468 Bob Martin

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] What if the path to true happiness begins with a single breath? Bob Martin's journey is a testament to the transformative power of mindfulness

Once entangled in the high stakes world of criminal law during Miami's turbulence cocaine, cowboy era, Bob underwent a profound personal transformation that led him to embrace meditation and mindfulness as tools for healing and growth. Today, Bob is a founder of A Wise and Happy Life where he offers meditation classes, mindfulness, mentoring and resources designed to help individuals navigate life challenges with greater ease and resilience.

His approach integrates insights from neuroscience, Eastern and Western psychology and spiritual traditions, offering a comprehensive framework for personal growth and development. As the mindfulness coordinator at Elon University, Bob continues to guide students and professionals alike to towards inner peace and fulfillment.

His teachings emphasized that happiness is [00:01:00] not a fleeting emotion, but a skill that can be cultivated through consistent practice and self-awareness. This conversation delves into Bob's unique journey and the insights he's gained along the way, offering listeners practical wisdom on leading a more mindful and joyful life.

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Welcome to another episode of theDeep Wealth, Deep Wealth Nation. I have a question for you. With your success? Are you truly happy? Are you fulfilled? Are you feeling joyful? Yes, I know you got all these zeros in the bank, but are you waking up and it's the same blank, different day? I'm bored. I'm not really happy.

And if the answer is yes, and I gotta tell you I was there after my nine-figure Exit deal. I think it happens to all of us. If you're there, you're not alone. But the question is, what do you do? Where do you turn and who can you look to? Well, I got great news for you in the House of Deep Wealth. We have a [00:04:00] very special guest.

Bob, welcome to theDeep Wealth. It's truly a pleasure to have you with us. There's always a story behind the story. What's your story, Bob? What got you from where you were to where you are today? 

Bob Martin: Well, first of all, let me thank you for inviting me on your podcast. And let me also thank you for putting in the time and energy to create the platform. Most folks don't realize how much. Work it is. so thank you for, you know, putting that effort in and giving a place and a platform for people like me to come in and speak our stuff and say our thing.

but to answer your question, my story's a real unusual one, and we could go into all of the details. I'm happy to do that. My life's an open book, but. it's unusual in terms of the facts, but what is very usual about is that the turning point came when I was in trouble, when I was hitting bottom, when things were going badly, not professionally.

I was making money hands over foot as a, as an attorney in my, during the cocaine cowboy days, I was a mob lawyer. People were walking into my office with 9,000 [00:05:00] bucks in cash in a brown paper bag, day after day, sometimes hour after hour. But personally, my life was really hitting the skids.

I wasn't paying attention to my family. I was coming home maybe 11, 12 at night, leaving four or five in the morning. They never saw me and my behavior started getting pretty excessive and. it wasn't long before something very bad might have happened but there was an intervening force.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. An intervening force. Wow. You have us on the edge of our seat. So what was that intervening force, Bob?

Bob Martin: So I was seeing my therapist my wife's insistence. 'Cause I didn't think there was anything wrong with me. I came in and I had already paid my house off. I was 32 years old. I had paid my house off and I thought that I was the cat's meow and I was, just making all this money and investing in all these ventures.

 you know, 1970s. Miami was nuts. It was the days of Scarface, the days of Miami Vice all that stuff. [00:06:00] And as fast as I was making it, I was spending it on all these crazy ideas, and it came to the point where I might have had to remortgage my house to keep up with one of my ideas.

and I asked my therapist, should I do that? Should I mortgage a house? I expected fully that I was gonna get some kind of therapeutic, talk back well Bob what do you think you should do about your house? But instead of that, he picked up three coins and he started shaking them in his hands and dropping 'em on the table and.

Counting up the heads and tails and doing some mathematical calculations, and I am stunned. I think what happened to my therapist, he become a sous sayer. He is gonna read me tarot cards or something, and he made these mathematical calculations, came up with a number. He opened up this big book to that chapter number, turned it around and showed it to me, and the name of the chapter was Retreat and I probably cursed him out. Got up and stomped [00:07:00] out. But it was almost as if that was the exact word I needed to hear at the moment. It was like tattooed on my forehead and I went to the enterprise and I said, I'm outta money. We're closing it down. That's it. We're off. And I pulled back from those behaviors started coming home at reasonable times, paying attention to my family, and I saved myself from going down that rat hole.

That turnaround was pretty quick. And I came back in a couple of weeks and George was his name. I said, Hey, George, what was that with the coins thing? What was that? And he said, well, Bob, that was the Eugene. And I said, what? And he goes Jing, a classical book of changes.

It's a Daoist practice. It's Daoism. Said it's like a sister to Buddhism. I go, well, what's that going on with? That turns out that my therapist, it was a disciple and the Miami focus point for a 72nd generation grand master. [00:08:00] From the Dallas Chalin temple, the kung Fu temple in China. This guy wrote books and they were translated into English and my therapist edited them and was a disciple and had a Dallas group. My curiosity was arose and, I grew up in a family that wasn't religious. my ancestors, my mom and dad's family. Had either been wiped out by, the Bolsheviks or the Nazis, and wasn't a religious family. So here I am for the first time in my life, in my mid thirties being introduced to something and it gives me this book called the Daud de Jing, which means the classical book of the Way of Virtue. I looked at it and inside of two pages I could see. That this was valuable stuff, but more than that, it was like he had handed me an operating manual for how to live life. And the next week, master came from China. And the moment I met this guy, somebody once asked, I felt like [00:09:00] I needed to know whatever it was that he knew.

And somebody asked me once, like, how did I know that? And it stopped me. And the only thing I can say is that when he looked at you, me, when he looked at me, it was like he looked past my eyes. Like his eyes were focused on something that was past my face. you know, you can normally, when you look in somebody's eyes, you can see they're looking at you.

But he was like looking into me. And he was just amazing. He was just an absolutely astounding person. We asked him once, what it was like to be master knee, and he said no rehearsing thoughts.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow.

Bob Martin: No rehearsing thoughts. So this guy lives his life without having to think about what he's gonna say or what he's gonna do. He's just perfectly responsive. He had become so masterful in living life that he was like in the zone when we talk about an athlete being in the zone, he was in the zone for his entire life.

Just always doing the right thing [00:10:00] without having to think about it and effortlessly. So I thought that was something worth pursuing. I studied with him for eight years and that answers your question. How did I get to where I am?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Fascinating. My goodness, Bob, there are so many different avenues that we can go down, forget an episode. This can be an entire series. I wanna go back though, when you are in criminal litigation and dealing with what I'll call the human element, you saw things that most of us don't see. And not so much as to what they were doing, and not to put any judgements on that whatsoever.

I'm coming at it more from the human condition because when you look back at those times now, and it looks like you were starting to go down a path that you recognize probably is not the best path for you and your family and kudos to you, you made some changes along the way, very hard to do. You were honest and transparent with yourself and vulnerable, and you did a 180 and went in the other direction.

As you look back to those days though. And as we look to entrepreneurs as we're building a business and we have a very specific kind [00:11:00] of personality trait and what we do generally speaking, I mean, we're different, but we're also the same in so many ways. What would you want us to know as entrepreneurs with what you saw back in the day as a criminal litigation lawyer?

Bob Martin: You know my. When he was very close to passing, he reached out to me and he touched the back of my hand, and he was Hungarian, so he talked like Bela Lugosi in Dracula. He reached out and touched my hand. He goes, don't be involved with people. What took me down the wrong path was not the work or an overload of work. I was a prosecutor for. My beginning six years and then I left and we had hit the mob for a lot of money and then they came and they wanted to hire me as their lawyer. So I am now dealing with a lot of Italians as part of the Italian mob, the Miami branch.

and I liked those guys and they stroked my ego. They invited me out and they whined me and dined [00:12:00] me, and they thought I was the greatest thing. and I bought into that. And it was that social influence that they exerted on me, that took me down that road even against my own best judgment.

if I can be permitted, look back at my youth and I can do this now, in retrospect, when I was a hefty boy and as a result I was bullied and especially girls used to call me cooties and they run away from me whenever I came near. And so that left me with this kind of a pit.

Of wanting to be accepted of wanting to be liked, and like these guys they just fill that up. and so I think, of an entrepreneur, you know, and even in the businesses that I've had, you know, you're so desirous of making that connection and having that network and that, you have to always put guardians at the portals to your mind.

Not allow the stuff to get in that's going to jerk you in terms of filling up the [00:13:00] holes. And I guess I feel like I'm rambling, it is like you need to know where those holes are. And understand them. It's not like they go away, but you can become familiar with them and understand them and not be susceptible to the kinds of temptations that can trigger you.

that's true. I don't care if you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. We all have 'em.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Bob. It's so interesting as you're talking about that, one of my favorite quotes in this kind of situation, Jim Rohn, who comes along and says, Hey, Jeffrey. Bob, everyone. You are the average of the five people that you spend the most amount of time with. And Bob, I've been there as well with you where I went in straight laced into a particular circle of people, but I spent enough time with them that like that frog in boiling water analogy, before I knew it, I was them.

And I lost my identity. And hey, it was ego, it was vanity. And so what I'm hearing you [00:14:00] say is. No matter what your station in life is, know who you are and know who you're spending time with, and you can correct me if I'm off base. It's not that, hey, don't spend time with these people. If you don't agree with them, well, maybe you shouldn't.

If you don't agree with them, be careful of what goes into your mind and how you're thinking and where you are investing your time. If it's with people that you don't align with, how am I doing with that?

Bob Martin: You are absolutely like, right on. Right on. Spot on. yeah, and, when I study with Master Knee, of course, you learn one of the things that you study and, and look at and become sensitive in. Inal is really cultivating those little antennas that kind of like vibrate when it ain't right.

When something's pulling you and you know that you're acting in a way that's maybe not the most effective and efficient way for the time that you're in sometimes it's time to pause for a moment. You feel like you've gotta continue to push forward and there's a little [00:15:00] antenna that's saying maybe you ought, and we tend to not pay attention to that.

And that's our intuitive intelligence speaking to us. And here in the West, we just don't trust it. We don't cultivate it or we don't feel like it's accurate. We think that our rational mind, something that we can give a reason to is gonna be more accurate. At least we ought to pay attention to the antenna, the little buzzing, the little sensation that we have, that we might be able to modify our behavior a little bit.

and consider it and discern, is that accurate? Or in spite of that little buzzing, that little warning. Do I still wanna go ahead anyway? Sometimes it's okay, but we should be conscious and we should be sensitive. We should be thinking about these things.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Our inner voice, what some people call, listen to your gut or listen to that inner voice. And you're right here in the West. It's don't be crazy. There is no inner voice. Don't listen to your gut. Everything that goes through [00:16:00] your brain as though we know what we're talking about. We really don't. No one's really asked, well, where are those?

Thoughts, those words, those sentences that I hear in my head, where is that really coming from? That's a whole other side of things that could be an entire episode in and of itself. But what's interesting, and I'm gonna in really put this out there, a Deep Wealth Nation. Go to the show notes. In the show notes, there's a link.

I want you to pick up Bob's book. I am the Way Finding the Truth and the Life through a biblical re-imagining of the towel. Going through the book, Bob, there is, I'm trying to find the words to describe this in your writing. It's a quiet confidence. It's almost as though going through it, there's a whisper.

Someone's whispering to me and there's someone has been through a heck of a lot. There's been some pain I can detect. Don't know quite exactly what that pain is. You talk about some of that in the book, but what pain did you have to face to find that voice that's in the book?

Bob Martin: We all face pain. The only difference between us is the tolerance that we have for discomfort. [00:17:00] And the more you're able to tolerate, life is just full of pain. There's heartbreak and there's loss, and there's physical pain, there's cuts and bruises and broken bones, broken hearts.

There's no way that we're going to avoid the pain of life. The question is how can we tolerate it, for the young person who doesn't have a high tolerance for pain discomfort. They might not go to a funeral just because it's uncomfortable to go and.

Your friends to see, the parents of your friend who passed or your friend's mom who passed. And to go and sit with them and be there is uncomfortable. And if you don't have a tolerance for the pain, you won't go. But yet, if you, it's still gonna be the same discomfort, but if you can tolerate it, then you'll go and you'll be compassionate.

And what does compassion mean? It comes from the Latin root of being able to be with suffering 'cause calm, meaning with and passion like the passion of [00:18:00] Christ. So compassion simply means the ability to be with suffering. And there are ways to cultivate that tolerance. And the more that you tolerate, the less interference that the pain of life has, and so then it becomes a whisper.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, so with that in mind. The question I'm about to ask Bob. I would completely agree with you, Jeffrey. Everybody is different. Everyone is on his or her own path and their journey, and I can't speak for everyone. I am gonna ask you to speak to everyone though, from a very high level, and I love this kind of a question for this situation.

Is it the good old Paretos law, the 80 20 principle? Yes, Jeffrey. In the entrepreneurial world, from the entrepreneurs that I've dealt with, and being an entrepreneur myself, I know that 20% of these. Actions or inactions or these strategies will lead to 80% of the challenges that people find in their lives.

So generally speaking, as entrepreneurs, what are some of [00:19:00] the challenges specifically around fulfillment, joyfulness, happiness, regardless of the success level that entrepreneurs go through? What are you seeing?

Bob Martin: You know, There's an old expression. Take care of your business and your business will take care of you. And I remember I was a very mediocre student. Actually I was a jock. I went to college based on a football scholarship, and then I broke my ankle, flunked out of college. My greatest ambition in life was to sell enough hot dogs on the boardwalk in Queens, New York, to not have to work in the winter.

but there was this fellow who kept pushing me and telling me I should be a lawyer and he actually shoehorned me into one. But I remember the very first day that, I was sitting in the common room in this law school among another bunch of first year students, and we all went around saying, what kind of a lawyer do you wanna be?

What kind of lawyer do you wanna be? And I had no idea. I really didn't. And came to me and I said, I wanna be [00:20:00] a judge. And when I said that, and I am getting to an answer to your question, I promise. But when I said that. It like a wave like came over me and all of a sudden I realized that, oh my, I really might make something of my life.

I might get to be at a place where I make a difference in other people's lives. And I went from being a flunk out mediocre student graduating dean's list, top of my class. It was that sense of self-efficacy. Not only that I can do this, that sense that I can do this, but it was also the sense that I can do it for someone else.

If I can tell you one more little story. So I'm sitting with my wife and she orders a fisherman's platter, supposed to get, whatever, and it comes out, it's got crab legs and she says they're supposed to gimme a lobster tail. I wanted the lobster. I don't wanna confront anybody.

She says, tell the waiter to give me the lobster. And I said, eh, the crab lakes, they're good [00:21:00] enough. Don't worry about it. You dip 'em in butter it all to the same, don't worry, No, no, I want a lobster. And so after pushing me a little bit, she finally says, put on your lawyer's hat. So the moment she said that, it was like a shift in personality. Hey, waiter, now I'm representing her. And one of the great things that I can say I've never looked back at, I've never regretted anything about being a lawyer. And I was a prosecutor, defense attorney both sides tried over 200 major cases.

Never look back, don't have one regret. It's because. It taught me what it meant to be of service. And if you look at some of the research they've done on base levels of happiness, they find that if you win the lottery, your base level of happiness goes up for about three months. If you're a professor looking for tenure and you feel like getting tenure's the most important thing in your life, and if you don't get it, you're gonna commit suicide. [00:22:00] Those that get it, their base level of happiness returns to where it was in about four or five months. And if they don't get it, their base level of happiness returns in about four or five months. The ones that really make a difference when good fortune falls on them is when they use that and pass it on.

So if you are in business because you wanna make a lot of money, I don't know, it's gonna be a tough life, even if you make a lot of money, if you're in business because you really wanna love your clients, you really wanna love your customers, really wanna serve them. You wanna make a difference in their lives.

Your base level happiness will be much higher even if you don't make a lot of money. I don't know, it's up to each of us to define success.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So what I'm hearing you say is if your vision, if your goal of I will be happy when, and that when is I have all kinds of zeros in the bank.

You're in for a surprise. I. Versus, okay, I'm in this business because I love [00:23:00] helping people. I love finding new clients who are going through all kinds of pain that I can take away because of what we do, and I'm gonna help them get to new levels.

Or my business is a means to an end. When I achieve my business, I can take the output otherwise known as money, and I can put that towards perhaps I have a cause or an association or whatever it's gonna be. That I can move the dial in those areas. There's some kind of a purpose, a higher calling, if you will, that's driving me.

How am I doing with that?

Bob Martin: You're absolutely right. Everyone from the Dalai Lama to Pope Francis to Jesus washed the feet of their followers.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Bob, servant leadership. I'm right there with you and hey, I've been there. I've been on both sides. Not having zeros in the bank account, having negative zeros in the bank account, having many zeros in the bank account. And as Deep Wealth Nation has heard, after my deal closed the next morning after I woke up and I pinched myself.

Okay. Was that a dream or did it really happen? Oh, it really happened. [00:24:00] After the euphoria subsided didn't take very long. I was still the same person, the same hopes, dreams, fears the same. My goodness, I don't know if I can do this. I may have what some people call the imposter syndrome. Do I deserve this?

Am I worthy enough? All of those things coming in. And yes, let's not kid ourselves. Money is like oil in a lot of ways in that it can smooth out life. It can make life better. Yes, it is not going to buy that happiness. Happiness has gotta come from within. So for someone who's been, and it's so easy to do.

We turn on the television or we go online, all we see is money and what money gets us and hey, you get this money, you're gonna be happy. How do we begin to deprogram ourselves with some of the things that you talk about in I Am The Way and some of the teachings that you've been introducing us to.

Bob Martin: There's a lot of paths. Of course, I teach meditation and so that's, you know, that my dad always used to say, everybody sells what [00:25:00] they have in the shop. And so that's what's in my shop. And, that's my favorite go-to, but. Having said that here's something I believe very deeply.

I believe that each one of us, both personally and societally, has a responsibility to beauty. We have a responsibility to bring beauty into our lives and to experience all when we can and to honor it. There's all kinds of brain science that we could talk about that would support that. But I think maybe it's enough just to say that the world will give us a lot of things that are not beautiful, a lot of things that are ugly and that will fill our brain.

And if we don't intentionally take action to balance that. We have a good tendency of going down a rabbit hole. And even with all that we make, the world's in a pretty bad place right now in terms of I'm 75. I might make it through to the end of my life without seeing any great [00:26:00] extinction events.

But I don't know about my grandkids. I really don't. it's something that I worry about and if I don't balance out my, just like we were talking before, if you surround yourself with a bunch of people, you'll be the frog in the boiling water. You'll go there. And if that's what you have, that's your input.

You're getting constant input about I need to have a bigger house. I need to have a yacht. I need to have this. Keep up with the Joneses, I want this. Look at what he's got. I need more money. I'm not safe with the money and I need to do this, blah, blah, blah. Besides all the other stuff that just comes in at us, if we don't take the time and Just let those words roll off your consciousness for a moment. Take the time to bring intentionally beauty into our lives. We really run the risk of becoming unbalanced.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so becoming unbalanced. Becoming really unhinged, snappy, not the [00:27:00] person that we are angry, whatever terms we like to put around that. One of the things that you do delve into is meditation, and I know when I say meditation, depending on who I'm speaking to. Firstly, meditation means different things to different people.

Even on the practitioner side, the general public, and especially entrepreneurs. Meditation. Yeah, I've heard about that. I tried it. Can't do it. I've just given up. It doesn't happen. So let's start with the basics when we talk about meditation, Bob, when you talk about meditation, what does that mean for you?

I.

Bob Martin: Well, it doesn't mean quieting your mind and it doesn't mean having an empty mind, and it doesn't mean that my mind's not gonna drift and my mind's not gonna go crazy because it will and it does. I think the best way that I can describe it is this Jeffrey, I'm sure that there have been times when you've been telling somebody a joke and while you're telling 'em the joke, you're watching their response and there's a little voice that's going off in your head that's saying, oh, they're really gonna like this, or they're not getting it.

 you're just commenting on how you're [00:28:00] doing in the telling of the joke. Okay. That is the voice of meditation. And so what meditation is about intentionally allowing your mind to go crazy. So when it goes crazy, you're doing it. So that's the first misconception. And then if you can, very quickly you will learn to be able to watch intentionally.

Watch your mind go crazy. It's the watching of your mind going crazy that gets you back into touch with that same voice that was commenting in the joke. That voice is just happens. It doesn't happen intentionally, and it's like a little untrained, bratty boy. It just comes up and says whatever it wants.

It bothers you. It annoys you. It does this, does that. It says whatever it wants. There's no guardrails. When we start watching the craziness of our mind, so again, that's part of the [00:29:00] meditation, we really start to pay attention to that other little voice and that other little voice. Is much more objective once we connect with it again, once we watch it and be aware of it and consciously connect with it, we realize that is really the creator of our thinking, that we're not our thoughts, and from the place of being the observer of our thoughts.

When people talk about peace and tranquility and Lala Kumbaya associated with meditation, I. It's really when we are on the rollercoaster of life, and we're going on the nice stream, but then we go into the white water, then we go over the waterfall. If we connect with that other part of our consciousness and scientists are aware of it, they call it metacognition, thinking about our thinking, It's nothing woowee or crystally about it. It's just another function of our brain. When we cultivate that other function of the brain from that [00:30:00] place, there is a certain calmness of watching ourselves. Go nuts. We don't lose out at all on all of the rollercoaster of life. But at the same time, we have a very safe place to observe it from.

And from that place, there's a certain wisdom that arises that helps us begin to experiment and evaluate our behavior without judgment. 'cause it's a very nonjudgmental place. And when we do that. The side effect of it is that we start to increase our tolerance for discomfort, and we also set up a situation where we're always going off on a mind wander.

We notice it, we come back, we begin again, and we begin again, and we begin again. Every time we begin again, we're also increasing our self-efficacy, our confidence, and our sense of who we are. So what I would say meditation is ultimately, it is a [00:31:00] methodology for learning how to skillfully manage your thoughts.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Bob Martin: other people. Wouldn't it be nice if we could manage our thinking?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, so that said, and my goodness, there is so much that we could cover here. We're not gonna have the time for all of that. Let's fast forward to the end because that can really be the beginning of why we want to think about this. When I'm going into a practice of meditation as you're talking about this, and I put aside all the stereotypes of the frustrations of what I should be doing or not doing.

I'm actually going through your methodology, Bob. I know it's not just your methodology. This has been done for thousands of

Bob Martin: Right, right. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Everyone again, it's gonna be different. Generally speaking though, what would I expect to see or receive once I've really cemented in this practice of meditation? What kind of benefits would I expect?

Bob Martin: An authentic happiness.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Bob Martin: Happiness comes you might think of it this way. Happiness is the absence of suffering. It's the absence of pain. So as we develop a [00:32:00] tolerance for pain and suffering, our happiness naturally increases authentically. in, in eastern psychology, they say there are three things that stress us out wanting, not wanting, and not understanding. The, once you develop the skills, the basic skill of watching your mind go crazy and connecting back with that intuitive part of your brain, which you know is really half your brain. 'cause the right side of your brain is the rational side. The left side's all intuitive. And so those of us that don't pay attention to our intuition are really operating on half a brain.

So imagine for your entrepreneurs. What it would mean to have your whole brain working with you. It's like doubling your insight. Yeah. So the, antidotes to these three things that cause us are suffering, wanting, and not getting, not wanting and having,

And then not understanding are.

Cultivating generosity, compassion, [00:33:00] loving kindness and wisdom. So after you develop the ability to reduce the judgment that you have on yourself, and that ability to be able to watch your thoughts and be looking at your thinking from a more objective place, once you get that basic skill, which takes maybe 2, 3 weeks after that.

We turn around, we start working on cultivating the antidotes to stress and discomfort. And so as you build those up, you balance your mind. And when you have a balanced mind, you are just balancing.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So a balanced mind. I'm gonna make some assumptions here, and full disclosure, I've been doing meditation myself for many years, and so I've been there. And so the balanced mind, it's a clarity, it's a calmness. Perhaps the best way I can describe it, in the middle of a hectic day where the energy level is drained and there's pressure and there's stress coming out of a meditation session, at least for me, one word that comes to mind, reset. I come out of it. Wow, [00:34:00] okay. I feel like I just woke up from a full eight hour sleep and let's go. Let's do it. Bring it on. And putting me in a different, I'm gonna say mindset, but it's a mind shift for me of looking at things differently where I'm not so closed down from the stress, from the pressure where it's easy to say no, or perhaps yes, and it's a bad decision.

Okay, let me look at this from a different angle. Let me get curious and see what's going on here. Yes, this makes sense. No, this doesn't make sense to have that ability and when we apply that to being an entrepreneur to our business, we wanna grow profits today. We wanna sell the company maybe two years from now, 22 years from now.

That's a huge competitive edge if we're able to do that. How am I doing with that? What are your thoughts? I.

Bob Martin: You're absolutely right. metaphor that's right in line with what you're saying is driving, when you, if you've never driven a car and you're being taught how to drive, it's like really stressful. And, but after a while, you get in the car. You really don't have to think about it.

But if you really look at what's [00:35:00] happening, you're making these, you're balancing rebalancing, adjusting, readjusting. So you're constantly making these small little changes. Or even somebody that's standing on in tree standing yoga, if you look at their foot. They're balancing unbalanced, balance, unbalanced.

They're always making these slight little adjustments and making those slight little adjustments gives you a very smooth light because the only other option is to not make them and all of a sudden have a crash or a crash and burn, and then you have to make a big adjustment. So better to be, here and now and be able to make those slight little adjustments, those refinements.

That keep you, living and going with the flow in an effective and efficient way than losing it all.

Jeffrey Feldberg: For a listener in default Nation, they're hearing us talk and they're saying, yes, Bob, give me some of that. That sounds really good. There's a preface though, Bob, I've gotta tell you. [00:36:00] I've tried the other meditation methods and I've walked away frustrated or disappointed. So Bob, what would I be learning with you?

Okay, Bob, coming into myself, the leadership team, the company, help us get to that better state. What's your secret sauce? Let's pull back the curtain here. What's going on?

Bob Martin: Okay, the folks at Duke University several years ago were very concerned about their stressed out students. And four departments got together and they said, how can we teach meditation in an effective and efficient way to the Western mind?

So they developed a methodology and after I was classically trained.

Over a two year period. When I came to Elon, I found out about this went and got certified in the Kru method. What's different about Kru is I can say to you, give me one and a half hours personal, one-on-one time a week from five weeks, promise me you'll practice 10 minutes a day. That's all I'm asking, and I can get you there and I can.[00:37:00]

And I do because you get, there's an entire digital infrastructure that they created and it you have on your phone. We meet for an hour and a half. I teach you a couple of methods, maybe breath awareness and body scans, so please practice those this week. You go home with your phone. You say, today I'm gonna do a body scan.

There's a guided meditation. You do it, but then the log pops up and you log in. What that was like for you? Oh, I couldn't do it By the time I got to my knee, my mind was off and he said I couldn't focus and I didn't come back, and there was this dog barking and it really pissed me off and blah, blah.

That comes to my dashboard and every morning when I have a class, I get up at four o'clock in the morning and I read all my students' logs. But here's the cool part. I get to respond to them with the same kind of answers that we're talking about today, and that goes back to [00:38:00] their phone and before they do their 10 minutes, the next day, they get my feedback. So for five weeks, every single day they're getting coaching. Now you think about the training that you do and the like. If you had access to that kind of dialogue with your trainees, what kind of difference would it make? It only has to be, sometimes, I'll get a log and I'll just say, sweet.

Sometimes I'll get a log and there's three or four paragraphs going back. You. we'll talk about language. You are using the word focus. Focus has a lot of baggage on it. It's good if you can focus, it's bad if you can't focus. Let's see if we can find a different word. Let's call it wandering.

My mind wander. we start to make little changes in language. We start to make little nuances here and there in over a five week period. I can tell you. I can tell you authentically that any of my students that followed the directions that came to the meetings, one and a half hours, five weeks [00:39:00] and practiced their 10 minutes five times a week is enough.

Any of my students that did it had results that they were very happy with, and they say it changed their lives. I've never had one that didn't.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, so going through a proven process where someone like yourself is gonna be overseeing it, it's really like anything else. When I bring on an Advisor for the business, it could be an accountant as an example, or I'm going to an investment bank, or even I'm going through our flagship program here at Deep Wealth, a 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery program.

I'm removing the experimentation. I'm going with a tried and true system or individual who's been there, done that, and not to say that there's gonna be speed bumps along the way. Of course there's gonna be speed bumps. That said, I have the peace of mind. Okay? I'm in the hands of someone who's gonna guide me through that to help me get to the place where I need to get to.

How am I doing with that?

Bob Martin: You doing perfect.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so you've been through this personally, you've been working with others, entrepreneurs, non [00:40:00] entrepreneurs. Again, if you zoom out big picture wise and you talk about this in the book with what's going on with that's a whole other conversation. What would you want everyone in the default nation to know about once they've been going through this process and they've now made this not a to-do that I check off, okay, I'm gonna do this every day, once or twice a day.

Okay, I gotta check that off. Okay, done. Boom. Next. Where it's actually a ritual. It's part of the daily rhythm of their life. What's that looking like? Yeah,

Bob Martin: They call it a practice.

Jeffrey Feldberg: that's right.

Bob Martin: how many people go to a gym and sign up for the gym and get the trainer to show them all the machines? But you gotta get on the machine. You gotta get on the machine and you gotta work the machine. And it is a practice. And if you're gonna do it, then Understand, what the time commitment is and say, okay I'm going to give it a fair and decent shot. But what the most important thing to come away with is that I'm not my thoughts,

I'm not my thoughts. and. When [00:41:00] I am, my thoughts, when I am living inside of my thoughts, it's very small of a person compared to when I can step out of my thoughts and come to realize the freedom that comes with shucking off the conditioning and really understanding how big you are as the creator of your thoughts.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So we're getting into the ether out there with some of these bigger picture kinds of things, and certainly not on the business side, but more on mindset, big picture. And really when you think about it, I've always said the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions on the inside. It manifests itself on the outside.

So in other words, my inner thoughts, they manifest my outer world. And one of the things that we've been talking around, I'll just put it right out there and we'd love your thoughts on this. When I have my mindset in the right place, when I am removing to the best of my [00:42:00] abilities, that stress, when I have that joy, that fulfillment of how I was born to enjoy and experience, that's where magically, if I can use that word.

Things begin to happen in a good way because I am, whether I know it or not, I am allowing my focus to be in the right place and what we focus on, that's where the magic tends to happen and things begin to appear as opposed to being in that negative state or always press for time or always rushing around or being off the game.

Thoughts about that?

Bob Martin: think you're absolutely right, and I love the word allowing. When you allow yourself to follow, the things, uh. are calling out to you. that could be, it depends on, how deeply entrenched in the conditioning you might be. Things might be calling out to you that are not helpful.

But we once asked master knee why they call a master. And he chuckled and he says, bill, because I've mastered life. And so then we asked him, what does it mean to master [00:43:00] life? he one of those moments where he became serious and he said when you have learned to interfere the least and yet produce the appropriate results, you have begun to master life, which is so counterintuitive for, all of our Western thinking we think we have to do and get and bake and thick.

Know, and sometimes, it's just really a matter of allowing things to develop and then having the timing to pick the apple when it's just ripe. You pick it too fast, you struggle and you pull, and it doesn't come off the vine. Very easy and it's sour. Way too long. It drops in rots, but if you can pick it just right, it's very little energy and it's sweet.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so let me ask you this. You talk about this in your book, surrender Now here in the West, when we hear surrender, especially for entrepreneurs, and I'm gonna generalize, but I'm gonna go with it anyways. Okay, surrender. You're giving up, you're being weak. You gotta fight till the end. [00:44:00] You never give up.

Losers always quit. You look at surrender in a different way and in a more meaningful way. What would you want us to know here at the Deep Wealth Nation? About surrendering and the power behind surrendering and what? That's a gateway to.

Bob Martin: So when I think of the word surrender which, you know, I mean, being a westerner myself, I have all the same feelings about that. Like we never surrender and never give up. But, from a different perspective, surrendering. It can really mean aligning yourself with what's being called for by the circumstances around you.

If it is time to pause and you don't pause, it's not gonna go well, and if it's time to punch through and put out all your effort and you don't, then it's not gonna go well. Somebody asked me a question right around this once and it was, well, it's about retreat, so you say that there might be a time to retreat.

Well, retreat means giving up. And I said, [00:45:00] yeah, that's that means losing and I agreed that, from that perspective it is, but from the Dallas, from another perspective, if you. Miss the time to retreat and you stay in it, you'll lose the advantage of retreat.

Sometimes retreat means I have to pull back and regroup so I can come forward again. And there is a time when you can do that. But if you stay in the battle longer than that moment, you may have to retreat into loss. so if you retreat at the right time because it's called for, so that you'll be able to have the ability to regroup and come forward again.

Then there's nothing wrong with that retreat. That's the kind of surrender you wanna have.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And I'll share with you some of my biggest, I'll call them victories have come right after surrendering. And so there's a whole lot to that. That said, though, Bob, we are bumping up [00:46:00] again some time and before we go into wrap up mode, I. I know there are so many questions. I've just begun to scratch the surface, as they say.

So many questions I haven't to asked. Is there a question we haven't yet talked about or a message, a theme or a topic that you'd like to share with a Deep Wealth nation before we go into wrap up mode? I.

Bob Martin: Yeah and I'm only doing that because, as you were asking the question, I was looking around my desk and like I say I feel that we all have a responsibility to beauty and I have a lot of things that make me feel happy on my desk the symbol of the yin yang.

So let me just say what that means. Inside of the black, there's a white dot. Inside of the white, there's a black dot. Those aren't dots. They're seeds. They're seeds of the other. Inside of yang is the seed of yin, and inside of yin is the seed of yang.

And those seeds will blossom and they'll grow. And yin will take over yang and yang will take over yin. So this is a symbol of the fact that day turns tonight and night [00:47:00] turns today. Summer turns to winter and winter turns to summer. But what most people don't get is that good times are always followed by bad times and bad times by good times.

And if you look back on your life, you'll see that's true. So whenever things are going really well, don't coast. Always prepare. Put a little bit of your energy aside. Say something like the chipmunks do. Put some nuts in the hole. So when the nuts aren't around, you've got your savings and when things are bad, don't think it's gonna stay like that forever.

Just be patient, wait for the times to change and then you'll be able to move forward again. Try to align yourself with the cycling of the universe. Effective and efficient and successful.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's a terrific insight, especially for entrepreneurs as we're putting ourselves out there, we're vulnerable. We are surrendering whether we realize it or not, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. Another way of saying that here at Deep Wealth, and it's counterintuitive, the seeds of tomorrow's [00:48:00] failure are found in today's success,

Bob Martin: Absolutely.

Jeffrey Feldberg: and that could be an entire episode in and of itself. But that said, Bob, let's go into wrap up mode. It's a tradition here on the DePaul podcast. It's my privilege and honor where every guest I ask the same question. It's a fun question. Let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time.

Bob, it is tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside, it's waiting for you to hop on in which you do, the door is open. You're now gonna go to any point in your life, Bob, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be. What are you asking your younger self in terms of life wisdom, life lessons?

Hey Bob, do this, but don't do that. What would it sound like?

Bob Martin: Just tell you what comes to mind first. When I was in my early teens, I read To Kill a Mockingbird. I fell in love with Atticus Finch and my father, who was very eastern European and never [00:49:00] praised me listened to my recitation of the book and he reached out and he patted me on the head.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. Okay.

Bob Martin: We live most of our lives for looking, that dad can reach out from the grave and pat us on their head again.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, for sure. It's every son wants to get that recognition that the father sees us, hears us, recognizes us, even admires us. And so with that in mind, if you had to put that into a sentence or two to your younger self, what would that be? What advice would you be giving?

Bob Martin: You got this.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. Love it. You got this. Some terrific advice, and it really goes back to what you were talking about earlier. Another way of saying that this too shall pass. You got this in your highest of highs on the success side or in your lowest of lows. On the success side, you've got this. Either way. And to know that for better or for worse, sometimes it's either side of that.

Nothing is forever life. The universe is always moving and some terrific insights in there. We've just scratched [00:50:00] the surface. Bob so much more is there for a member of the Deep Wealth Nation, they have a question they'd like you to teach them or the team. How do I meditate? How do I get to this better place?

How do I welcome the surrendering in a good way that makes me not just a better entrepreneur, but a better person? Where would be the best place online to reach you, Bob? I.

Bob Martin: A Wise and happy life.com.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, A wise in Happy life.com and Deep Wealth Nation, it doesn't get any better. It's in the show notes. It is a point and click go there. You can go to Bob's website while you're at it. Pick up the book, read it, you'll come out of it a whole lot better. I am the way finding the truth and life through a biblical re-imagining of the towel.

And Bob, with all that said, congratulations, it's official. This is a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

Bob Martin: Live long and prosper. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that [00:51:00] said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth podcast on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

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So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper [00:53:00] while you remain healthy and safe. 

Thank you so much. 

God bless.