Scales Of Success Podcast

#49 - From Prisons to Boardrooms: The Power of Transcendental Meditation with Bob Roth

• Marcus Arredondo

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In this week’s heartfelt episode of Scales Of Success, host Marcus Arredondo welcomes Bob Roth to reveal how Transcendental Meditation (TM) is transforming lives, from prison yards to Fortune 100 boardrooms. Bob shares moving stories and hard science on how TM lowers stress, heals trauma, and builds lasting resilience. Discover why this simple daily practice may soon be as essential as medicine.

Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, is one of the world’s leading teachers of Transcendental Meditation. For over five decades, he’s guided thousands, including veterans, trauma survivors, and business leaders, toward greater calm and clarity. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Strength in Stillness and a respected voice on global stages from Aspen to the Vatican.

Connect with Bob Roth:
🌐 Website: https://meditationbob.com/
📧 Email: info@davidlynchfoundation.org
💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bob-roth-05838922
📸 IG: instagram.com/meditationbob
💬 Facebook: facebook.com/MeditationBob

Episode highlights:
(2:01) Teaching transcendental meditation at San Quentin
(7:46) The true meaning of lasting happiness
(13:54) Science and research behind TM’s benefits
(18:45) How TM rewires the brain and builds resilience
(27:28) The power of pause
(31:28) Going beyond ordinary limits
(35:22) Living in flow as a daily state
(40:56) What “the self” really means in meditation
(46:10) Living 200% of life, inner and outer fulfillment
(51:08) Outro

Connect with Marcus


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Bob Roth

(0:00) He was a doctor and a researcher, so I have a skeptical side to me, and I like science. (0:06) I'm quite a skeptical person. (0:08) I like big ideas, but I like I'm rooted in reality.(0:11) And I like that when I heard about the meditation, I didn't have to believe in it. (0:16) I could be 100% skeptical, and it worked just great.

Marcus Arredondo

(0:20) I'm excited to share today's guest, Bob Roth, who's brought Transcendental Meditation into prisons, schools, and boardrooms around the world as the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation. (0:28) One of his earliest experiences was leading meditation at San Quentin, where men from groups like the Mexican Mafia, Black Panthers, and Aryan Brotherhood sat quietly side by side. (0:36) Bob explains how trauma damages the brain and how TM helps restore it, why lasting equanimity is more valuable than fleeting highs, and what it means to truly transcend ordinary limits.(0:46) We discuss the science, including how studies have demonstrated that TM produces coherent brainwaves, lowers cortisol, raises serotonin, and gives the nervous system a chance to repair. (0:56) But the most moving stories aren't about celebrities. (0:58) They're about veterans with PTSD, single mothers, and frontline doctors who found relief with just 20 minutes a day.(1:03) With decades of research and millions practicing, TM is no longer fringe. (1:07) It's practical, evidence-based, and life-changing. (1:10) He believes we're at a tipping point with insurance soon to cover meditation.(1:14) We explore identity, the self, agency, consciousness, and much more for anyone interested in what's out there or within. (1:21) Let's start the show. (1:22) Bob, thank you so much for being on.(1:24) I'm so excited. (1:25) Welcome.

Bob Roth

(1:25) Wonderful to be on this, on with you, Marcus. (1:27) I'm excited, too.

Marcus Arredondo

(1:28) So, you guys, we're gonna go in a lot of different directions, but because for the benefit of the audience, not everybody knows what TM is, and I wanna go into that. (1:36) But as the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, you guys have reached over a million people, including 600,000 underserved children in communities, which I think is phenomenal. (1:46) I wanna talk about the data behind TM, some of your own experiences, but starting with the experience, I wanted to talk about what you did at St. Quentin, if you can just open up the conversation with your experience at St. Quentin.

Bob Roth

(1:59) Let's say, a little backstory, it's interesting. (2:01) I grew up in the Bay Area, and my father was a medical doctor. (2:05) He was a World War II veteran and medic, and he got injured during World War II, so he took a job at the VA Hospital in San Francisco, but he also used to volunteer on Wednesdays, I remember it well, at St. Quentin Prison, where he would read X-rays of the inmates. (2:23) And so my youth, from the age of about nine years old and up, I used to sometimes go with him and spend time with him in St. Quentin, and I'd eat in the cafeteria, and I really got a sort of a familiarity with the prison. (2:39) So fast forward 20 years, or 15 years, when I became a teacher of Transcendental Meditation, one of the first things I did was to go back to St. Quentin and offer the technique for free to the men and the guards and the personnel there to help them manage the overwhelming, claustrophobic, suffocating stress that they were all under, both sides of the bars. (3:06) And so one of my first experiences was doing a meditation with 20 of these men downstairs, and there was small windows with little bars, and I remember sitting and meditating with them.(3:19) And I should say, these were representatives of the gangs, Mexican Mafia, and Black Panthers, and Aryan Brotherhood, and you name it. (3:29) All these gangs that in the prison, like in the cafeteria, would never close their eyes, much less sit with their eyes closed at any point, except for maybe when they were in their own cells. (3:41) And here there was 30 guys meditating together.(3:44) The guard for us was a Baptist minister, and he was a meditator. (3:49) And I just remember thinking, it's the universality of this type of meditation that it's good for everyone, and I had so many emotions about, I mean, when you go into the prison, they make you, you go through four gates, and you have to sign an agreement that if you're taken hostage, they won't negotiate for you. (4:12) So I signed four of those and then went into the prison and lots of emotions, but the most greatest emotion was, boy, this is a universal practice that can really help a lot of people.

Marcus Arredondo

(4:23) So, I mean, were you, do you fear for your safety? (4:26) Were you intimidated? (4:27) How do you approach that and how do you reconcile that with, obviously these inmates were willing participants, right?

Bob Roth

(4:33) The interesting thing is, you ask such good questions. (4:37) When you go in, and then you're in this sort of grassy quad, you go into it, and then all around the prison is sort of four walls and the tiny cells, you can see the windows. (4:50) And then one guy pointed over, that's death row.(4:54) And so I'm with this one trustee who was with me for an hour before I got to go into the prison. (5:01) They let you in at one time. (5:03) And someone told me about this.(5:04) A lot of these guys have had huge traumas growing up and emotionally not, haven't had a chance to mature. (5:12) And a lot of what they do is they just tell you, they're proudly almost tell you why they're in prison. (5:17) So I had an hour of this guy and then a few other guys just telling me in sort of gruesome detail what they had done.(5:22) And it's almost a bad, I hate to say it, like almost like a badge of honor or something. (5:27) But I, because I had been in the prison as a kid, I was familiar with it. (5:32) And I never felt, other than I had to sign four times, I never felt afraid, the tension, the stress, I've never in my life experienced such a, just like a pressure cooker, not in an analogous way, but in a very real way, what it felt like.(5:50) And the idea that we think that putting these men in that environment for, and I'm not apologizing for what they've done, but for any period of time, and we think they're gonna come out rehabilitated without something like meditation is just nonsense. (6:06) It's a pipe dream and it's a dangerous pipe dream.

Marcus Arredondo

(6:09) Well, this isn't directly related, but something I'm gonna read to you. (6:14) Are you familiar with Anthony DeMello, Tony DeMello? (6:18) Does this name ring a bell?(6:19) So for the benefit of the audience, he's an Indian Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, teacher, public speaker, wrote several books on spirituality. (6:27) So I'm gonna take an excerpt from a book which I recently just came across. (6:30) And I'm curious if you can weigh in and bear with me cause it's not long, but it's two paragraphs.(6:34) So one person's asking him, you've been saying a lot about being able to experience suffering and depression and yet still be detached from it. (6:42) I'm trying to understand clearly what you're saying, but it seems like such a contradiction to say that you can be happy and depressed since depression is I've always come to be taught is the absence of contentment and happiness. (6:53) Could you explain this more?(6:55) Tony DeMello's response is, that's a good question. (6:58) Aren't depression and happiness two contradictory states? (7:01) I think that's what you're asking, right?(7:03) Yes and no. (7:03) If for you happiness means thrills, fun, pleasure, then yes, they are contradictory, but thrills, fun and pleasure are not happiness. (7:11) What are they?(7:12) They are thrills, they're fun, they're pleasure. (7:14) They're not happiness. (7:15) Happiness is a state of non-attachment.(7:18) And I'm curious if, well, one, how do you view happiness? (7:22) And do you see any, I think about this relative to the inmates and the ability to potentially obtain if not at least momentary steadfast happiness with equanimity by virtue of this practice that allows them some ability, at least some clear pathway toward rehabilitation?

Bob Roth

(7:44) It's a beautiful question. (7:46) The Greeks talked about two different types of happiness, hedonia, which is hedonism, and then eudaimonia, which is a baseline being, equanimity, balance. (7:57) What's your baseline?(7:58) So a person has a baseline happiness or depression, wherever they may be, and then they get drunk, or they go to a movie, or they have sex, or they do this or that, and then there's a peak, but then it falls, and it falls back to that baseline. (8:11) Or if they've been abusing their nervous system, then that lowers the baseline, so then it agitates the baseline. (8:18) So if we define happiness as some thrill of the moment, passing ephemeral thrill of the moment, I don't define happiness that way.(8:27) That's just a little temporary high. (8:30) Things like meditation strengthen, and also personal growth, reflection, a sense of getting to know thyself, any of these things that are sort of self-referral, Marcus, those things develop or strengthen eudaimonia. (8:49) That, we used to talk about, the TM program in San Quentin is freedom behind bars, because yes, that person, that inmate can't go out and do whatever everybody else does, and wonderful things, too.(9:02) I mean, have a family, go do these things, but that's all, even that is a transitory happiness. (9:08) They did have an opportunity to meditate regularly behind bars, and there was a, 80% of all crimes are committed by recidivists, people who've been in prison and then come back out, and there was a 60% reduction in recidivism rates amongst the meditating inmates, because they're more self-referral. (9:28) So to answer your question, yes, you can have eudaimonia type of a happiness, you can't necessarily have a hedonia.(9:35) Did that make sense?

Marcus Arredondo

(9:36) Yeah, absolutely. (9:37) So I have some other terms (9:38) that I'm gonna wanna ask you about (9:39) on more of a philosophical level, (9:41) but before we do, you had mentioned (9:43) some of the statistics, which I'm glad, (9:45) and I do wanna talk about your book, (9:47) Strength and Stillness, which is, (9:49) if anybody reading this, (9:50) and I'm not trying to blow smoke, (9:52) but this to me as ATM practitioner (9:56) was maybe the greatest wedding of the appetite, (10:01) the greatest appetizer I've come across (10:02) as it relates to understanding the principles (10:05) and techniques, the simplicity, the effortlessness, (10:08) but in the book, I'm gonna quote you, (10:11) you mentioned a number of statistics, (10:14) but, and I won't go through all of them, (10:15) but one particular passage, (10:17) you write, the results are abundantly clear today. (10:19) Since then, more than 400 scientific studies have shown the wide ranging benefits of the TM technique for improving brain and cognitive functioning, cardiovascular health and emotional wellbeing.(10:30) These studies have been published in top peer-reviewed science journals, including the American Medical Association, JAMA Internal Medicine, and the American Heart Association's Journal of Stroke of Hypertension. (10:39) To be clear, it matters greatly that this research is peer-reviewed. (10:43) Medical peer-review means that experts are evaluating the credibility of the study and also ensuring the clinicians involved meet established standards of care, which I'm glad that you mentioned that.(10:52) I think there's a number of studies get thrown out. (10:54) Last sentence, the US National Institutes of Health have provided tens of millions of dollars to study TM's effects on stress and heart health, while the US Department of Defense has awarded several million dollars to study its impact on post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. (11:10) So there's a few different directions I wanna go in that and get your input, but starting off, I know that the David Lynch Foundation provided pro bono assistance to those in Los Angeles who were affected by the fires, which was basically anyone within LA, which is astounding.

Bob Roth

(11:29) And- Also, the firefighters who were fighting those fires.

Marcus Arredondo

(11:32) Thank you for clarifying that, because it's not just them, but this guy has gone on to police departments, fire departments all over the world, first responders, so on and so forth. (11:44) And I'm curious why you think, and follow me here, because I'll land the plane, it's a little bit circuitous, but this is similar. (11:52) I've had a few guests on here talk about the benefits of psychedelics as it relates to PTSD, particularly among veterans who are returning from combat.(12:02) And one of the things that I am drawing a parallel between the two, they are not the same, I'm not trying to equate them for avoidance of doubt, but the common factor is the idea that it is actually a solution. (12:13) It is not something that is a medicine that you take for the rest of your life and that you're sort of tethered to it. (12:20) I guess in some ways TM behooves you, it inures to your benefit the longer you take it.

Bob Roth

(12:26) In the same way you sit down and eat a meal, you're tethered to a meal.

Marcus Arredondo

(12:28) Absolutely, right, it's nutritious, it's sustenance.

Bob Roth

(12:31) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marcus Arredondo

(12:31) So where do you think we as a culture, I mean, this is a practice that's been around for a very, very long time, the Vedic tradition, right? (12:40) Why do you think we as a Western culture in particular, I'm speaking about the US, I can't really speak to other cultures, where do you think the resistance, what do you think the misunderstanding is about it? (12:50) I mean, I was doing research for this and I came across some maybe Reddit threads about TM being a cult, which is like, it's hilarious to sort of think that that's like an observation or somehow like, you know, it just shows how much noise is out there.

Bob Roth

(13:05) Anybody can write anything they want. (13:07) Anybody can say that, you know. (13:09) Yeah, it's not, and there's 12 million people of all religions, philosophies, atheists, non-atheists who've been practicing TM.(13:18) It's in hospitals and businesses, so it's just nonsense.

Marcus Arredondo

(13:21) Well, I'll end this, but like, why do you think, and I'll just share these other statistics, in veterans with PTSD from service-related trauma, TM led to greater improvement than any other treatment. (13:32) After three months, 61% showed significant PTSD symptom improvement. (13:35) 67% showed significant improvement in depression symptoms.(13:39) And that's compared to 42% and 32% in prolonged exposure and health education. (13:45) I mean, the statistics go on and on. (13:47) What do you think we're missing?(13:48) Why as a culture are we not listening to the benefits of this?

Bob Roth

(13:52) I think the tipping point Mark is about to hit. (13:54) I mean, I've been at this for 50 years. (13:56) 50 years ago, you couldn't say the word meditation in polite company.(14:00) You just, it was just, it was nonsense. (14:03) The thing that's happened, I think there's three reasons. (14:06) The problem of stress has gotten greater and greater, more intensified, I think it's actually, and it's not stress, the word is chronic stress.(14:14) Stress is just everyday stuff. (14:16) Chronic stress is the stuff when you wake up in the morning and the day before doesn't go from you. (14:21) And it builds and builds and builds.(14:23) And chronic stress is 90 to 95% of all disorders either caused or exacerbated by chronic stress. (14:32) So the problem is huge, that's number one. (14:34) Number two, there's no magic bullet out there that can address stress, chronic stress.(14:41) We mask the symptoms. (14:42) We have antihypertensive medication, doesn't get rid of the chronic stress, it just masks the symptoms, anti-depressant, anti-anxiety. (14:50) All these things mask, but nothing gets to that root cause.(14:55) And the third thing is there's so much research now specifically on transcendental meditation, but many different types, and it shows unequivocally how effective this is. (15:05) Now, to answer your question, why is it not going faster? (15:09) I think in two or three years, Marcus TM is gonna be covered by insurance companies.(15:13) I just think it's a matter of time. (15:15) Yeah, just a matter of time. (15:17) We're almost at that tipping point.(15:19) Anything new, it takes a generation, takes a generation, the generation of 50 years to become a new generation of young people coming up who are open and they don't have a bias like some of my generation had in the 50s and 60s. (15:33) That's just a matter of time. (15:34) I think it's going quite quickly, actually.

Marcus Arredondo

(15:36) So, I wonder, the pandemic, all bad things happen, but I don't wanna be the one of those people that says they happen for a reason, but I think stress of that nature ends up resulting in positive outcomes, not maybe in the immediate, but broadly speaking, because there's some adaption that is required. (15:56) And one thing that I seem to have observed during post-pandemic is we were not talking about mental health prior to that in nearly as great a volume as we are in today's zeitgeist. (16:10) I mean, for somebody to cite mental health issues from work and needing some time off or what have you, that was sort of scoffed at, even as recent as five years ago, it seems.

Bob Roth

(16:20) Look at professional sports teams. (16:22) You couldn't even say you had a team psychologist. (16:24) Now, every athlete's got a psychologist, and what are you eating?(16:27) And they've got a dietician and a psychologist and a this and a that. (16:31) No, everybody knows that. (16:33) And I think what's happened is people say to me, well, really, you think that TM is gonna be covered by insurance companies?(16:40) I'll say, before COVID, never would have been an issue, not in a million years. (16:46) But now there's such an epidemic of mental health issues. (16:50) And it's not like, oh, I have psychosis or something.(16:54) It's just high levels of anxiety, high levels of depression, high levels of burnout, high levels of insomnia. (17:01) And we don't know, the term is pathology of depression. (17:05) If I cut my wrist, then they know, and it gets infected, they know the pathology.(17:10) Oh, this is, and here's an antibiotic for it. (17:12) This is what you do. (17:13) And here's two different antibiotics, and that'll do it.(17:16) If you have 10 people in a room and you say, what's the cause of their depression? (17:19) You could have 10. (17:20) You may not even know for those 10 people.(17:23) So there's no pill, and even the antidepressive medications, they help some people, they don't help some people, and they're dangerous for some people. (17:33) So now along comes transcendental meditation that shows within two weeks, doctors and nurses who were during COVID, the frontline hospitals in some of the high crime areas of Miami, within two weeks, they had a statistically significant reduction in depression. (17:50) There's no medicine that does that.(17:52) So it's moving fast.

Marcus Arredondo

(17:55) So a couple of things. (17:57) You know, as you're talking, you're talking about mental health. (18:01) Let me, here, let me go to this.(18:04) I wanna talk about neuroplasticity because I think it's all related to this, right? (18:09) The prefrontal cortex you talk about in your book quite a bit, and the connectivity between, and I don't think I fully realize this, but the prefrontal cortex is not, and you please correct me if I'm wrong, is not connected really to the rest of the brain until you're actually in your 20s.

Bob Roth

(18:24) It starts around 10 or 12, but then it's not fully connected till a woman is 26, and some data shows a man is 32.

Marcus Arredondo

(18:35) Well, to explain, and you sort of allude to, you know, that might explain why younger people are more akin to taking risks because they're unaware of the consequences.

Bob Roth

(18:43) Yeah, because the prefrontal cortex governs judgment, planning, decision-making, sense of self, and you could think of the prefrontal cortex and the reward system, it's like putting your foot on the accelerator. (18:55) I mean, excuse me. (18:57) The prefrontal cortex is like a brake.(18:59) When you have the limbic system and the amygdala, and that's like putting your foot on the accelerator, I'm 15 years old and I'm gonna just drive like crazy. (19:07) There's no brake, and that's the prefrontal cortex. (19:10) It says, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.(19:11) Don't be out of your mind. (19:13) So that comes along later.

Marcus Arredondo

(19:15) So I want you to sort of expand on this because what I am finding, you know, you're talking about the antidepressants, and I don't wanna speak poorly of antidepressants, but to me, it always seemed like we were fixing the muffler rather than the engine of the vehicle. (19:29) TM, as it relates to the neuroplasticity, (19:32) sort of greasing the groove, (19:33) allowing greater neural connections (19:34) between different parts of the brain, (19:36) allowing, and we'll talk about transcendence (19:39) because I want the audience to understand more (19:41) in greater detail what that really is alluding to, (19:44) what that is defining, (19:46) but how do you see the practice, (19:48) which has been validated by brain studies, (19:50) the activities of different parts of the brain (19:52) interacting with each other to create, (19:55) you know, I think you quoted David Lynch (19:57) in sort of saying, like, (19:59) by virtue of being able to create, (20:01) many creatives are fearful of losing their edge (20:05) by having this access, (20:06) but what he found was that it removed (20:08) the rubber mask of anger. (20:11) Suffocating rubber clown suit of negativity.(20:14) Rubber, yeah, rubber, suffocating clown suit, right? (20:16) So of anger or some other sentiment, whatever that might be, that clouds, that impedes your ability to access the creativity and the logic for them to be infused into something that's even greater than the sum of its parts in some way. (20:29) So I don't wanna put any words in your mouth, but I'm hoping that you might start to explain a little bit of the brain activity that's going on before we start talking about transcendence and then what the actual practice entails.

Bob Roth

(20:40) So there's traumatic injury to the brain that comes from, like, a physical trauma or a soldier that has had some traumatic experience and now the bombs blew up near them and so there's a physical trauma that damages their brain. (20:59) But trauma itself, PTSD, high levels of acute anxiety, those are grief, grief afterwards. (21:07) That injures the brain.(21:09) Those are injuries to the brain. (21:11) It's not just some emotional thing. (21:12) Oh, I have this memory I can't get rid of of my buddy getting shot by a sniper and I can't get rid of that memory.(21:20) It actually damages the brain. (21:23) And so one of the key way, up until TM, one of the primary ways that militaries used to treat PTSD was something called prolonged exposure, which actually did nothing to heal the brain. (21:38) What it does is they show you over and over and over again images of people being blown up, literally, until you're just numb to it and then you're not overreacting.(21:48) What transcendental meditation does is it allows, (21:51) because it gives the body this state of rest (21:53) and relaxation deeper than the deepest part of deep sleep (21:56) and it allows the whole brain (21:58) to restore proper integrated functioning, (22:01) then that overrides that traumatized, twisted, (22:06) grief-stricken or whatever style of functioning of the brain (22:09) where you have your amygdala, (22:10) which is your fear center, emotional centers, (22:13) hijacks the brain, your sympathetic nervous system, (22:16) fight or flight is just on hyperarousal. (22:19) It allows everything during the 20 minutes to just settle down, to restore in that restorative rest.(22:27) And in that rest, the brain starts to function properly again. (22:31) And when you talk about the neural pathways, well, you can have a neural pathway of destruction that came from that PTSD of just twisted, you could just say twisted, but now TM, the neurons are firing in a healthy integrated way for 20 minutes twice a day and then that, they say the neurons that fire together in meditation wire together out of meditation. (22:58) So to answer your question, TM actually allows the brain to heal and reboot itself and rewire itself into an integrated, healthy style of functioning.(23:08) And prolonged exposure doesn't do that, medications don't do that. (23:12) Now, I do wanna go back. (23:13) I work with some people who are under severe depression or severe anxiety and there is data that shows that TM over time, person doesn't have to take the medication and it does help some people.(23:25) So sometimes if a person is really depressed, I'll say talk to your doctor, start if you're on your medicine, that's fine, but just alert your doctor because if you have high blood pressure in a few months, you may not need the medication. (23:38) If you're on antidepressant medication after a few months, you may not need it, it just naturally drops away.

Marcus Arredondo

(23:45) Something I've noticed in my practice.

Bob Roth

(23:47) Does that answer your question?

Marcus Arredondo

(23:47) It does, it does. (23:48) And I wanna sort of delve a little bit deeper into it because what I have found is the power of compounding momentum as a result of TM. (23:57) And what I mean by that is, they say our greatest resource is time.(24:01) I think it's actually energy and I think what it really boils down to and oftentimes is willpower. (24:06) And willpower and energy are related, not bi-directionally, meaning that if you don't have any energy, you'll never have willpower. (24:14) But just because you have energy doesn't mean you'll necessarily have the willpower, but you need energy to have the willpower.(24:21) But by virtue of the TM that I've experienced, I'm just curious if you've seen this elsewhere for yourself or even having done it for so many years, small things, not getting quite as angry as somebody cutting me off in the road, having my son have a temper tantrum and being present and wanting to hug him rather than provide some sort of stern warning. (24:44) All these little things. (24:46) Recently, I had a really tough, intense argumentative, it wasn't on my side, but a family member was really upset and mentioned to me that you don't seem to have, you're not as emotional as I am.(25:01) And what it reminded me of is that (25:04) between the two parts of the brain (25:06) that you were referring to, the amygdala, (25:09) if I'm not mistaken, and the prefrontal cortex, (25:12) them being able to operate with each other (25:14) has allowed me to sort of separate stress from distress, (25:19) pain from discomfort, and sort of understand (25:22) that there are different responses that are required, (25:25) not an instinctive, you know, (25:26) I'm not fleeing a tiger that's running after me (25:29) despite the fact that my instinct (25:31) is to have that same fight or flight response (25:34) to something far more minor, (25:35) far less imposing, far less threatening. (25:38) I just wasn't able to process that.(25:41) I don't wanna use the Nero bullets flying at me analogy where it's in slow motion, but I do feel a little bit more stillness in those moments. (25:52) There's fight or flight, but most people forget that there's a pause and I've allowed, I think through TM, I've felt a little bit more comfortable existing in that pause. (26:02) And as a result of that, my energy is a little bit more restored.(26:05) I'm not wasting it quite as much. (26:07) And so I find that I'm a little bit more effective when I get to the desk or I make phone calls and then it starts to compound on itself. (26:15) I end up having more energy because of that compounding nature, have my second session, replug the phone in as Jerry Seinfeld likes to talk about, recharge, and then sort of feel like, I got two days out of one and then I'm exhausted at the end of the day.(26:30) I sleep better. (26:31) I wake up with more energy and sort of it compounds on itself. (26:35) So thank you for listening to that.(26:37) But I wanted to share a little bit, a little slice of sort of my experience. (26:40) And I'm curious, you've been doing it so much longer than I have. (26:44) What do you see in yourself?(26:47) I mean, that's hard because you don't even know what you would be like without it at this point. (26:51) But what do you see as the biggest changes among the students? (26:56) You're sort of a celebrity whisperer in a lot of respects, right?(26:59) I mean, the beginning of your book goes on and on between Ray Dalio and Cameron Diaz, Hugh Jackman, Oprah. (27:06) It goes on and on and on. (27:07) But you've, many of these people, Oprah being an example, have brought you in to teach her entire company.(27:13) What do you see as the biggest change in how people metabolize the skillset and then the outcomes as a result of them integrating it into their lives?

Bob Roth

(27:27) So many points. (27:28) I'll answer that. (27:28) But first, I'd like to say, I did have the fortune of teaching some of these well-known people, and that's because of David Lynch.(27:34) But I've taught many, many thousands of people. (27:37) I've maybe taught 50 people like that. (27:39) I've taught thousands of veterans and kids and single moms.(27:43) And that's who I generally teach. (27:45) No one knows about them. (27:47) So I just wanna make that point.(27:49) The other thing is, you're so eloquent what you said about that gap, that pause. (27:55) And everything is, there's a, he wrote, Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl. (28:00) And he was a Holocaust survivor.(28:02) And he said, really, the key to growth and fulfillment in life is the gap between stimulus and response. (28:13) Somebody says something to you, do you just write back? (28:17) Or is there a gap?(28:18) Can you pause? (28:19) Can you think? (28:20) Can you think before you act?(28:21) Can you, that's just what you were describing. (28:24) You don't, it's not, you're not getting triggered. (28:26) And then you're able to respond appropriately.(28:29) And sometime with your son or your child, a stern voice is needed. (28:34) But not that you're boiling over inside. (28:37) It's because he needs to know, we're not messing around here.(28:41) You can't run into the street like that. (28:43) So he needs to know, or your child needs to know. (28:46) So I just think that that gap and the more space we have, the more cushion, they call it a window of tolerance, where you can just, you just have that moment.(28:59) And that, they say, is the key to freedom in life, liberation, where you're not just bound to the stimulus. (29:06) And even when you talk to a lot of the men and women behind bars, they don't remember. (29:12) They blacked out.(29:13) They were, it was a blind rage, and they don't even remember doing that violent act. (29:20) And then afterwards, they obviously regret it, but that's because there's no gap there. (29:26) So what meditation does is expand that gap and give you more freedom.(29:30) And there's another thing they talk about, and I think this is, from what I can see with you, they describe a person who's growing in their full potential or enlightenment. (29:38) They say they have a cool mind and a warm heart. (29:43) So you have both.(29:44) You have a cool mind, not one or the other, but both.

Marcus Arredondo

(29:47) I appreciate that. (29:48) Those are kind words. (29:49) But the one thing I have noticed in that pause, too, is just, I don't wanna get too out there, but there's a moment of, when I was having that argument, I mean, I wasn't really arguing.(30:01) I was more listening and receiving the brunt of that. (30:04) But one thing I sort of observed was, I wasn't, yes, I didn't like what was happening. (30:12) I didn't like what I was hearing.(30:14) But my immediate reaction wasn't, you know, this is BS. (30:19) I'm gonna respond. (30:21) I actually started, and this isn't to give me any credit.(30:23) This is all TM. (30:24) But the ability to sort of just say, oh, I think this person's in pain, to witness it. (30:32) And I don't know, and this is where I'm going with this, transcendence.(30:34) That's not specifically what it means. (30:37) I think that's a ripple effect from the transcendence. (30:40) But to transcend the confines of my own limited purview, my own limited understanding of what's going on.(30:47) When somebody cuts me off in the road, my, I used to, it really would bother me. (30:52) And now, you know, I sort of wonder, like, what could happen? (30:56) What, are they going to a job interview because they really need to get that job?(31:02) Do they have a son that's going to the hospital and they're not really thinking straight? (31:07) I try and give people the benefit of the doubt, but the reality is I'm not gonna change them. (31:11) It has almost no bearing on my life.(31:14) Why am I exerting energy on it? (31:16) So where is transcendence in the meditation? (31:19) And I wanna use that as a launchpad into if you can just break down a little bit more about what the practice is.

Bob Roth

(31:26) So the word to transcend, if you look that up in the dictionary, it says to go beyond ordinary human limitations. (31:32) So you can have a transcendent experience. (31:35) If you're out, when I was a kid, I used to hike in the Sierras, you know, in the summer.(31:40) Or you go to a concert that's just unbelievable. (31:43) Or you have a moment with your child that transcends that moment. (31:47) You're just, there's a timelessness.(31:49) There's like, wow, I'm gonna remember this moment. (31:51) So that is that moment of transcendence. (31:54) And it's interesting because there's a focus now in psychology, Marcus, on the word awe, A-W-E, that we as human beings need to reclaim our experiences of awe.(32:05) Thousand years ago, when you had a dark night sky and you look up in the sky, it was like, oh, unbelievable, now you can hardly see the night sky. (32:13) But that was part of our neurophysiology, to have those experiences of awe, expansion, wonder. (32:20) That was healing.(32:22) And that was almost like a meditative experience. (32:25) Normally, every night. (32:27) And so what happens with life these days is we're just so caught in boundaries, traffic and deadline and bucket list, and the brain just gets narrow and narrow and narrow, and then the body gets more and more tense and blood pressure goes up and the jaws tighten and the headache and the whole thing.(32:44) What certain types of meditation do, they're more of a mindfulness approach, not in any way to put anything down. (32:51) They do have their value. (32:52) But they keep the awareness on the thought itself.(32:56) I'm observing, dispassionately observing this thought. (33:00) So it's on that surface. (33:01) I like to use an analogy of a cross-section of an ocean, choppy waves on the surface, silent at its depth.(33:07) So those approaches are cognitive approaches to meditation, and they keep you here. (33:13) Transcendental meditation is a technique that effortlessly allows the active thinking mind to access deeper, to dive within and experience deeper, more abstract, more satisfying levels of my own mind, of me. (33:29) And when I have that, it's more expansive, not in a flashy way, but just it's more relaxing.(33:35) It's more expansive. (33:37) And so transcending has a powerful, produces a constellation of benefits. (33:44) The change is the electrical activity in the brain.(33:47) So it's a very coherent alpha one. (33:50) It lowers cortisol levels, which are stress hormone, by 30 to 40%, and nothing else does that. (33:57) It increases serotonin levels, which is your well-being, sense of well-being.(34:02) It has a whole constellation of changes in the meditation, but most important, it carries over out of meditation. (34:08) So that experience with your son was a transcending moment in activity. (34:14) It was a moment of being able to access, because of your meditation and the rewiring of your brain into this healthier, more integrated state, it carries over.(34:24) And now your child is not pushing those buttons. (34:28) Maybe you had a long day, and then put someone to work with this and that and that. (34:32) You bring it home with you, but now you've meditated, and now you're more in the eudaimonia state.(34:38) You're in that balance, that equanimity. (34:41) So it's a wonderful experience. (34:42) And the key thing is to keep meditating regularly, and then that inner unboundedness, that inner transcendence is never lost, ever.(34:53) And that is called the flow state. (34:55) That is called cosmic consciousness. (34:57) Those are words for it.(34:59) Researchers would say a hypometabolic state, but that's what we want. (35:04) We're meditating for your child, not for that moment.

Marcus Arredondo

(35:08) Right. (35:09) Talk to me a little about flow. (35:10) I wanna come back to this, but you mentioned flow, and I wanted to ask you about it, because is that something you find you're able to call upon at will?

Bob Roth

(35:18) Is it something- Not even call upon at will, it just becomes the norm. (35:22) Because you have that neuroplasticity, because you have those neural pathways, because your body is less stressed, you know the days that you, before you started meditating, maybe, you didn't sleep well for days on end, then everything is just a problem. (35:37) You just, you're late, you miss the stoplight, and this person takes you off at work and that, and you're just creating more and more problems.(35:45) And then those days, you've got a good night's sleep, or you've been coming back from a vacation, it's just more of a flow. (35:51) So a human body and brain that are more coherent, that are more in attunement with nature's functioning, then life is simplified. (36:00) And a simplified life, life is still complicated.(36:03) The way I react to life is simpler and with more equanimity. (36:07) So the flow becomes a norm rather than an aberration. (36:11) And that happens from meditating.(36:13) And it happens in such a almost unknowing way, it's almost you notice it when those days that you don't have it.

Marcus Arredondo

(36:20) Right.

Bob Roth

(36:21) Because otherwise, it's just normal. (36:23) It's like when you're sick and you have a headache, you think, or just your, I remember when I was a kid, I kept getting tonsillitis. (36:29) I thought I'm never gonna get well.(36:31) And then I woke up one morning feeling fine. (36:33) I never, I didn't think about tonsillitis. (36:34) It's like, when the sun is up, you don't even think about the night.(36:38) But when it's dark, you think it'll never change. (36:40) So it becomes the norm. (36:41) The flow becomes the norm.

Marcus Arredondo

(36:43) It's funny you say that, because I do find like all the great things in life, whether it's working out, eating healthy, getting a good sleep. (36:48) It's like, it's not like your life is terrific immediately after it. (36:52) It's just so much worse when you don't have it.

Bob Roth

(36:55) Exactly right.

Marcus Arredondo

(36:56) When I look back at the better, more productive times in my life, and the times that weren't that, there is a direct correlation to whether I was practicing TM or I fell off. (37:08) There is no exception to that. (37:11) As it was for the last 10 years for me.

Bob Roth

(37:13) No, and the lovely thing about TM that I liked about it when I learned about it is, as I said, my father's a doctor. (37:19) So I am, he was a doctor and a researcher. (37:21) So I have a skeptical side to me.(37:24) And I like science. (37:26) And I'm quite a skeptical person. (37:28) I like big ideas, but I like I'm rooted in reality.(37:32) And I like that when I heard about the meditation, I didn't have to believe in it. (37:36) I could be a hundred percent skeptical and it worked just great. (37:40) That was number one that I liked.(37:42) And I also liked that I had a teacher, a human being, it wasn't just some app. (37:46) I had a teacher who taught me how to do it and I could ask questions. (37:50) And I liked that there was a follow-up program.(37:52) I thought the whole thing was, looking back on it, I've been teaching it forever, but what got me into it was that I didn't have to believe in anything. (38:00) And the results were science-based and I could just be myself and I didn't have to join something, anything like that.

Marcus Arredondo

(38:08) I think skepticism gives you a lot more credibility too, I think to the outsider.

Bob Roth

(38:12) I think skepticism is healthy.

Marcus Arredondo

(38:13) Yeah, I agree.

Bob Roth

(38:14) There's so much bogus stuff out there.

Marcus Arredondo

(38:16) You talk about the self. (38:17) And so I just wanna go back to, I think you were talking about mindfulness meditation. (38:22) And in all fairness, that I think gave me a little bit of a pathway into TM and consciousness and the self, because I wanna ask you a few questions here about different terms, just because I'm curious about how you view them.(38:37) But the self is one of them that I've struggled to sort of understand. (38:42) And it wasn't until recently that I started to put it together. (38:44) And I had to put it through logical terms and I'm offering it to you to discredit or evaluate upon.(38:50) But when I started understanding mindfulness in that sense, where you are not your thoughts, there's a practice of sort of, I don't know what it's called, watching the watcher, observing the observer, where you observe that there's a thought. (39:02) Yeah, you're a witness, a silent witness. (39:04) There you go.(39:05) And then, so you're a witness to that thought. (39:06) But by virtue of being a witness to that thought, you have to acknowledge that if you know that there's a witness witnessing that thought, there's also a witness witnessing the witness witness the thought. (39:17) And so it sort of goes into this echo chamber all the way down to use your ocean analogy to a point where that is you, that is the self, that is who we are.(39:29) But when I got further down there, I kept thinking that's nothingness and it's everythingness in that that is consciousness. (39:38) And that is like the universal non-duality that this is the first thing I'd ever experienced. (39:45) I grew up in a Catholic household, but I've never been religious per se.(39:48) That was the first time I started to understand God in the sense of consciousness, as it relates to even fauna. (39:56) You know, trees prepare themselves for an invasion of a virus of some sort by communicating through the roots. (40:03) Same thing with fungus.(40:05) So, you know, they're alive, they're conscious, but that's dissimilar. (40:09) It's like energy in motion maybe, because, you know, somebody who's had a stroke or is brain dead, they are not conscious. (40:16) That's a different system.(40:18) But the flow of that energy is how we're all sort of connected. (40:22) And that became my portal into understanding, at least on my, I guess, the right side of the brain, logically thinking, oh, that's the transcendence. (40:33) That's sort of where the self is.(40:36) It is the universal energy being filtered through the chemistry of my own body and the way the chemistry has been affected by the experiences that I had. (40:48) So I guess I offer that to you as a preface to asking you the question, what is the self? (40:53) What is identity?

Bob Roth

(40:54) So it's very articulate, Marcus. (40:58) You're really, it's really, I could listen to you talk a lot. (41:01) You're very fast, you're very, you're just articulate.(41:04) So here's the deal. (41:05) If you use the analogy of the ocean, so there's a model of the mind, the Vedic approach. (41:12) So you have, the thinking mind could be like the wave.(41:15) So that's the mind that just thinks. (41:17) And I think millions of different thoughts all the time. (41:19) I think about this, I think about that.(41:21) You go into a restaurant and you look at a menu and there's 30 different things on the menu, but I'm just thinking about them all. (41:28) Subtler than the thinking mind, wandering thinking mind, subtler than that is the intellect, deeper. (41:34) The intellect is that mechanism that decides, that discriminates.(41:39) I'm going to have French fries. (41:41) I know I shouldn't, but love those French fries. (41:44) And I'm going to have this, and I'm going to have that.(41:47) About 50 different things the mind has been thinking, that's one mechanism, a deeper mechanism, the intellect that decides. (41:54) A subtler value of the intellect is intuition in this model. (41:59) Intuition is, I don't know, there's 8 billion different, I can't possibly evaluate all the different things factually and discern, what does my intuition say?(42:12) What feels right? (42:14) You know what I'm talking about? (42:14) What feels right?(42:16) You could have a business, you could invest in something, you could have 10 reasons why you should invest in it, and then later on you think about it quietly, and you go, I'm not going to do that. (42:24) Someone says, why is it doesn't feel right? (42:26) That's still a subtler level of the intellect.(42:30) So now, what is the continuum of all of that? (42:34) I think, I decide, I feel, and then the deeper than that is I am, I am. (42:45) So, and the I am-ness is that transcendent level, the experiencer, just the experiencer, the I that's been a continuum through all of those things, and the I identifies with outer, changing, non-existent stuff.(43:02) I am 10 years old, I am 20 years old, I am an old man, I'm married, I'm single, I'm rich, I'm poor, but it's constantly my sense of identity, because the ego, the I, is identified with outside. (43:18) Now, what meditation does is it allows you to dive within the deepest level of thought with the mantra, deepest, quietest level, I feel the mantra, I'm there, and then I drop, I leave that, and I dive all the way within, and then I am, left alone with the experiencer. (43:39) And what do I discover there?(43:41) Is this making sense?

Marcus Arredondo

(43:43) Oh, yeah.

Bob Roth

(43:44) Yeah, what do I experience there at that deepest level? (43:47) Nothing outside, I experience the experiencer, and that transcendent is infinite, unbounded, consciousness, the self, all-knowing. (44:01) But I can't intellectualize it out here, I have to experience it.(44:06) So, what's a beautiful thing is, and so that, then I know, Maharishi said, you know yourself by being yourself, and you be yourself by transcending all the non-self, all the nonsense.

Marcus Arredondo

(44:20) What I enjoy about this practice is maybe a little bit like stoicism, there's a practical nature to it, you know, it's philosophy at its ground level, but its implementation is very purposeful, in that the outcome it's seeking is higher productivity, greater presence, it's a greater state of living, it's in extracting greater, ever greater value from your experience.

Bob Roth

(44:46) It's a meditation for what's called the householders. (44:49) So there's two different traditions, there's a householder and a monk, a recluse. (44:54) And so a recluse meditation, it just brings you in, (44:56) and there's no practicality to it, (44:59) that's a person whose life path (45:01) is just to spend time in the self, quiet in the self, (45:05) they don't have any outer desires, (45:07) now there are people who strain and fake it, (45:09) and then they blow up because you can't fake that, (45:12) you know, being non-attached, (45:14) but there's some people who are just whatever, (45:15) highly evolved, that's the recluse approach.(45:19) But TM is a householder approach, TM is a way to enlightenment as if, by engaging in the world and growing and being more moral and more ethical and more successful at the same time. (45:31) You can be successful and ethical and moral and compassionate and kind and wise, all those different things. (45:40) And so that's the path that we're on, that's the path the Stoics were on.

Marcus Arredondo

(45:44) So I know we're coming up on time, so I wanna start, I wanna ask a few questions here. (45:48) How do you, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, what have you found to be a distinction among some of the highest performers, even in all the range of students you've had, in terms of changing their trajectory or improvement within their own situation? (46:08) Is there anything?

Bob Roth

(46:08) It's different, it's what they need. (46:10) Like Jerry Seinfeld, who's been meditating for 55 years, for him, it's a word you used, energy. (46:15) He said energy is the single most, he said love isn't, creativity isn't, anything, if you don't have energy, you don't move.(46:24) So he loves TM because it's like an unlimited reservoir of energy to do the things he wants to do. (46:30) He loves his family, to spend time with his family, to be creative, so for him, it's energy. (46:36) But everybody has their own sort of need, but I would find, happens is, that life becomes simpler, less complicated, less drama, less ferocious, just drama, drama, drama, just simpler.(46:50) It becomes more enjoyable, and at the beginning, we talked about that eudaimonia, you Maharishi, Mahesh Yogi, who introduced TM, said you live 200% of life. (47:01) 100% outer, and 100% inner content, and that's how we should live our life, and the meditation allows us to live the 100% inner, which allows us to enjoy the 100% outer.

Marcus Arredondo

(47:13) So I define agency as the ability to influence your current state, or your future state.

Bob Roth

(47:23) Poof, I mean, everything, yeah.

Marcus Arredondo

(47:25) Yeah, to manifest, manifest may be the wrong word, but to contribute, you are not a victim or a passive participant in this world we live in. (47:34) Do you see a relationship in being able to more effectively obtain the outcomes you're seeking? (47:42) Haven't you found that in your life?(47:45) It ebbs and flows, but as a general rule, the net is a gain without.

Bob Roth

(47:50) Yeah, it goes up, it's a ascending axis, but it still has its ups and downs. (47:55) Life is like that, but it's still, yes, I think you become less of a victim, and I think there's a wonderful term, which is nature support. (48:09) You take a seed, and you plant that seed in the soil at the right time, the right season, with the right amount of water, you're gonna have this beautiful tree.(48:21) If you try and plant that seed at the wrong time in the wrong place, you're not, even though it was a healthy seed. (48:26) The lovely thing that I find with TM is that the right ideas come up at the right time, so you have nature support. (48:35) It's not like I'm trying to scrabble this seed and then I'm pouring water.(48:40) Life becomes more a flow and more in harmony with nature, in alliance with nature, and you can do huge things, accomplish huge things, but use less effort because you're more in alliance. (48:55) Does that make sense?

Marcus Arredondo

(48:56) Yeah. (48:56) It does, it does. (48:57) I know we're wrapping up here, so one second-to-final question is, the most frequent question I get if someone has wondered about TM or has thought about doing it is, I can't sit for five minutes.(49:11) I have too many thoughts. (49:13) My brain is too active. (49:15) I'm curious what your response is to that.

Bob Roth

(49:18) Because boredom is painful for people. (49:21) To sit and do nothing for people, there was even a study that said, it was with men, they had men and women, that men would rather have mild electric shocks than they would to sit for 15 minutes with their eyes closed. (49:36) No, because that's boredom.(49:37) TM is not boring.

Marcus Arredondo

(49:39) Right, I was just gonna say, I don't find this boring. (49:41) I don't find anything boring about it.

Bob Roth

(49:43) Because deeper levels are increasingly more satisfying, relaxing, enlightening, and so all the time I teach people they say, I can't sit with my eyes closed for two minutes. (49:53) Or I teach little kids who have ADHD or autism and they couldn't sit for anything. (50:00) And now I taught a child, he couldn't sit for half a minute, now he's meditating 15 minutes twice a day.(50:05) Because it's an enjoyable, satisfying experience. (50:08) So that thing, if you tried sitting with your eyes closed doing nothing, I'd go out of my mind too. (50:12) This is something really enjoyable.

Marcus Arredondo

(50:14) Yeah, this has been fascinating, Bob. (50:16) I wish I could sit by you at a campfire for many hours. (50:19) Do it again sometime, let's do it again.(50:21) I'd love to. (50:22) Any closing thoughts or things you think we might have missed?

Bob Roth

(50:25) No, I would like to turn this back onto you. (50:27) I really, really, really appreciate the nature of your questions. (50:32) And you're taking the time to prepare for what you do and you're taking the time to ask for your audience to know some of the best questions I've ever been asked by an interviewer in 50 years of doing this.(50:44) So your audience is very fortunate to have, and I'm grateful that you're doing it because there's so few voices out there that are substantive and authentic and not hypey and not salesy and real. (50:59) And you have that cool mind, warm heart. (51:02) So I appreciate you, that's what I would say.

Marcus Arredondo

(51:04) Those are incredibly kind words. (51:06) Thank you, Bob, so much for doing what you're doing, coming on, this has been a thrill for me. (51:09) I've wanted to meet you for a very long time.(51:12) So the pleasure is all mine, very grateful for you coming on and I'll continue to support your work. (51:17) I think you're doing the Lord's work for a lot of people. (51:21) More good stuff to come, Marcus.(51:23) Love it. (51:27) Thanks for listening. (51:28) For a detailed list of episodes and show notes, visit scalesofsuccesspodcast.com.(51:32) If you found this conversation engaging, consider signing up for our newsletter, where we go even deeper on a weekly basis, sharing exclusive insights and actionable strategies that can help you in your own journey. (51:42) We'd also appreciate if you subscribed, rated or shared today's episode. (51:45) It helps us to attract more illuminating guests, adding to the list of enlightening conversations we've had with New York Times bestsellers, producers, founders, CEOs, congressmen and other independent thinkers who are challenging the status quo.(51:58) You can also follow us for updates, extra content and more insights from our guests. (52:02) We hope to have you back again next week for another episode of Scales of Success. (52:06) Scales of Success is an Edgewest Capital Production.