go to work. Wow, what a different perspective that comes to be. So there's nothing like a coach.

Speaker 1: 40:32

No, definitely, I agree with that 100%, and sometimes even that, coach, like you said, just shifting the perspective of the situation or the current language that you're using, even if you think about today's problems, is what you previously were hoping for. Right, you were hoping to be where you are today, and that was a distant, you know, dream at one point. So it's like sometimes you just have to be grateful and use that phrase, like I get to do these things right. So I think that is so cool. Before we wrap up, I do like to ask one question, and the one question is it's this is not a tombstone, right? It is a legacy wall. So, on Bob Martin's legacy wall, what would be the one message that you left for the up and coming generations that you've learned through your extensive and colorful life's journey?

Speaker 2: 41:25

It's not a little one, it's a big one.

Speaker 1: 41:28

Okay.

Speaker 2: 41:29

You know, I teach on campus and at the end of my class I will say to my students look, I'm 75 years old and my grandson is nine. When I'm 85, my grandson's going to be 19. He's just going to start college and I'm 85 years old. By the time he gets through and he gets to a place where he can make a difference in the world, I'm going to be dead and gone. I mean it. I am going to be dead and gone and there won't be an effing thing that I can do to make his world a better place. But you can. So I'm charging you. My legacy is I am charging you with taking care of my grandson, of making the world a better place for my grandson, because I ain't going to be here. So that's my legacy.

Speaker 1: 42:24

That's awesome. It is so true. Everything that you do doesn't just impact you. It impacts the future generations, it impacts your kids and your kids' kids and so forth. So I think that is such an awesome legacy wall. Where can people connect with you and learn more about what you got going on?

Speaker 2: 42:39

A wiseandhappylifecom.

Speaker 1: 42:42

Awesome.

Speaker 2: 42:43

A lot of people ask me a lot of questions about meditation, so I finally decided I'd put it all into a book, an e-book, and it's free and it's downloadable and there's no obligation. Just answers all how do you get started? What are the resources, what are the good books to read, what are the apps to use All that stuff? Put it all into an e-book. Go to my website, a Wise and Happy Life, and download it, and from that you'll get a couple of options of how to get started.

Speaker 1: 43:14

Perfect Guys. That will be in the show notes. If you're watching it on YouTube, it'll be in the description of this video. So make sure you guys check that out and make sure you guys share this episode with a friend. I know the beginning of it was entertaining and stuff like this, but I know the beginning of it was was entertaining and stuff like this, but I know the second half you definitely got some knowledge, because I know even I got my, my perspective and you know perception changed a little bit as well. So I just want to say, make sure you guys share this with a friend, level up your circle, because your circle will end up leveling you up as well. And, bob, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come on today.

Speaker 2: 43:45

Thank you so much, Nick. As you can tell, the day is turning tonight.

Speaker 1: 43:51

As I'm getting darker and darker. It's bright over here, so I got you. We'll definitely stay connected soon and honestly thank you again so much.

Speaker 2: 44:01

You're welcome. Take care, be well, you too.