Bob (0s):
Bruce Lee put it this way. You know, the guy that has practiced a thousand kicks does not make me afraid. I do not fear the person who has practiced a thousand kicks. I do fear the person who has practiced one kick a thousand times. For him, it's muscle memory. He's in the zone in his life, day to day, moment to moment, he's always in the flow. So there's an expression in Daoism called wwe, W-U-W-E-I, wwe, which literally translates to
Brian (35s):
This week. I interviewed author and professor of wellness at Elon University, Bob Martin. Bob Blends, Taoist wisdom, brain science, psychology, and humor to tackle everything from breaking free of limiting beliefs, to finding clarity and resilience in life's chaos. We discussed all things meditation, along with how to be present in today's age, how to get into the flow state, the importance of getting your ego out of the way. And much, much more. Really enjoyed my interview with Bob. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the show. All right. Welcome to the Get Lean, Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gryn and I have Bob Martin. I'm welcome to the show.
Bob (1m 15s):
Oh, thanks for having me, Brian. It's great to be here.
Brian (1m 18s):
Yeah, thanks for coming on all the way from North Carolina, but now you're in, is it Costa Rica, you said?
Bob (1m 24s):
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Just north of n just south of Nicaragua and north of Panama.
Brian (1m 28s):
Wow, beautiful, beautiful. And just looking through your bio, I mean, you've been through a decent amount, criminal lawyer author now you teach at Elon University.
Bob (1m 39s):
Yes, sir.
Brian (1m 39s):
Well, maybe, yeah, maybe give a little background about yourself and, And what got you into, I know you're into teaching mindfulness and wellness over there, so just the audience get, get to know you a little bit. Sure.
Bob (1m 50s):
So, you know, in some ways my story is pretty common. And, and when I say it's common, I mean, we, we, we live our lives and we make our decisions and we get ourselves involved in situations And, you know, if things go well, that's great, but sometimes things start to fall apart and you feel like you're just losing it and you going down a rabbit hole. And, and it's at times like those that you seek out and hopefully you seek out some help. And, and that's my story. And that was transformational. So that in that way it's pretty common. But in the particulars of it, it is unique. I will say I started out in amusement parks.
Bob (2m 33s):
My, my folks who were Eastern European immigrants decided that popcorn and cotton candy was their path to the American dream. And so I grew up in amusement parks with cotton candy and popcorn and hotdog selling on the boardwalk and that kind of thing. And then much to my dad's dismay, I'll say, I became a lawyer. He didn't think much of lawyers. And it was a, it was a wonderful decision. I, I still wonder how it happened because I had a very mediocre college career and there was nothing exceptional about me. And somehow one law school decided they'd take a chance on me, but it was down in Miami and it was during the seventies, and that was the time of the cocaine cowboy days.
Bob (3m 20s):
You've ever seen the movie Scarface with Al Pacino or, or the, the show Miami Vice? That was the vibe. Miami was completely nuts in those days, and we called them the cocaine cowboy days. And I was a prosecutor then. So I, I can tell you, I promise you I've got a lot of stories, but I rose to be in the consumer frauds and economic crimes division, and that's both criminal and a civil division. So we go after money launderers and we went after the mob and hit them for 72 million bucks. And shortly thereafter, I decided I'd hang my shingle out and I got a visit from the mob.
Brian (4m 0s):
Oh, wow.
Bob (4m 1s):
And they came in, Johnny, he came in and basically he said that, you know, we have pretty good lawyers and you were able to beat 'em. And so, you know, we're thinking we'd like to refer some people to you because, and So they did. And I started to make a lot of money oodles and oodles of money. So the mob
Brian (4m 22s):
At the
Bob (4m 22s):
Same,
Brian (4m 23s):
The the mob was impressed and they, they ended up hiring you, not hiring you, but referring business to you. Right. You
Bob (4m 29s):
Know, yeah. When I say they, there is a distinction there, because it wasn't like I was conci, I wasn't like the inside advisor. I was just somebody, they, of course, they had middle management, just like any other organization. They had mules and they had wholesalers and the like. And so I was getting those referrals when they get, when those folks got busted. And they always came in and they always paid cash and always underneath the federal limit for reporting cash transactions. And that's how things went. But those were my, it was Miami and it was the cocaine cowboy days. So I'll let your imagination kind of run free with what I was doing, hanging out with those guys, going to the chrome and glass disco attacks of Miami during those days.
Bob (5m 17s):
And my personal life was falling apart. I was able to hold my professional life together, but things were going bad and I was seeing a therapist and I, I I came across a couple of real important life decisions, and I asked one of course that was, he was my confidant. He was my therapist. I went and asked him questions about what I should do, should I go right or should I go left? And he gave me some advice and I, he basically gave me the advice by throwing some coins and doing some math and coming up with a number and opening up a book to that chapter number and showing me the chapter. And I got real pissed off and I stormed out of his office.
Bob (5m 59s):
But the, but the name of the chapter was Retreat. And I, I, I, I, I did, I, and I saved me. I stopped, I pulled back from some of those excessive behaviors and went back and I asked George what was, what was, what was all that about? Turned out he was the disciple and he was the English language editor for a very prolific man called Master watching Nee, who was a 72nd generation Daoist master from the Shain Temple, you know, the Shalin Temples, Kung Fu, Tai Chi, all of that, that stuff, the Dallas stuff.
Bob (6m 40s):
So I, I had never grown up with any kind of religious training or background or the, like, my folks, it wasn't a conversation. We had all their, all their, all my ancestors were wiped out by either the Bolsheviks or the Nazis or the like. And so, you know, they just didn't think that there would be a merciful God that would allow all that. So I was wondering what Daoism was. And since it doesn't really, it's not really a God oriented belief system, it's more of a operating system for life, kind of like an operating manual. And I'd never been shown anything like that. I took to it, and I, I studied at the feet of this guy and Master Knee just, he just blew me away.
Bob (7m 24s):
He's one of those folks, you run into him and you say, I just wanna know what this guy knows. And so I studied under Master Knee, and I would say that was, that was transformational. And it got me into the realm of contemplation and, and Buddhism meditation. And eventually just about the time it was all coming together in the training, I ran into some problems with my mob clients. And I think we all decided it would be better if I left Miami. So I wound up moving to North Carolina, and I had an opportunity to start my life over. And so when I got here, based on the fact that I just wasn't the same person that I was before I started my studies, I, I devoted myself to public service.
Bob (8m 9s):
And really, Brian, I'll share this with you, it's kind of, I don't often share this, but during that process, something happened to me. And I, I really can't tell you that your heart can open up, that that can come a time when your heart physically, there is a physical sensation of your heart opening up. And when that happens, the most important thing in your life, what gives it purpose and meaning is to ease the suffering of other folks. And I, I don't say that lightly, I just say it because I just say it factually. And, and so that's where my life went after that. So when I came to North Carolina, that's what I engaged in.
Bob (8m 51s):
And it led to, it led to the marriage of my second wife who was a Southern Baptist Bible literalist. And so Now I added Christianity to my repertoire of things that I studied and, and that brought me to where I am.
Brian (9m 8s):
When did you start working at Elon University?
Bob (9m 12s):
So I retired from day-to-day lawyering in 2015. And then Elon asked me to come and teach law to undergraduates right away, within a couple of months. And for the past few years, I've been kind of pushing them and nudging them to allow me to create a credited meditation course. And just a couple years ago that happened, so Now I actually get 15 college students every semester, and they get two credits to take the course, and I get to teach them meditation, and more importantly, I get to see their minds open up.
Bob (9m 53s):
And it's, it's just cool.
Brian (9m 56s):
Yeah, that's great. And I coach high school golf, and I always thought they should have a class for meditation in high school. Hmm. But it, yeah, it's great that you're bringing it to college. What would you explain to people, how do you like, explain meditation in, in general terms And you know, what it is And what it is and, and how to sort of develop a practice?
Bob (10m 16s):
Okay. Well, you know, a lot of people, you know, say they kind of interplay the words mindfulness and meditation. And I, I usually answer that by saying, well, you know, there's the old expression that you can put a boat on a ship, but you can't put a ship on a boat. And so all meditation is mindfulness, but not all mindfulness is meditation. So, you know, if I, if I am being mindful of something, all that means is that I'm going to pay attention and I'm going, and I don't even like the word attention so much. I'm going to attend to whatever it is that I'm doing. So if I'm making a bed mindfully, then I'm going to attend to making the bed.
Bob (11m 1s):
I'm going to pay attention to how I spread the sheet out, and I'm gonna smooth out the wrinkles, and I'm gonna pay attention to how I tuck the corners and line things up. And you actually, you know, to do even mundane tasks mindfully can be quite enjoyable. You know, you can like
Brian (11m 19s):
Being, like, being present,
Bob (11m 21s):
Like, like being present and, and attending, you know, it's right. And so it it, like I say, even washing the dishes, you know, and stacking them up and feeling the warmth of the water and feeling the soap on the dishes and seeing the dirt come out and feeling the little thing that stuck and getting the little sponge and rubbing it off and seeing it come off and just paying attention and attending to all of those little details actually is a whole lot better way of passing time than grumbling about the fact that your partner ought to be the one washing the dishes instead of you. Right. So that's, that's, that's mindfulness. Meditation is a more structured process where we actually, you know, go through building skills, managing the mind.
Bob (12m 10s):
You know, a lot of, a lot of people, whenever they find out that I'm a mindfulness meditation teacher, they go, oh yeah, meditation, I really need to meditate. I really need to do that. But it's not for me because the moment I try to sit down and quiet my mind, then my mind goes crazy. And all I have is all these thoughts about all this stuff. And I could never do that. I could never quiet my mind. And I would like to metaphorically kind of grab 'em by the shoulders and say, no, no, no, no. That, that's not what we're trying to do with meditation. We're not trying to quiet the mind at all. Matter of fact, you can't. And the more you try to quiet the mind, the louder it gets.
Bob (12m 53s):
So, So we know that that doesn't work. So what, what then what are we trying to do? So what we, we do is set up a, a simple process that's very common that we all have experienced before. And I'm sure Brian, that you've been in times and periods where you're listening to somebody and you really wanna hear what they're saying. And then all of a sudden you notice that for the past 45 seconds, you haven't been listening to them, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Happens all the time. Okay. So if you notice it, that when you notice that you're not listening, there's a kind of little startle feeling.
Bob (13m 38s):
That's the only way I can describe. It's a little like, oh, like little sneezy. Oh, I'm not listening. It's like, like all of a sudden you realize it, it's like a realization comes into your head. And that's because you know your mind, you had told your mind already, I wanna listen to this guy because you were listening to him and you were interested. So your mind kind of reaches out and says, Hey, Brian, hey, you're not listening. Right? True. And at some point you finally hear that, and then you kind of like wake up and then you go, oh, and then you have all this flood of judgements usually comes, I should have been listening to him and I wasn't listening to him, and how am I gonna hear what he said and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Bob (14m 21s):
And then all that quiets down, and then you just go back and start listening again. Right? So that's meditation in a nutshell, that's what we do in meditation. It's, it's no more difficult than that except we just set it up artificially. So we say, instead of listening to somebody, I'm going to form an intention to pay attention to my breath or a candle. And then within three seconds, your mind goes flying off to whether you left the stove on And what your wife's gonna say about you being late. And what you should have said to that guy yesterday, your mind's gonna go nuts. At some point, your mind's gonna go stay you, you said you were gonna pay attention to the candle.
Bob (15m 4s):
Okay? And So we call that waking up. And so actually the training and the healing and the practice of meditation comes in, waking up and allowing the judgments to quiet down and then returning and beginning again. That's where the meditation occurs. So if your mind doesn't run off, if it doesn't wander, if it doesn't go nuts, you're not meditating. So that is what makes the difference. Now, you might ask, so what does that get you? Well, you know, what do you get out of that? Well, if you do it a little, if you do it a little bit, I'm talking a little bit, you do that, you know, five, 10 minutes a day for a week or so, all of a sudden you start to kind of get used to that.
Bob (15m 50s):
And then a very magical thing happens. All of a sudden you notice that all of these thoughts that you were inside of like a fish inside of water, you didn't even know you were inside of your thoughts. All of a sudden you find that you have stepped outside of your thoughts and you are watching your thoughts, and then it occurs to you, oh, I'm not my thoughts. And then the next question that comes up is, if I'm not my thoughts, then who am I? And then that question leads to a whole bunch of other questions like, well, if I'm not my thoughts, then I guess I'm the creator of my thoughts.
Bob (16m 30s):
So what are my thoughts And what are the patterns of my thoughts? So now you become curious about watching your thoughts and watching your thinking. So it's not the fact that your mind is on its own and thinking about stuff, it's about the fact that you're noticing your thinking. And by noticing your thinking, you are adding to your database of who you are and how you think. And that means that you now have access to learning how to skillfully manage it. Does that, does that make sense to you? Yeah,
Brian (17m 5s):
It's, I, for someone, I mean, I guess for me, my experience with meditation is, I mean, I, I do about 10 minutes a day, and a lot of times it's self-guided. Sometimes I'll listen to an app or something from time to time. But yeah, I, I agree. I mean, like, if you try to control your thoughts, it just, it's that much more difficult. It's almost to me, like what you were talking about was like, you're, you're more just like self-aware. I don't know, of just like, yeah. Self-aware of like, what's going on. And I think people who, I dunno, you can sort of tell maybe people who practice meditation because they don't maybe react right away. They don't react first.
Brian (17m 45s):
They, they, they sort of take situations in and then they come to a decision. I don't know if that's something that you see from practicing.
Bob (17m 54s):
Yeah, we call it, we call it the difference between being reactive and responsive, right?
Brian (17m 59s):
Yeah.
Bob (17m 59s):
Yeah. So you're not reacting to things. It's not knee jerk reactions. You're, you're responsive. We ask master knee once, and I help, I said, what, you know, what's it like to be master knee? You know, what's that like? And he simply said, no rehearsing thoughts, no rehearsing thoughts. So he has practiced this enough so that he never has to think about what he is gonna say or what he he's gonna do. He is just kind of there. And when something happens, he responds to it. But his responses were always, you know, perfect. And, you know, that can take us into a whole other conversation of Daoism and going with the flow and how Daoism, you know, what does going with the flow really mean?
Bob (18m 45s):
What is, what is that really all about? Is that about just, you know, tossing yourself on a raft on the river and floating downstream? Or is there something more to it than that?
Brian (18m 56s):
Well, I am curious to, to learn about that because yeah, I think of going with the flow is a little bit like what you said. You're not reacting, you're sort of responding to situations and maybe not being, I don't know, not being pulled in certain directions per se. What, what was, what is your definition of going with the flow
Bob (19m 15s):
Going? Well, going with the flow, it, it has two parts to it. One is, and this you, you have to begin to be able to identify the flow. First of all, how can you go with the flow if you don't know the flow? So you have to, I, you have to be able to identify the flow. And so many of us don't, don't, don't, don't identify it accurately. And then once you have identified the flow, then what is the wisest way to align yourself with it? So I, I often think of the metaphor of being out in the ocean, and you are trying to get into shore.
Bob (19m 57s):
So there's a couple of different ways you can do it. One is, you know, you can panic and drown. Well, that's not the most, that's not effective or efficient, right? The other is, you can say, okay, that's where I wanna go. There's the goal. I wanna go to shore now I'm just gonna swim in. And you just, you just swim, you know, screw the flow, whatever the flow is, I don't know what the flow is. I'm just gonna get there. I'm gonna swim. And you may get there, but you're gonna be tired and you're gonna be exhausted. And certainly not effectively and efficiently. If you identify the flow and you get it, that sometimes the tide is moving towards the shore and sometimes it's moving against the shore. If you identify that and you align yourself with it, then what you're gonna do is when the tide is moving forward towards the shore, you're gonna use all your energy and swim like heck.
Bob (20m 46s):
And when it turns around and it's going against you, you don't want it to push you back. You know, you don't wanna lose ground. So you gotta put out some energy, but just enough to hold your position. And you wanna use that time to restore your energy and prepare for when it goes again towards the shore. So you can swim like heck. So your process in, if you align yourself with the flow, you swim like heck, you hold, you swim like heck, you hold, then you're gonna get to the shore. You will have expended the least amount of energy and been 10 times more impactful and efficient.
Bob (21m 27s):
And what Daoism And what Master Knee taught me is that it is possible to identify that inside of your life and live your life within that. Like even, you know, like when you're in a conversation with somebody, there is a flow, you know, sometimes they're just not up for listening to you. So that's an oppositional flow. Sometimes they're eager to hear what you have to say, and that is, you know, a propitious flow. So if you can sense when people, like, if somebody you know is not in the mood to listen to you, well then, you know, shut up.
Bob (22m 9s):
Don't force
Brian (22m 10s):
Them. Some people, some people dunno how to do that.
Bob (22m 12s):
That's, that's the prob that's what I mean by identifying the flow. Somebody asked me in another podcast, they said to me, we were talking about different times, and I said, well, there's a time to progress and advance, and there's a time to retreat. And he goes, yeah, but you know, for entrepreneurs, you know, for entrepreneurs, you know, if you talk about retreating, you're talking about giving up. And I said, interesting that you should say that. Because if retreat for you means giving up, that means you were not sensitive to the appropriate time to retreat, you missed it. There was a time to retreat when you could have pulled back and regrouped and you needed to pull back and regroup because you are wasting energy by pushing forward at that moment.
Bob (23m 2s):
So you need to pull back and regroup. Then having regrouped, the time is gonna change, and then you could move forward again with force. So it's not that retreat is surrender, it's that you miss the appropriate time to wisely retreat in a effective and efficient way. And if you do that and you're sensitive to those times, well, you are using less energy too. So you're, you're, you're, you're using less energy and you're more impactful. And what could beat that? What could beat that?
Brian (23m 38s):
You know, I almost could equate it. I was thinking of a few things. Yeah. But one, like for example, I talk about like working out, right? Sometimes people think more is better, and a lot of times that's not true. And so those are people who maybe, I don't know if it's not self-aware or aren't aware of the fact that recovery is just as important as the actual workout. So that's almost the recovery is like the retreat and the workout is, you know, you're pushing ahead, right? And if you're always pushing ahead and you're never recovering, you're just gonna spin your, spin yourself into
Bob (24m 10s):
A, and you can do damage. Right. You know?
Brian (24m 14s):
Yeah. You'll, you can do right. You can sort of lose momentum and end up doing work and you end up, you know, becoming less of what you wanted to become, right?
Bob (24m 22s):
I mean, if you go and pull your hamstring because you had to do one more set, right? Right. And you pull your hamstring, well, you're down for three weeks now. That, that's neither efficient nor effective.
Brian (24m 33s):
Yeah. Is would you say this is different? I'm curious, like, I always like to equate things to golf, but like we hear about in golf, like being in a flow state, right? And there's guys that are better at it than others. You see this at any level. And I think of it as like, when you're in a flow state, you're not, not really internally taking thoughts like internally, or you're not like overthinking. You're just sort of reacting. Right?
Bob (24m 58s):
Right. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yes, yes. Absolutely. You know, some other folks call it, you know, being in the zone. Yeah. So what we, we, we understand it completely when we're talking about athletics. Yeah. We get it. We get that because we, we use the term muscle memory. But you know, Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee put it this way, you know, the guy that has practiced a thousand kicks does not make me afraid. I do not fear the person who has practiced a thousand kicks. I do fear the person who has practiced one kick a thousand times. 'cause you know, when you, when you get to that state, you own it.
Bob (25m 39s):
And that's what Master Knee was talking about when he said no rehearsing thoughts. He has, he has studied, I mean, 74 generations, 72 generations passing wisdom down from father to son and starting at a very young age of two or three years old, being taught, you know, the, the different characteristics of the different flows. I mean, he grew up, for him, it's muscle memory. He's in the zone in his life, day to day, moment to moment. He's always in the flow. So there's an expression, there is an expression in Daoism called wwe, W-U-W-E-I, wwe, which literally translates to doing, not doing.
Bob (26m 26s):
And it means you do nothing. It's like, it's not me that's acting, you know, it, something's flowing through me is that you do nothing yet nothing remains undone. So it's almost as if you are not doing it yourself. But everything that needs to be done is getting done somehow. Hmm. And that is that state of flow. Yeah. So, you know, we wanna try to get there. And meditation is one of the ways that you begin to become more sensitive to feeling, feeling the flow. 'cause you know, when you're playing golf, right? You might look at something and you could put your eyeglass on and say it's 347 yards and this calls for this thing.
Bob (27m 12s):
But you just might feel that, eh, no, I think an iron, I just feel like the iron is what I need here. And you really can't explain it, you know? But it's the right choice.
Brian (27m 22s):
Yeah. And you talk about like, owning it. I, I think that pe and this is just my personal experience, but, but like the, the really good players are the guys that own their swing and don't try to be anyone else. And, and they've owned it for so long that they can just get into that flow state. As opposed to someone who's trying something new every week, which we all run, we're all guilty of that. I always tell people, just stick with one thing. It's almost like your, your quote with, what was your quote with, I read his book too, the quote you just had with the, the kung fu master.
Bob (27m 57s):
Oh, no rehearsing thoughts.
Brian (27m 60s):
No. That you could do the same kick a thousand times or the Oh,
Bob (28m 3s):
Oh, oh. Bruce Lee. Yeah,
Brian (28m 4s):
Bruce Lee, I'm, I just drew a blank.
Bob (28m 6s):
I feared the man who has practiced one kick a thousand times.
Brian (28m 10s):
Right? And that's almost like one shot, like for golf, I think like guys that really own their shots, they hit the same shot pattern every time. Doesn't matter the situation. They hit a little fade all day long. They've been doing that forever. As opposed to maybe someone else who tries to hit different shots. Not now I'm getting into golf. But not to say that's necessarily wrong, that's okay. But like, just focusing on one thing and getting really good at that, I think that can help put you into a flow state more so than just trying to do different things all the time. So that
Bob (28m 42s):
Absolutely, at least it, at, at least as it pertains to that. But, you know, of course, even in golf, I mean, there is the, there is the long yardage hole, and there's the short yardage hole, and there's the dog leg, and there's this, and there's that. And sometimes, you know, so there's also the problem that could come up there, you know, of being a one trick pony or having a single winning formula, like one of our, one of our politicians who's about to become our president. I'm not gonna be critical here, but I will say he is a one trick pony. He has one way of dealing with a conflict.
Bob (29m 25s):
He's going to deal with that conflict by attacking. I'm not being critical here. I'm not saying that attacking is bad, but there are some times when that's not the best, that's not the best response. And if it's all you got in your toolbox, you know, then you're gonna be really one dimensional. What
Brian (29m 43s):
Would you say to someone that doesn't, hasn't implemented any spirituality or meditation into their life? What would you say like a good step for them to do? Would it be to read a book about it? Just, you know, take a class? You
Bob (29m 56s):
Know, I would say the first thing is to recognize that you have decided to live a very hard life. That's the first thing you have decided. That you're going to shoulder all of the burdens of life, and you're gonna carry that load through your whole life. And that ain't fun. You know, I mean, if you, you know, if you don't have any sense that there's something greater than yourself out there, if you don't have any sense of, it takes a children, it takes a, it takes a village to raise a child, But it also takes a village to, to recover. It takes a village to progress. You. It, it, so I would, I would say, first come to the recognition that you just decided to make a very hard, hard life for yourself.
Bob (30m 40s):
And life doesn't need to be that hard. You know, that, that, that, that's not such a, that, that may sound like a simple statement, But it sure is not an easy one. Because you know that Dang Marlboro man, you remember the Marlboro man. I mean, there's the icon of American masculinity. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, the individual guy out there on the field, in control of his herd. All I need is my good old Marlboro cigarette. Not, you know, I mean, the Marlboro man. It's just a hard life. And it doesn't need to be that hard. So a lot of pe I, I think that that Marlboro man icon, that idea of American masculinity has done an, an awful lot of damage to people's, you know, basic level of happiness.
Bob (31m 28s):
And, and so the first, the first thing is, I, I would say that you, you need to question that. And I grew up, look, I grew up in a home where there was no God conversation at all. I can mention my folks, you know, all the, my folks ancestors. My dad was Hungarian royalty. The Bolsheviks killed all his ancestors. My mom was Roma Gypsy. The Nazis wiped out all hers. They didn't believe that there could be a merciful God. And I didn't have that conversation at all growing up in my life. And life was hard when you begin to allow for the fact that there might be something out there that's bigger than you.
Bob (32m 11s):
And I'm not saying that you even need to accept it as a fact. You don't have to believe in God, use it as a, as a working hypothesis. You know, if you just accept it as a working hypothesis and see, you know, how does it feel to be living a life where your purpose and meaning is not all about you? And play with it for a while. Play with the idea, while experiment with it a while. You know, go and offer somebody a compliment. Tell somebody that that scarf perfectly compliments their complexion. You know? And, and just see, you know, how it makes you feel.
Bob (32m 52s):
'cause you know, I, there's nothing wrong with being happy. There's nothing wrong. I mean, the, the do the, the one thing that unites all of humanity, the one thing that we all want is simply to be happy. And there are things that get in the way. And for the most part, what gets in the way, what in Buddhism we call the three poisonous roots. Yeah. What are those wanting, they're wanting, or at it, at the extreme, it would be greed. I want and more and more. And it's never enough. And I always, I want the new car smell in my car to remain forever.
Bob (33m 33s):
Hmm. I like that. I want what I like and wanting. There's hating and repulsive. And I don't want, I don't wanna go old. I don't want this, I don't want that. And then the other is just ignorance. Having no idea how the system around you, the environment that you're in, works. And so never knowing when you're gonna get whacked upside the head and from where. So these are the things that create the anxiety. And it's all mostly about me trying to protect me from all of those boogeymen that wanna get me. And so I hold up this shield and I protect myself. And it comes down to, I think, you know, that, Brian, I have to admit to you that I suffer from imposter complex.
Bob (34m 19s):
I think we all do. I, I, I still think that the law school that accepted me, I tricked them and I really fooled the bar examiners to licensing me and all that stuff. Right? But, you know, finally, you know, all that stuff is kind of just background noise. But we feel like we have to protect ourselves because at some level, many of us feel that if you really knew who I really was, if you really saw behind my social facade, you wouldn't like me. I'm really, I'm really not very lovable. And it's funny 'cause I, I call that the double reverse whammy of life because the reason I don't feel like I'm lovable is because my mama was trying to protect me from walking out into the street and getting hit by a car.
Bob (35m 9s):
So when she saw me, she screamed and yelled and grabbed me and jerked me back onto the lawn. And I thought that she was telling me I was a bad person, right? So all now, there are people that are treated very badly as children. And of course, you know, their sense of I'm not lovable is very, very powerful. But even for the rest of us who had wonderful parents, there's still a whole bunch in there that we misinterpreted. But I can't come up to you on this podcast and say, Hey Brian, my name's Bob Martin. I'm a jerk. So I have to create this public facade that I have and present that to you as who I am. Because that's lovable and nice and it's good.
Bob (35m 50s):
The funny part about it is that the truth of it is, is that the person, the unlovable person, I believe is really my true self, is really not my true self. It's a made up vision of myself that I made when I didn't have the ability to put things into context. And the facade that I created, I created it. So I really know what those qualities are, which means that that really is who I am. So the person I think I am, I'm not the person I don't think I am, I am so, no wonder we have this kind of come closer, push away, come closer, push away rollercoaster relationships in our lives.
Bob (36m 33s):
And what we find is that when we can finally drop the shield, we can finally say, Hey man, I am who I am and I is who I is, and I'm Popeye the sailor man. And what you see is what you get. So we get ourselves out of the, the point of the whole thing is, going back to your question, I, sorry it took me so long to get there, but if I can be who I authentically am with you and get my ego out of the way, I find that I'm happier. And your question about spirituality is all about getting the ego out of the way. So whatever course I can take, whatever thinking I can have, whatever paradigm I need to enter into, when I can get my sense of ego out of the freaking way, I'm gonna find that I'm a lot happier and that's where I wanna go.
Brian (37m 30s):
Interesting. Yeah. Sorry.
Bob (37m 32s):
That's okay. Sorry it took so long to get there.
Brian (37m 34s):
Yeah, no, there was a lot. There was a lot there. Yeah. I, you know, and I think what you're talking about sometimes takes time for people, right? You know, like, I just think of like, I'm in my forties, but like, when you're in your teenage years and twenties even, you know, like, you don't even come, you don't come to this realization, right?
Bob (37m 55s):
No, no, no. I mean, I don't mean to be crude, but when you're a teenager in high school, I mean, your biggest issue is not standing up after you've been looking at that pretty redhead. Yeah. I mean, you, you're driven by such hormones and, and the like and, and you're all about you. And that's fine. You need to go through that stage. Sure. 'cause you need to, you need to get a sense of your power. 'cause that's another, you know, you need to get a sense of your power because that, that, if you mature properly, becomes another tool to use. You know, there's nothing wrong with being angry. Sometimes you need to be angry, especially when you're talking to the utility companies, you know, or you call about your phone bill sometimes you just have to be angry.
Bob (38m 44s):
It's the only way to move forward. But you don't wanna be uncontrollably angry.
Brian (38m 49s):
Yeah. What would, how, how can meditation have a role in helping with like weight loss and sort of breaking free of like limiting beliefs?
Bob (38m 58s):
So one of the very first things that you learn in, in skill building is that your thoughts, well, you're not your thoughts, but your thoughts are nothing. I mean, you start thinking about your thoughts and watching your thoughts. And sometimes I kind of liken them to being a deep sea diver in my, you know, full deep sea get up and like hanging out in the middle of the ocean, like, you know, halfway, half a mile down. And I'm looking down at the blackness down there, and these bubbles are coming up and they, you know, they, those are my thoughts. I have no idea where they're coming from.
Bob (39m 38s):
Right. And we don't know where they come up. And then they're here for a little while and you can see 'em. Sure. You know, and you can identify 'em. And then they, they go up and they pop and they're gone. And then another one comes up and it's here for a while and he pops. So, so what is it? I mean, what are they, I'm not saying you shouldn't be discerning and you shouldn't make use of them. I'm just saying they're ephemeral. They, you can't hold 'em in your hand. You can't market 'em, you can't sell 'em. You know, you, you, so, so when you start to, so meditation, first of all, it's not you, it's not a magic wand.
Bob (40m 18s):
You can't just, you know, say, oh, you know, Now I, I have had some wonderful insight And now I'm enlightened. It's a skill that you build, like going to the gym, you know, you don't go to the gym and all of a sudden have, you know, great guns. You, you work at it. You don't go to the gym the day before. You have to help your friend move into his second floor apartment. Right. You go to the gym before that, you build. So it's the same thing with meditation. You build up, you know, these skills. But one of these skills is a very deep knowledge and an understanding of the ephemeral nature of your thoughts. Okay. So one of the thoughts that is hyper important when it comes to weight loss is I want something to eat.
Bob (41m 5s):
I wanna get something to eat. I'm not even, I'm hungry. It's not even I'm hungry. 'cause you might not even be hungry, just wonder what's in the refrigerator. It's just thought that comes in your head, or I'm bored, you know, or this is a good chance. Or my wife's gone. I can eat some popcorn now. You know, whatever it is, the thought comes in your head. And when you have become familiar with the fact that it's just a thought and you can just kind of sit back and instead of buying into the thought and being the thought, you can step out and watch it. Maybe you even giggle a little because it really is kind of comical that what this thought is, and you watch it and inside of 10, 15, 20 seconds it'll float away.
Bob (41m 54s):
You know? And especially, you know, if you decide, oh, here's that thought. Let me open up Wordle and I'm gonna, I'm gonna go do a wordle or let me, I'm gonna do a crossword puzzle. Or, oh, there's that thing that I've been putting off, or let me go see if I've got any matches on pod match. You know, the moment that if you see it, you give it a second, it'll go, it'll be gone in just a moment and then you'll be onto something else. And it goes. So that's one of the ways, that's one of the ways that it can help with weight loss one of the ways.
Brian (42m 30s):
Yeah. And yeah, I like that point. I mean, I find that sometimes people can be impulsive with things like, I'll just bring it to golf again. They have a bad round or a bad shot. And I know you're talking about thoughts, but they're like, oh, I need to do this. But it's like, okay, don't overreact over. I always tell the kids, don't overreact over a shot or a whole round. 'cause in the scheme of things, it's, it's such a small tri trial size of what you are. Same with the thoughts, right? These are little bubbles like you mentioned that come and they come and go. And if you don't put so much weight to each of 'em, and you just give it time, you'll realize that that's all that was.
Brian (43m 11s):
And there's no reason to put added weight onto whatever that was, a thought, a shot or whatever that
Bob (43m 17s):
Exactly. Or, or you might decide, this is a helpful thought, this is a good thought. I wanna add this one to my inventory. I wanna add this one to my repertoire because this is useful. Sure. And so, so you do this kind of going through the attic of your mind process, you're saying, well, this thought is helpful. This thought may not be so helpful. That doesn't mean it won't come back. Right. It'll come back. And every time it comes back, you, if you just greet it, you don't try to stop it because the moment you try to stop it, you give it energy, you know, you greet it, you say, oh, there you go.
Bob (43m 57s):
It is like that Simon and Garfunkel, hello, darkness, my old friend. So here's this thought again. Oh, there you are, my old friend. Okay. And then it goes away, and then it comes back again. But you know, the funny part about it is, if you greet it and you befriend it and you recognize it and you don't judge it, it will, all of a sudden there'll come a time when you go, oh, I haven't had that thought for a while. You know, it just kind of stops on its own. It's kind of like a nerdy little brat who wants to bother you, you know? And the more attention you give it, the more bother something becomes
Brian (44m 37s):
If you, if you just let it be and don't put any attention to it, it'll eventually it'll go away. Yeah.
Bob (44m 42s):
It's, this guy's no fun.
Brian (44m 44s):
Right, exactly. It's like when you're young and maybe there's, you know, I know there's bullying that goes on, but like, the more attention you put to that, if something's bullying you, the more they're gonna wanna do it. Right? Same. Yeah. Same concept there. Yeah,
Bob (44m 59s):
Same thing. Yeah.
Brian (45m 1s):
Well, this was great, Bob. Where's the best place for people to learn about your work And what you're doing? Well,
Bob (45m 5s):
I've got everything. I've, I've brought everything together on my website, which is called A Wise and Happy life.com. Nice.
Brian (45m 14s):
I like that.
Bob (45m 15s):
And if you wanna know more about meditation, you know, people ask me all the time, of course, you know, don't let me not say that I do offer online courses and the like, and you may or may not be ready for that. But, you know, I do also have lots of resources because my passion really is spreading the word that meditation can be a wonderful solution for so many aspects of life. I've got 56 gigabytes of resources, instruction, pamphlets, all of it, guided meditations, videos, all of it freely, downloadable.
Bob (45m 55s):
But you would start, best place to start would be is meditation for me, what it is, what it's not, and how to do it. A little 40 page ebook that's absolutely free, no obligation. You just go to my website a Wise and happy life.com and you can click on it and download it. And it's a great place to start.
Brian (46m 18s):
Yeah. And I'll just say from my experience, I think it, it's just about starting, like just start small and just, you know, sit there, be present or as much as you can, you know, whatever that means. But like, I think sometimes we get fearful or we're like afraid to, you know, we think it's some big, this big thing and it's really, it really isn't the, the more you do it. So yeah, this was great. I'll, I will put Links in the show notes for people to find you and learn all about what you're doing. And yeah, I appreciate the, the message that you're, you're sending on and, and all you've done. So thank you.
Bob (46m 52s):
Thank you. You know, it's not easy to put a podcast together and for you to do it for people like me to be able to come on And, you know, blah, blah, blah, is a real act of love and it makes a huge difference out there in the world. So I owe you, and I think all your audience owes you a, a big thanks.
Brian (47m 11s):
Yeah. Well, well I know doing a podcast my fifth year, give or take. But like, you know, you, you send messages out to the world and sometimes you don't know who's gonna get it, but as long as it could impact, you know, one person and, and help change them, I think it's, it's all worth it. So, yeah,
Bob (47m 27s):
Absolutely. Oh God bless.
Brian (47m 29s):
Thanks for listening to the Get Lean Eat Clean Podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to mine and I appreciate that. Check out the show notes at Brian Gryn dot com for everything that was mentioned in this episode. Feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member that's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again, and have a great day.
