What if the life you're living isn't truly yours, but just a role you've been cast to play?
Many of us follow a script handed to us by society. Career success, family, stability - only to one day feel a deep emptiness inside. This episode explores how to recognise when you're stuck in a life that doesn't align with your true self and how to break free from the roles you've been conditioned to play.
- Discover the surprising moment that shattered Ray Martin’s CEO identity and launched him into 14 years of soul-searching and backpacking.
- Learn the transformative power of becoming your own observer, and how this shift can reduce suffering and elevate self-awareness.
- Understand how "confirmation signals" can guide major life decisions and help you trust your intuition during uncertain transitions.
Tap play to uncover the insights that can help you turn personal crisis into a path of purpose, peace, and profound authenticity.
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KEY POINTS AND TIMESTAMPS:
02:13 - Ray Martin's Background and Pre-Sabbatical Life
05:54 - Personal Crisis and Life Transformation
07:34 - Unexpected Acting Experience and Identity Revelation
09:12 - Decision to Take a Sabbatical
13:09 - Exploring Asia and Self-Discovery
17:36 - Navigating Life's Transition and Neutral Zone
19:17 - Vipassana Meditation and Inner Transformation
23:28 - Confirmation Signals and Intuitive Decision-Making
30:27 - Becoming Your Own Observer
38:08 - Finding Authenticity and Life's True Path
42:30 - Closing Insights and Advice to Younger Self
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MEMORABLE QUOTE:
"Trust that the universe has your back—just go where your energy takes you, and don’t worry, it will all be all right in the end."
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VALUABLE RESOURCES:
Ray's book: https://lifewithoutatie.com/
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To explore coaching with Agi: https://personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/mentor
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🎙️ Want to be a guest?
Message Agi on PodMatch: https://www.podmatch.com/member/personaldevelopmentmastery
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Personal development interviews exploring key principles of personal development, self improvement, self mastery, personal growth, self-discipline, and personal improvement — all supporting a life of purpose and fulfilment.
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Personal development podcast offering self-mastery and actionable wisdom for self help and living with purpose and fulfilment.
A self improvement podcast with inspirational and actionable insights to help you cultivate emotional intelligence, build confidence, and embrace your purpose. Discover practical tools and success habits for motivation, personal growth, self mastery, mindset shifts, growth mindset, self-discipline, meditation, wellness, spirituality, personal mastery, self growth, and personal improvement. Personal development interviews and mindset podcast content empowering entrepreneurs, leaders, and seekers to nurture mental health, commit to self-improvement, and create meaningful success and lasting happiness.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Agi Keramidas (00:00):
What if your career is just a role insights
on living authentically from a14 year sabbatical? Welcome to
Personal Development mastery,the podcast that helps
intelligent, busy professionalsdevelop self mastery and gain
clarity so you can thrive in afulfilling, purposeful life.
(00:24):
Join us every Monday for aninsightful conversation with a
guest, and it's Thursday for ashorter episode where I reflect
and share with you. I'm yourhost, Agi Keramidas, and this is
episode 530 Agi 30 if you arelooking to live more
(00:44):
authentically and break freefrom societal expectations, this
conversation with my guest, RayMartin explores how stepping out
of your scripted identity canlead to true inner peace and
purpose. By listening today, youare going to learn the
(01:05):
transformative power of becomingyour own observer, and how this
can reduce suffering and elevateself awareness. You will also
understand how confirmationsignals can guide major life
decisions and help you trustyour intuition during
(01:25):
uncertainty. If you are feelingstuck in a life that no longer
fits or questioning the role youhave been playing, then this
episode is for you before wedive in, if you are in a life or
career transition and resonatewith the topics we discuss here,
(01:47):
I offer one to one coaching andmentoring to help you find
clarity and move forward withpurpose curious To explore what
that could look like for youvisit personal development
mastery podcast.com/mentor, orjust tap the link in the show
(02:07):
notes. Now, let's get started.
Today, it is my real pleasure tospeak with Ray Martin, also
known as the daily explorer.
Ray, ray, you are anentrepreneur, a business leader,
speaker, a mindfulness teacherand author of life without a
(02:28):
tie. After a series of lifealtering events, you left behind
your role as a successful CEOand set off on what was meant to
be a six month sabbatical, thatjourney turned into 14 years of
global exploration and innertransformation. You're
(02:48):
passionate about guiding leadersto break free from societal
expectations so that they canlive with authenticity, inner
peace and purpose they I amdelighted to speak with you
today. Welcome.
Ray Martin (03:05):
Thank you very much.
What a lovely, lovelyintroduction. Thank you. Well,
Agi Keramidas (03:09):
what a what an intriguing story. This is. I'm
sure you hear that a lot that itis not something very common,
and I'm looking forward todiscussing some of the wisdom
that you have collected on thisadventure, I will call it that
for sure. The thing I would liketo start with, Ray tell us about
(03:37):
the before. I mean, when youdecided to take that sabbatical,
what was going on and what madeyou, you know, take that
decision?
Ray Martin (03:47):
Yeah, that's a great question. I'd ever since I grew
up, grew up at school, you know,I'd always been told by parents
and people that I knew as adultsback then, in the 60s, you know,
the way to be happy was to justget a really good job, get
married, have a family, get ahouse, etc, etc. So I was
(04:08):
following that, what I call themainstream life. But actually,
recently, someone referred tothat as an off the shelf life
story, which I think is muchbetter phrase than mine. But I
was following that, you know,dutifully. And so I reached the
age of about 42 and I was theCEO of a company I founded, five
or six years earlier, aconsulting business doing
(04:29):
leadership development andcoaching and training. And I
founded the company with mygirlfriend, who is now my wife,
and so we were husband and wife,management team and business
partners in this venture, and itwas really successful. I'd
become Daily Telegraph BusinessLeader of the Year in 2000 to my
work as a CEO. And on thesurface, Ray's life looked
(04:50):
brilliant. But deep insidemyself, I have to say, I wasn't
really ever fully happy in thatlife, because I. To put it into
one sentence, I felt like I wasliving someone else's life. And
this was talked about in BronnieWare's book, you know, the Top
Five Regrets of the Dying whenshe said, when she asked dying
(05:11):
people what they most regretabout their life, they all say
the same five things. And thetop thing was, I wished I'd live
my life true to myself and notthe life that others expected of
me, and I used to sort of wonderit in my most private moments,
you know, what was I doing thatwas causing me to feel like that
could never really answer. Inever really traced the source
of it. And then one day, my wifecame back from a meeting and
(05:35):
said, I'm leaving you and I'mleaving the company. It was
really sudden. It was incrediblyshocking and impactful, and I
could see that it was going tochange everything. And whilst
that was going on, my father gotvery ill, and he died shortly
afterwards. And so within aboutthree or four months, Agi, I was
(05:57):
out of my home. I was out mymarriage, my dad had gone. I was
leaving the company I founded.
It was a desperately happy timefor me. It was broken. And
someone that said to me, about ayear into my paralysis of being
completely, you know, just downwith it all, of not seeing any
future, someone made asuggestion to me. They said, You
(06:20):
know, one of the ways you canget yourself out of a funk like
this sometimes is forget aboutyourself for a while and just go
and help someone else, 100% gointo service there. So that's
what I decided to do. I went toAustralia, where a friend of
mine had breast cancer. Hername's Elizabeth, and I wrote
about her in the book. And Isaid, can I just come and look
(06:40):
after you for a month while youhave your chemotherapy and stuff
like that? Because her husbandwas working full time, she had a
young son, she said, that'd begreat. So I did that. But no,
nothing changed inside me,except in the last week of my
stay in Australia, I went up tosee some friends in Cairns, and
they said, We're going to thetheatre tonight. You want a
(07:02):
ticket? Do you want to come? Isaid, Okay, so I went to the
theatre, and during the intervalof the play, we're watching, I'm
looking at the programme, and Isee my attention keeps drawing
to the corner of the page. Itsays, We're auditioning for the
next play. It's a British playcalled out of order. It's about
a Member of Parliament. And Isaid to my friends, for a joke,
I should be in that play. I'vegot the perfect English accent,
(07:23):
but I wasn't an actor, or I wasonly kidding, but they seriously
turned around to me and said,Well, we know the director of
the play, why don't you go tothe audition? Think you'd be
good. And I said, that's crazy.
Come on, I'm going back toEngland in three days. They're
never going to pick me mylimiting beliefs were just
spouting forward. I'm not anactor. I've got no training, and
(07:46):
anyway, I can't afford to do it.
I need to pay all the bills athome and pay my mortgage. In
episode, they said, Well, whydon't you just go for fun?
You'll be here. You know, forgetabout trying to get in the play.
So I did, and I went to thisplay, and to cut a very long
story short, the director askedme if I would take the lead role
in the play, which was like,well, biggest 400 lines in the
script. Central character,comedic, Bethune. So lots of
(08:11):
difficult challenges as anactor, a crazy voice I'd have to
do to be George pickden. And mysister in law's an actress, so I
called her, and she said, couldI do this? She said, Yeah, I was
already back in London after theaudition when I got this call.
And so I went back and did theplay two, two days after these
(08:33):
conversations, and it and itreally completely changed my
thinking, because as I wasflying back to London after
three months of doing the play,I realised that I was feeling a
lot of dread as Ray thebusinessman resuming that old
life. And I thought, what's thatabout? And I went, oh my god,
Ray the businessman is acharacter that I play. It's not
(08:54):
me. And I never, ever, ever,until that experience, thought
of myself as a character I wasplaying. I just thought me, the
businessman was me and and thenthat, that realisation had me go
right. As Anthony Robbins saysin his book, you are not just
the actor in your story. You'rethe director and the script
(09:18):
writer too. So you can movebetween those positions. And I
thought, does Ray, thecharacters character need to be
changed, or does he need adifferent situation? Or should
we just kill the seriescompletely and say it's over?
And I decided to kill the seriescompletely and say it's over. I
don't want to be businessman anylonger, at least not for a
(09:38):
while. And and that led me tofollow the advice. My friend in
Australia went to see the playwith it said, why don't you take
a six months sabbatical andreally work out a new path for
yourself? And I laughed at firstwhen she said, I said, That's
ridiculous. I'm not wasting mytime doing the six months of
Article backpacking. What's thepoint of that? You know that.
(09:58):
Now, in light of the play andthe inside hat, it just seemed
like a really good idea, sothat's what got me to start
sabbatical is a very longanswer. I hope that's okay. It
Agi Keramidas (10:08):
was fascinating.
And I will make a stop at theone of the last, the final
things that you said, because Ithink it is very insightful, and
transformation atransformational once someone
begins to realise it. And thatis what you said about that you
were playing the role of Ray,the businessman, yeah, and that
(10:29):
role, or that identity that manyof us, you know, assume, let's
say, professionally, for thiscontext, there are others, but
it is. It is a role. We stepinto it. At some point we will
step out of it. And it is achoice, and is a very big
realisation. Thank you for
Ray Martin (10:52):
Yeah, it was quite astonishing, because to become
George pickden, the character inthe play, I had to ask the
director of the play, you know,what clothes does he wear?
What's his voice? How does hewalk? How does he sit? What does
he think? Where did he go toschool? You know, all of these
things I had to learn andactually pretend to be. And I
didn't realise that over theyears and years I'd been in
(11:15):
business, I learned to becomeRay the businessman, because it
happened so gradually and sounconsciously, without me even
thinking about it, I just madeassumptions every day, that that
was me, you know, and that'swhat I needed to do. And so me
and my character become wedded,like, a bit like, I don't know,
David Schwimmer, who used toplay Ross in friends, you know,
(11:36):
he didn't want to be Ross forthe rest of his acting life, you
know, I think he struggled tofind a new role, but I didn't
want to be Ross for the rest ofmy life. You know, yeah,
Agi Keramidas (11:50):
you talked about stepping into a new character,
and what comes to for me to askis from someone who listening
now that has identified with thecharacters for a long time, of
their role, as we were saying,the role that they have been
(12:12):
playing, and they have been, youknow, feeling the the desire, or
the nods, if you want, There issomething else or another role.
Now that we the word role soundsin both ways. What would you say
to that person to perhaps,facilitate, you know, going
(12:35):
towards the direction of what'sauthentic to themselves? That's
how I see it,
Ray Martin (12:40):
yeah, I mean, basically, essentially, you need
new data from life. Basically,you know, I lived off all the
data that I'd ever taken onboard to become the person I
was. And I I couldn't shift mythinking, really, without new
data. So I decided to go to apart of the world where I
thought I might get some newunderstanding, new insight. And
(13:02):
I went to Asia because in Asiathere's a lot of Buddhism,
mysticism, you know, Easternphilosophy, that kind of thing.
And I was really curious,because I'd sort of had, you
know, some connection with thatthrough my development and
spiritual journey, but really ata distance, not not really in my
(13:23):
face. And I was really curiousto find out more about how do
you get to know yourself? How doyou develop self awareness? How
do you really discover who youare? And I thought, I'm never
going to find that out. Amongstmy friends in London, they just
think the same as me. They'vegot the same mindset as me.
They're not going to challengeme to do that. So I wanted to go
(13:45):
somewhere completely unfamiliarin every way possible. Now, you
don't have to go abroad to dothis. There's loads of places
you can do it, even in the UK orwherever you are. But for me,
because I didn't have children,when I got divorced, and I was,
you know, financially, able tosupport myself for a while, I
decided that I want to be abackpacker and just live
(14:06):
modestly and frugally. And, youknow, find out more about life.
Just take on board a whole loadof new data and and just like
opening a big box of Lego on thefloor and just see all the
pieces fall out and go, Okay,what can I What can I build with
this? That was essentially my,my quest. But the question I was
(14:28):
trying to answer was the Bronyware question, what does living
life true to myself actuallylook like, feel like and sound
like for me? Because I had noidea. It certainly wasn't being
a CEO, but I didn't know whatthat would be replaced with.
Agi Keramidas (14:45):
And I think no one does, unless they start
taking some steps towards thatdirection. Yeah, it's really
from my knowledge comes as a,you know, an insight, like an
epiphany, that now I knoweverything you. Exactly You
said. And I want to discuss thiswith you, because I find it
fascinating. They use the wordquest earlier. I said adventure.
(15:09):
I think it is very both are veryappropriate words, so during
your quest, but also a physicaladventure, backpacking, going
places. I can only imagine thatyou had to be very, let's say
flexible, and probably the wordthat really, and I don't want to
(15:34):
beat around the bush, I will saythe word that I want to use, and
it's the word surrendering towhat happens correct, and
perhaps going towards onedirection which doesn't
necessarily is the directionthat your mind or your fears
would take you to. But yes,doing it anyway. So I wanted to
(15:55):
hear your, you know, insightsfrom this particular element,
because I'm sure you've hadmany,
Ray Martin (16:02):
yeah, yeah,
Agi Keramidas (16:04):
times like this,
Ray Martin (16:05):
yeah, yeah. There's a couple of things to say here.
I've got to be honest and say Ifound the transition of leaving
London as an affluentbusinessman to being a very
modest, budget driven anonymousbackpacker. I found that
transition really difficult. Youknow, in the first couple of
months when I was in Thailand,you know, I get very irritated
(16:28):
if my my meal wasn't brought tome in the restaurant, you know,
within a certain time that I wasused to. Or, you know, in Asia,
nothing works like it does inEngland. And so you can often
get your dessert coming beforeyour main course, and two people
dying together don't get theirfood at the same time. And
that's normal there. But I wassort of enraged by some of this
stuff, going, don't you know whoI am? You know, Don't you
(16:51):
realise I was somebodyimportant? Once I could see my
my ego and mind, you know,really agitated most of the
time. And I was also carrying alot of fear and anxiety about
having been a failure as ahusband, you know, having had to
face the shame of being left bymy partner, and having to admit
(17:12):
and acknowledge that I wasn'tperfect by a long shot, even
though I sort of had a personaof success as a business leader
and had these awards to proveit, etc, but behind the scenes,
it was chaos, and so I had a lotof guilt and shame about that,
and a lot of fear about how Iwas going to reshape my life, or
if I ever could, because Ithought I would never be happy
again. I was in so much painfrom the losses, so I had all
(17:36):
that going on, and I couldn'tget calm. I couldn't make sense
of it. I was in a transition, asWilliam Bridges calls it. And in
his book on transitions, whichone of the best books on the
subject that I've ever comeacross, he says, you have an
ending and then later a newbeginning. And there's this
period in the middle, whichhardly anyone acknowledges,
(17:59):
which is different. It's gotdifferent rules to the ending
and the beginning, and it couldlast a week, a month, a year,
but in that he calls it theneutral zone. You're in the
neutral zone, different rulesapply. Don't take action for
actions sake. Only maketemporary structures look after
yourself in little ways that youdon't normally, because
everything's going to bedifferent. Nothing's going to
(18:20):
make sense in the neutral zonebecause the same rules don't
apply. So I recognised I was inthis place. I'd left my old
life, but I didn't know what mynew life would be, and so I was
in this weird transition. So Iwas doing everything I could to
help myself be calm. And in theend, I sat down and I you
probably see that I think you'vegot a copy of the book I wrote
(18:41):
these 10 guiding principles formyself because I thought I need,
I need some psychological guardrails to protect my mind from
the agony it's in while I'm inthis transition, if I don't, if
I'm not careful, I'll go crazy,I'll flip out. You know, I need
to stay sane, and I need to keepopen and keep my quest alive,
(19:02):
and have the faculty to searchand then process information and
not be disturbed all the time.
And so I wrote these 10 guidingprinciples to help myself,
purely for myself, just to helpmyself have an easier time. And
as that's why I included them inthe book, because they were like
my guardian angels. Those 10Principles, they kept me safe
until someone said to me, haveyou ever thought about doing a
(19:27):
Vipassana meditation retreat?
And I said, I didn't even knowwhat that was, Agi Vipassana.
What's that? I said, Well, yougo into a Buddhist monastery for
10 days, you sit in silence for10 days, you don't speak to
anybody at all, and you justmeditate with the monks, and you
follow the programme that theyrun. And you get an opportunity
to observe your own mind andstart getting deep self
(19:49):
awareness, you know, andunderstanding how these the
cycle of craving works, andthings like this. And I thought,
Oh, my God, I've never beenquiet for more than 10 minutes.
How can. I can't imagine 10days, but I did that. I went
into the monastery after sixmonths, and when I came out, I
was like a different man. It'slike someone if had a, if I had
(20:09):
a volume knob on the side of myhead when I went in, and it was
up 10 out of 10 noise in my headwhen I left, it was like turned
down to one hour 10. I hadn'tgone completely, but it was, it
was hardly there. I was so quietand so calm and so grounded and
so kind of serene on the inside,I realised that, you know, I was
(20:30):
causing a lot of my own anxietythrough through the way I was
thinking, which I'd neveroccurred to me before.
Agi Keramidas (20:38):
I've also done it in Dave persona meditation. So I
Yeah, you know, I know, yes, itwas in in store market, in
Suffolk, so it was, I know whatyou say, but before the the
noise or the loudness goes downfor me, it went up much more
than it was. Yeah, I'll comeback okay, to something you said
(21:02):
about the transition. You saidabout the neutral zone. And
thank you. That is, I think,very useful to think of it as
such. I suppose one of thethings that are scary about
being in that neutral zone isthat you don't know exactly when
it's going to end. It might beyou said, it might be a week. It
(21:23):
might be much, much longer. Soduring that time, when you are
in that neutral zone, and it'sstill not 100% clear of how your
next life or your next role, aswas saying, is going to be, what
are you talk about, confirmationsignals? And I would like to
(21:46):
ask, what is the role of thewhat Sudan will be looking for
when they are in that neutralzone, you know, to gain strength
from and for social trust thatI'm going through this, there is
an end
Ray Martin (22:02):
to that. Yeah, yeah.
That's a great, great thing totalk about, how it occurs to me.
Well, first of all, the idea ofconfirmation signals. I learned
that originally as a pilot whenI was flying aeroplanes, because
when you're when I learned howto fly, which was in the 90s,
they didn't have GPS in thecockpits, you had to fly using a
map and a ground recognition andused radio instruments. So if
(22:26):
you, for example, if you're inLondon, you wanted to fly to
Brighton. There's an inchthere's a beacon on the ground
in Brighton called a vor and itemits a radio frequency. It's
got a certain number, it's in abook. So you tune the instrument
in your cockpit to the Brightonfrequency, and it's got a couple
of decimal places, digits afterthe dot, and you think, right up
(22:46):
the needle in your cockpitstarts to point to that beacon,
and so you fly in the directionof the needle. It's perfect
system. However, if you don'tconfirm that you've chosen the
right beacon from the book, youare flying down the needle to
the wrong place, so you need toget a secondary confirmation.
And the way it works in theaeroplane is you press a button
on your control column, and youget an audio signal in your ear.
(23:10):
It's Morse code, and it kind ofgoes and the signal is, it is
unique to that beacon. So if youdon't hear the unique signal of
that beacon. You know you'vechosen the wrong one. If you
hear the signal, it's confirmedthat you are going in the right
direction. And so I was lookingI thought that's a really good
metaphor for me. For me everytime I had to make a decision, I
(23:33):
thought, I'll get a confirmationsignal if I can. So for example,
I'll give you some concreteexamples. When I came back from
Australia, after looking aftermy friend, I was offered the
part in the play. It was amassive decision, because I was
already back in London. I hadbills to pay. I was on my own
now, my wife had left, and I hadthree or four clients that I'd
(23:55):
lined up while I was away whowanted me to do work. And they
said, Can you help us? I said,Well, I only want to get back.
If you can wait till I get back,I can do it. And so I obligated
myself and made commitments thatI'll definitely do this when I
come back. And as soon as Iarrived, I got the offer to do
the play, and it was like reallydisturbed me, because on one
hand, I really wanted to keep myword and promise to these
(24:16):
people, and I needed the money.
And on the other hand, there wassomething compelling about going
to do the play as like, as ifGod wanted me to do it. It was
it. Was it. I couldn't makesense of it rationally, but
there was my inner wisdom wastelling me, you must go and do
that play. So I was in adilemma. I didn't want to let
anyone down. I didn't want totake a risk, but I didn't want
(24:38):
to miss the opportunity. Ithought, What do I do? What's my
confirmation signal? So I wouldI? What I decided was I would
get the blessing of each personwho I duplicated myself to. So I
called each one and I told themexactly what had happened. I
didn't make up a story or lie. Isaid, this is what happened. I
went to Australia, I did thisaudition. I unexpectedly been
offered the lead part, and Ifeel like my. Soul wants to do
(25:00):
it, but I don't want to let youdown, so I'm going to go and do
it. I'll only do it if you sayyou go with my blessing, and you
can help me when you come back,if you tell me you give me your
blessing, that I'll go and doit. If you say, No, I want you
here, I will definitely 100%stay here. And all four of them
said, go with my blessing. If Iwas you, I would go. And that
gave me a confirmation signalthat I was doing the right
Agi Keramidas (25:22):
thing. Four of them, four signals, yeah,
Ray Martin (25:26):
four signals. But you know, I needed, I needed. It
was like an all or nothing. Ifeven one had said, Stay, I would
have stayed. I would havestayed. It's a
Agi Keramidas (25:33):
very bold and courageous way to make that
Ray Martin (25:38):
decision, yeah, but I knew, then I knew it was
right. Yeah,
Agi Keramidas (25:42):
definitely. And you don't have any possibility
of regret because you went witha blessing. That's amazing.
Ray Martin (25:48):
Yeah, I've got, I've got more examples, but we'll
come back to them if you wantto. But
Agi Keramidas (25:54):
definitely, I mean, give us one more example,
because it is, yeah.
Ray Martin (26:00):
So I've been travelling about four or five
years in you know, by the time Ileft in 2005 I was around about
2010 in that period, I'd hadloads of conversations with
fellow travellers over coffees,over supper in the hostels I was
staying in, and things likethat. And it all asked me, How
did I start travelling and why?
And I told them these stories,and they just listen and listen.
(26:23):
And at the end of thoseevenings, some people said to
me, can I give you my emailaddress? Ray? I say, why? They
say, well, because we love whatyou taught. And if you ever
write a book with some of thesestories in it, we definitely
like to read it. And I laughed.
I said, God, I don't know whatyou think. You know, I'm not
doing any of this to write abook. I'm doing this because I'm
(26:44):
I was a broken person. I'mtrying to heal myself and find
out an answer to my quest. Thisis for me. I'm not doing this to
be an author. I've never writtenanything except a blog I was
writing, and by the time I gotto 2010 I I'd had about 100
email addresses on this list.
And I thought suddenly dawned onme, oh, my god, the universe
wants me to write a book. I keepgetting one or two people every
(27:05):
month give me their addresses.
How could I not see this? Howdid I miss this message that
I've been called to write a bookabout this? So I thought, I
don't know how to write I don'tknow how to write a book. I
don't know what's in a book. Ibetter learn. So then, as I was
thinking this, I'm not kidding,literally, within a couple of
days on Facebook, which is stillquite new, in 2010 on Facebook,
(27:29):
someone had advertised that theywere coming from New York to
Chiang, Mai, where I wasstaying, to run a five day
writers course. And it was helpanyone who was interested in
writing a book, learn all thebasics and be begin the journey,
and they'd know everything theyneeded to. And this, she was a
published author and a literaryagent, Big Shot, and she wanted
(27:51):
$1,200 for her course, which isway beyond what I could afford.
And it looked like it was forpeople who'd already written. So
I wrote to her, and I said, I'mlooking for something to get
myself going. I said, I'm notsure if this is the right thing
for me for two reasons. One isit looks like it's for people
with a track record. And two isit's $1,200 I said, I've never
(28:14):
written a thing in my life.
Would I be in the way if Ijoined the course, or would I be
a nuisance? Can I do it as abeginner. And the second thing
is, I can't afford $1,200 but Icould pay $500 if you'd let me
do the course. And she wroteback and said yes and yes, and I
knew that was a confirmationsignal, right course,
Agi Keramidas (28:36):
and a very good discount Yes,
Ray Martin (28:38):
because I just knew once I got confirmation on those
two things, and it was, that'swhat I meant to be doing,
Agi Keramidas (28:44):
absolutely, you know, you you the word
synchronicities came to my mindwhen I heard these things that
you said. And it is, howwonderful confirmation that
there is more there. Yeah, onthe path. Ray, well, I know
(29:07):
there are about 150 other topicsthat I could go with you today.
However, there is certainly onemore thing I wanted to at least
briefly touch upon and I willswitch gears. Yes. Now so you
have in your book, which, by theway, you were mentioning your
book, I will show it here, whichis a the word massive. Well,
(29:31):
it's huge. It's over 400 pages,which is a
Ray Martin (29:37):
long period to write about.
Agi Keramidas (29:41):
Definitely in there you have, like towards the
end, you talk about the sixrules for happiness. Yeah, there
is one in particular that Iwould like to hear you know your
thoughts about i. Sure love tohear your thoughts about all of
(30:01):
them. Okay, however, for youknow the practicalities of the
time we have together, the onethat I'm very much interested in
to hear how you interpret it andhow you advise someone you know
to apply this rule is the onethat says, become your own
(30:24):
observer. Yeah,
Ray Martin (30:27):
yeah. Well, I learned this when I was in the
monastery. That's where my firstinsight into this came, because
I sat for 10 days and watchedmyself sitting with all my
thoughts passing through mymind, and I realised, gosh, at a
certain point, it became clearto me that I wasn't my thoughts.
And that sounds like a verycliche thing to say, but if you
(30:49):
can observe yourself having athought going like right now, I
go, Oh, I notice I'm enjoying myconversation with Agi. So I'm
noticing that I'm thinking thatI'm enjoying this that's
different to me just beingconsumed in the thought. I'm
just enjoying it. And so thatability to put ourselves in the
(31:11):
third person role and observeourselves having thoughts means
we're not the thoughtsthemselves. We're the awareness
or the consciousness that isaware that we are having that
thought. So what I am is theawareness, not the thought. Now,
I never had this separation inmy thinking before, and I
realised that was a verypowerful way of looking at life,
(31:32):
because it meant that I didn'tneed to be necessarily agitated
or annoyed or angry or upsetcertain events because I wasn't
the person that was upset, I wasjust the person noticing I felt
like that. And it sounds like areally subtle thing, but it's a
massive shift in awareness, andit's saved me an awful lot of
(31:55):
suffering over the years to havethat awareness. And what it does
is it enables you to sit quitehigh up on the ladder of
accountability for your life.
You know, because if you don'thave that awareness, it's very
easy to blame circumstances oranother person for an event that
doesn't go according to plan. Sofor example, it's very common in
social conversations, oh, I'msorry, I'm late. The train was
(32:16):
late. Now that sounds fairlyinnocent, fair enough. But the
real truth is, I'm sorry I'mlate. I chose to get on a train
that there was a didn't leaveearly enough that if there was
any event where it would bedelayed, I would be late, and I
didn't. I chose to not thinkabout those particular
contingencies and consequences,because it wasn't that important
(32:38):
to me, and had I felt it was soimportant, there's no way I was
going to be like I would havegot a train an hour earlier. So,
you know, we're just not we'rejust used to in our social
dialogues to skip those things,but most of us live at quite a
low level of accountability,really honestly, on those sorts
of things, if we really thinkabout it. So having this ability
(32:59):
to be an observer really makesyou fully accountable for owning
everything that you do, thinkand say, and all the events that
happen around you, becauseyou're co authoring those
events, whether you know it ornot or like it. This is how I
see it. That's a good answer.
Agi Keramidas (33:22):
And accountability will also add,
not only to others, selfaccountability, also for, you
know, taking responsibility foreverything, of course, because I
will have to say that on thebecause it is challenge for many
as you, I'm sure know being amindfulness teacher that
(33:47):
becoming your own observer isnot necessarily something that
is easy or natural, or it canhappen once in a while, And then
you get carried away with thethought many, many times, and
then you realise, oh yes, theobserver had gone. So what's
(34:10):
your advice to someone who, yes,knows what you mean about
becoming your own observer, butthey're not in a, let's say
level. If I can use that word tobecome that often, or at least
as often as it would reallycreate that effect that you were
(34:32):
saying earlier.
Ray Martin (34:34):
Well, everyone's got to find their own way to this
kind of understanding. It's notone way that works for
everybody. But I would encourageanyone listening to to really
reflect deeply on what they whatthey say and do, because your
action, your behaviour, let'ssay, is mostly driven by how you
(34:55):
feel when you're in the momentwith whoever you're with, the
feeling that you're having. Andthe feeling is driven mostly by
your thinking. So we live in asort of, think, feel, behave,
universe. That's how that's howit occurs to me, and your
thinking is determined bysomething even deeper, which is
like, what are my preconceptionsand expectations of life?
(35:18):
Because often people sort ofsay, oh, that really upset me,
but they don't realise. They'renot consciously aware of the
fact they're holding a belief orexpectation of how that should
be in life and how that eventshould be and how it actually
are. Is is a different now youif you the different the
(35:38):
suffering is the gap between howit should be and how it actually
is. This gap causes a feeling ofsuffering. If you didn't have
the expectation at all, and youwere just observing as if you're
from another planet, and youremove the expectation and just
you're left with how it how itis, then there's no suffering,
because it's just how it is. Youjust accept it is the way it is,
(36:00):
and there is no gap, because theexpectation has been removed.
But you cannot remove theexpectation to your conscious
that you're holding it.
Agi Keramidas (36:10):
Thank you. You reminded me I was having a
conversation recently, and myguest was saying, let's change
the expectation. Yeah, with theword preference, yeah? Because
it really takes away all thepressure that, yeah, it's so
much mild,
Ray Martin (36:26):
yeah, yeah. And we all have these, even, you know,
I have them, you know, I expectpeople to be on time if they've
agreed to meet me. That's thingslike this. We all have them, and
we've also got mild levels ofirritation sometimes, if these
things don't work out, but it'swhether or not we can see those
as just being part of ourcomputer software, and they're
(36:48):
really meaningless in some ways,and whether we can let go and
surrender to what, what's,what's actually happening, and
just accept reality, becausemost of us are Fighting with our
realities a lot of
Agi Keramidas (37:02):
the time. And you know, when you think about the
expectation, many of them arejust some programmes that are
running. They're not even reallyour expectations, but we still,
you know, allow them to, yeah,
Ray Martin (37:17):
I have my dad in my mind, who passed away years ago,
sort of saying, you know, alwaysbe on time, right?
Agi Keramidas (37:24):
I remember also a phrase I have learned from Tony
Robbins, and it is to be earlyis to be on time. Yes. You know,
it's great for me to live bythat standard, yes, but I can't
expect everyone to be I wouldlove to, yeah, I prefer to now.
Rather than experience, I usethe word prefer.
Ray Martin (37:44):
And that means, you know, it's a challenge to our
belief system, because ifsomeone's a minute late, it
means they don't care. Theydon't care. They don't care
about this. Of course, it's nottrue. It's absolutely not true
our own rule, yeah,
Agi Keramidas (37:58):
yeah. We attach this inference to this event.
Ray, what a fascinatingconversation. As I'm going to
start wrapping things up, what Iwould like to ask you to tell us
next is direct the listenerwhere you want them to go and
(38:20):
carry the journey with you. I'msure they have been intrigued by
you and fascinated with thisbrief conversation.
Ray Martin (38:28):
Yeah, I mean, I in my in my belief system of life,
I believe that we're all tryingto find our way home, as I call
it. You know, that to that placeof peace and contentment and
where we feel like we're livingour fully authentic self.
Finding your own true path isthe way I say it. And so, you
know, I just want to beencouraging to anyone who feels
(38:51):
like they're quite slightly offtheir centre line or looking for
that just to keep exploring, tokeep going, keep investing in
that journey. It's what it'sreally worth it in my
experience, and just wanted tobe a torch bearer for that kind
of awareness around it.
Essentially, of course, I workwith people. I am a coach
myself, so I do actually workwith people to help support them
(39:11):
on that journey. But I wouldencourage anyone to do it in
their own way. You know what?
Get find what support andresources they need, because
it's definitely worth it. Andwhen you're in that place, a
couple of things happen whichare really unexpected gifts. One
is I found through doing itmyself, during the life without
(39:32):
a time journey, I can not onlydo you get confirmation signals
right, we talked about thethings happen with with so much
ease that they feel effortless,literally effortless, like
there's no trying. You just haveyour intention set it out really
clearly and within minutes orhours sometimes, but certainly
within days, something's comingtowards you that exactly is what
(39:54):
you need. And so there's aneffortlessness to live in when
you're in alignment. With whoyou truly are, and you're on
your right path, it becomeseffortless. And that's why I
think it's worth the struggle.
Because there's a you get in theslipstream of life and you get
pulled and it's lovely. So Idefinitely think that's that's a
good reason to do it.
Agi Keramidas (40:17):
I wrote that down because it was spoke to me as
well as I'm sure it has spokento many. Ray I have two
questions that I always ask myguests at the end, and the first
one is, what does personaldevelopment mean to you?
Ray Martin (40:38):
Personal Development? Wow, my answer to
that would probably be a sort ofrelentless pursuit of Wisdom and
Knowledge and Being curious. Ithink for me, that's a big part
of it. You know, when we get tothe point where we think we know
it all, we don't, there'snothing more, we're in big
(41:00):
trouble. I mean, I just had torecord an intro video. I'm doing
some coaching on a workshop in acouple weeks. We were asked to
do a one minute intro video topeople, and the question we were
asked to answer was, what's mostcommonly misunderstood about
you? And I said, Okay, well, I'ma 64 I'm an accomplished CEO and
a coach, and I've had loads oflife experience. So what people
(41:21):
commonly misunderstand is thatthey think I know everything
they think of success comesreally easy to me, and I'm
confident, and I I've got strongopinions about everything in
business and leadership andthat, you know, I'm infallible.
Well, you couldn't be furtherfrom the truth. You know, every
single day, I look at otherpeople who do what I do, and I
think, God, they're going tofind out I'm not very good at
(41:42):
this. I don't really know whatI'm doing. Gosh, they only knew
how much I struggle with some ofthese things myself. You know,
imposter syndrome is somesomething I've lived with my
whole life. It's never goingaway. It's never ever gonna
stop. It's always there. It'slike a it's like an unwanted
companion who won't go away. Andthrough becoming my own
(42:03):
observer, I've just been able tohear and see that voice and just
say, Hello, you're back. Hi.
Just stay over there. Keep wellaway from me. You know, don't
need you. Thanks.
Agi Keramidas (42:16):
A quick hypothetical question, also, if
you could go back in time andmeet your 18 year old self.
What's one piece for one pieceof advice you would give him?
Ray Martin (42:30):
Well, this on a practical level, I would have, I
would have said, you know, tomake much better use of the
financial resources I had when Iwas 18, which I didn't have any
sense around at all. I just bleweverything I created when I was
younger, and I can see, lookingback at the end of my life, how
useful that would have been tocreate the foundation of
stability and security in mylife. But I'd also say that
(42:53):
there are no mistakes, you know,just trust that the universe has
got your back all of the time,because that's something that's
really been obvious to me as Iget into my retirement years.
It's obvious that the universehas my back. I've never really
seen it any other way. So so I'dhave to say, That's what I'd say
(43:13):
to my Agi myself. You you justgo and take go where your energy
takes you. Don't worry, it'llall be all right in the end, as
they say, I love that Ray.
Agi Keramidas (43:27):
I want to thank you so much for this wonderful
conversation I had with youtoday. I believe it's been just
inspiring, but also useful, andour listeners have found some
insightful elements or somethingthat triggered them enough to
(43:48):
take some action towards that. Iwant to wish you all the very
best with your plans and youreverything from now on, thank
you. I will leave it to you foryour parting words.
Ray Martin (44:06):
Well, I love meeting people and talking about these
things, and I'm going to beappearing at several book fairs
around the UK between now andChristmas, Birmingham and market
harbour and Litchfield Coventryand places like this. So if
anyone wants to meet me inperson at any of these book
fairs, if you live near to theseplaces, I welcome you to come
and you know, have a chat thatwould be that would be great.
Agi Keramidas (44:34):
Thank you for listening to this conversation
with Ray Martin. I hope it hasgiven you a fresh perspective on
identity, personaltransformation and the power of
self awareness. If thisconversation inspired or helped
you, if it gave you somethingmeaningful, consider supporting
(44:56):
the show. Just visit personaldevelopment mastery podcast. Do.
COMM, slash support or tap thelink in the episode description.
Thank you for being part of thejourney until next time. Stand
Out. Don't fit in.
What if your career is just a role insights
on living authentically from a14 year sabbatical? Welcome to
Personal Development mastery,the podcast that helps
intelligent, busy professionalsdevelop self mastery and gain
clarity so you can thrive in afulfilling, purposeful life.
(00:24):
Join us every Monday for aninsightful conversation with a
guest, and it's Thursday for ashorter episode where I reflect
and share with you. I'm yourhost, Agi Keramidas, and this is
episode 530 Agi 30 if you arelooking to live more
(00:44):
authentically and break freefrom societal expectations, this
conversation with my guest, RayMartin explores how stepping out
of your scripted identity canlead to true inner peace and
purpose. By listening today, youare going to learn the
(01:05):
transformative power of becomingyour own observer, and how this
can reduce suffering and elevateself awareness. You will also
understand how confirmationsignals can guide major life
decisions and help you trustyour intuition during
(01:25):
uncertainty. If you are feelingstuck in a life that no longer
fits or questioning the role youhave been playing, then this
episode is for you before wedive in, if you are in a life or
career transition and resonatewith the topics we discuss here,
(01:47):
I offer one to one coaching andmentoring to help you find
clarity and move forward withpurpose curious To explore what
that could look like for youvisit personal development
mastery podcast.com/mentor, orjust tap the link in the show
(02:07):
notes. Now, let's get started.
Today, it is my real pleasure tospeak with Ray Martin, also
known as the daily explorer.
Ray, ray, you are anentrepreneur, a business leader,
speaker, a mindfulness teacherand author of life without a
(02:28):
tie. After a series of lifealtering events, you left behind
your role as a successful CEOand set off on what was meant to
be a six month sabbatical, thatjourney turned into 14 years of
global exploration and innertransformation. You're
(02:48):
passionate about guiding leadersto break free from societal
expectations so that they canlive with authenticity, inner
peace and purpose they I amdelighted to speak with you
today. Welcome.
Ray Martin (03:05):
Thank you very much.
What a lovely, lovelyintroduction. Thank you. Well,
Agi Keramidas (03:09):
what a what an intriguing story. This is. I'm
sure you hear that a lot that itis not something very common,
and I'm looking forward todiscussing some of the wisdom
that you have collected on thisadventure, I will call it that
for sure. The thing I would liketo start with, Ray tell us about
(03:37):
the before. I mean, when youdecided to take that sabbatical,
what was going on and what madeyou, you know, take that
decision?
Ray Martin (03:47):
Yeah, that's a great question. I'd ever since I grew
up, grew up at school, you know,I'd always been told by parents
and people that I knew as adultsback then, in the 60s, you know,
the way to be happy was to justget a really good job, get
married, have a family, get ahouse, etc, etc. So I was
(04:08):
following that, what I call themainstream life. But actually,
recently, someone referred tothat as an off the shelf life
story, which I think is muchbetter phrase than mine. But I
was following that, you know,dutifully. And so I reached the
age of about 42 and I was theCEO of a company I founded, five
or six years earlier, aconsulting business doing
(04:29):
leadership development andcoaching and training. And I
founded the company with mygirlfriend, who is now my wife,
and so we were husband and wife,management team and business
partners in this venture, and itwas really successful. I'd
become Daily Telegraph BusinessLeader of the Year in 2000 to my
work as a CEO. And on thesurface, Ray's life looked
(04:50):
brilliant. But deep insidemyself, I have to say, I wasn't
really ever fully happy in thatlife, because I. To put it into
one sentence, I felt like I wasliving someone else's life. And
this was talked about in BronnieWare's book, you know, the Top
Five Regrets of the Dying whenshe said, when she asked dying
(05:11):
people what they most regretabout their life, they all say
the same five things. And thetop thing was, I wished I'd live
my life true to myself and notthe life that others expected of
me, and I used to sort of wonderit in my most private moments,
you know, what was I doing thatwas causing me to feel like that
could never really answer. Inever really traced the source
of it. And then one day, my wifecame back from a meeting and
(05:35):
said, I'm leaving you and I'mleaving the company. It was
really sudden. It was incrediblyshocking and impactful, and I
could see that it was going tochange everything. And whilst
that was going on, my father gotvery ill, and he died shortly
afterwards. And so within aboutthree or four months, Agi, I was
(05:57):
out of my home. I was out mymarriage, my dad had gone. I was
leaving the company I founded.
It was a desperately happy timefor me. It was broken. And
someone that said to me, about ayear into my paralysis of being
completely, you know, just downwith it all, of not seeing any
future, someone made asuggestion to me. They said, You
(06:20):
know, one of the ways you canget yourself out of a funk like
this sometimes is forget aboutyourself for a while and just go
and help someone else, 100% gointo service there. So that's
what I decided to do. I went toAustralia, where a friend of
mine had breast cancer. Hername's Elizabeth, and I wrote
about her in the book. And Isaid, can I just come and look
(06:40):
after you for a month while youhave your chemotherapy and stuff
like that? Because her husbandwas working full time, she had a
young son, she said, that'd begreat. So I did that. But no,
nothing changed inside me,except in the last week of my
stay in Australia, I went up tosee some friends in Cairns, and
they said, We're going to thetheatre tonight. You want a
(07:02):
ticket? Do you want to come? Isaid, Okay, so I went to the
theatre, and during the intervalof the play, we're watching, I'm
looking at the programme, and Isee my attention keeps drawing
to the corner of the page. Itsays, We're auditioning for the
next play. It's a British playcalled out of order. It's about
a Member of Parliament. And Isaid to my friends, for a joke,
I should be in that play. I'vegot the perfect English accent,
(07:23):
but I wasn't an actor, or I wasonly kidding, but they seriously
turned around to me and said,Well, we know the director of
the play, why don't you go tothe audition? Think you'd be
good. And I said, that's crazy.
Come on, I'm going back toEngland in three days. They're
never going to pick me mylimiting beliefs were just
spouting forward. I'm not anactor. I've got no training, and
(07:46):
anyway, I can't afford to do it.
I need to pay all the bills athome and pay my mortgage. In
episode, they said, Well, whydon't you just go for fun?
You'll be here. You know, forgetabout trying to get in the play.
So I did, and I went to thisplay, and to cut a very long
story short, the director askedme if I would take the lead role
in the play, which was like,well, biggest 400 lines in the
script. Central character,comedic, Bethune. So lots of
(08:11):
difficult challenges as anactor, a crazy voice I'd have to
do to be George pickden. And mysister in law's an actress, so I
called her, and she said, couldI do this? She said, Yeah, I was
already back in London after theaudition when I got this call.
And so I went back and did theplay two, two days after these
(08:33):
conversations, and it and itreally completely changed my
thinking, because as I wasflying back to London after
three months of doing the play,I realised that I was feeling a
lot of dread as Ray thebusinessman resuming that old
life. And I thought, what's thatabout? And I went, oh my god,
Ray the businessman is acharacter that I play. It's not
(08:54):
me. And I never, ever, ever,until that experience, thought
of myself as a character I wasplaying. I just thought me, the
businessman was me and and thenthat, that realisation had me go
right. As Anthony Robbins saysin his book, you are not just
the actor in your story. You'rethe director and the script
(09:18):
writer too. So you can movebetween those positions. And I
thought, does Ray, thecharacters character need to be
changed, or does he need adifferent situation? Or should
we just kill the seriescompletely and say it's over?
And I decided to kill the seriescompletely and say it's over. I
don't want to be businessman anylonger, at least not for a
(09:38):
while. And and that led me tofollow the advice. My friend in
Australia went to see the playwith it said, why don't you take
a six months sabbatical andreally work out a new path for
yourself? And I laughed at firstwhen she said, I said, That's
ridiculous. I'm not wasting mytime doing the six months of
Article backpacking. What's thepoint of that? You know that.
(09:58):
Now, in light of the play andthe inside hat, it just seemed
like a really good idea, sothat's what got me to start
sabbatical is a very longanswer. I hope that's okay. It
Agi Keramidas (10:08):
was fascinating.
And I will make a stop at theone of the last, the final
things that you said, because Ithink it is very insightful, and
transformation atransformational once someone
begins to realise it. And thatis what you said about that you
were playing the role of Ray,the businessman, yeah, and that
(10:29):
role, or that identity that manyof us, you know, assume, let's
say, professionally, for thiscontext, there are others, but
it is. It is a role. We stepinto it. At some point we will
step out of it. And it is achoice, and is a very big
realisation. Thank you for
Ray Martin (10:52):
Yeah, it was quite astonishing, because to become
George pickden, the character inthe play, I had to ask the
director of the play, you know,what clothes does he wear?
What's his voice? How does hewalk? How does he sit? What does
he think? Where did he go toschool? You know, all of these
things I had to learn andactually pretend to be. And I
didn't realise that over theyears and years I'd been in
(11:15):
business, I learned to becomeRay the businessman, because it
happened so gradually and sounconsciously, without me even
thinking about it, I just madeassumptions every day, that that
was me, you know, and that'swhat I needed to do. And so me
and my character become wedded,like, a bit like, I don't know,
David Schwimmer, who used toplay Ross in friends, you know,
(11:36):
he didn't want to be Ross forthe rest of his acting life, you
know, I think he struggled tofind a new role, but I didn't
want to be Ross for the rest ofmy life. You know, yeah,
Agi Keramidas (11:50):
you talked about stepping into a new character,
and what comes to for me to askis from someone who listening
now that has identified with thecharacters for a long time, of
their role, as we were saying,the role that they have been
(12:12):
playing, and they have been, youknow, feeling the the desire, or
the nods, if you want, There issomething else or another role.
Now that we the word role soundsin both ways. What would you say
to that person to perhaps,facilitate, you know, going
(12:35):
towards the direction of what'sauthentic to themselves? That's
how I see it,
Ray Martin (12:40):
yeah, I mean, basically, essentially, you need
new data from life. Basically,you know, I lived off all the
data that I'd ever taken onboard to become the person I
was. And I I couldn't shift mythinking, really, without new
data. So I decided to go to apart of the world where I
thought I might get some newunderstanding, new insight. And
(13:02):
I went to Asia because in Asiathere's a lot of Buddhism,
mysticism, you know, Easternphilosophy, that kind of thing.
And I was really curious,because I'd sort of had, you
know, some connection with thatthrough my development and
spiritual journey, but really ata distance, not not really in my
(13:23):
face. And I was really curiousto find out more about how do
you get to know yourself? How doyou develop self awareness? How
do you really discover who youare? And I thought, I'm never
going to find that out. Amongstmy friends in London, they just
think the same as me. They'vegot the same mindset as me.
They're not going to challengeme to do that. So I wanted to go
(13:45):
somewhere completely unfamiliarin every way possible. Now, you
don't have to go abroad to dothis. There's loads of places
you can do it, even in the UK orwherever you are. But for me,
because I didn't have children,when I got divorced, and I was,
you know, financially, able tosupport myself for a while, I
decided that I want to be abackpacker and just live
(14:06):
modestly and frugally. And, youknow, find out more about life.
Just take on board a whole loadof new data and and just like
opening a big box of Lego on thefloor and just see all the
pieces fall out and go, Okay,what can I What can I build with
this? That was essentially my,my quest. But the question I was
(14:28):
trying to answer was the Bronyware question, what does living
life true to myself actuallylook like, feel like and sound
like for me? Because I had noidea. It certainly wasn't being
a CEO, but I didn't know whatthat would be replaced with.
Agi Keramidas (14:45):
And I think no one does, unless they start
taking some steps towards thatdirection. Yeah, it's really
from my knowledge comes as a,you know, an insight, like an
epiphany, that now I knoweverything you. Exactly You
said. And I want to discuss thiswith you, because I find it
fascinating. They use the wordquest earlier. I said adventure.
(15:09):
I think it is very both are veryappropriate words, so during
your quest, but also a physicaladventure, backpacking, going
places. I can only imagine thatyou had to be very, let's say
flexible, and probably the wordthat really, and I don't want to
(15:34):
beat around the bush, I will saythe word that I want to use, and
it's the word surrendering towhat happens correct, and
perhaps going towards onedirection which doesn't
necessarily is the directionthat your mind or your fears
would take you to. But yes,doing it anyway. So I wanted to
(15:55):
hear your, you know, insightsfrom this particular element,
because I'm sure you've hadmany,
Ray Martin (16:02):
yeah, yeah,
Agi Keramidas (16:04):
times like this,
Ray Martin (16:05):
yeah, yeah. There's a couple of things to say here.
I've got to be honest and say Ifound the transition of leaving
London as an affluentbusinessman to being a very
modest, budget driven anonymousbackpacker. I found that
transition really difficult. Youknow, in the first couple of
months when I was in Thailand,you know, I get very irritated
(16:28):
if my my meal wasn't brought tome in the restaurant, you know,
within a certain time that I wasused to. Or, you know, in Asia,
nothing works like it does inEngland. And so you can often
get your dessert coming beforeyour main course, and two people
dying together don't get theirfood at the same time. And
that's normal there. But I wassort of enraged by some of this
stuff, going, don't you know whoI am? You know, Don't you
(16:51):
realise I was somebodyimportant? Once I could see my
my ego and mind, you know,really agitated most of the
time. And I was also carrying alot of fear and anxiety about
having been a failure as ahusband, you know, having had to
face the shame of being left bymy partner, and having to admit
(17:12):
and acknowledge that I wasn'tperfect by a long shot, even
though I sort of had a personaof success as a business leader
and had these awards to proveit, etc, but behind the scenes,
it was chaos, and so I had a lotof guilt and shame about that,
and a lot of fear about how Iwas going to reshape my life, or
if I ever could, because Ithought I would never be happy
again. I was in so much painfrom the losses, so I had all
(17:36):
that going on, and I couldn'tget calm. I couldn't make sense
of it. I was in a transition, asWilliam Bridges calls it. And in
his book on transitions, whichone of the best books on the
subject that I've ever comeacross, he says, you have an
ending and then later a newbeginning. And there's this
period in the middle, whichhardly anyone acknowledges,
(17:59):
which is different. It's gotdifferent rules to the ending
and the beginning, and it couldlast a week, a month, a year,
but in that he calls it theneutral zone. You're in the
neutral zone, different rulesapply. Don't take action for
actions sake. Only maketemporary structures look after
yourself in little ways that youdon't normally, because
everything's going to bedifferent. Nothing's going to
(18:20):
make sense in the neutral zonebecause the same rules don't
apply. So I recognised I was inthis place. I'd left my old
life, but I didn't know what mynew life would be, and so I was
in this weird transition. So Iwas doing everything I could to
help myself be calm. And in theend, I sat down and I you
probably see that I think you'vegot a copy of the book I wrote
(18:41):
these 10 guiding principles formyself because I thought I need,
I need some psychological guardrails to protect my mind from
the agony it's in while I'm inthis transition, if I don't, if
I'm not careful, I'll go crazy,I'll flip out. You know, I need
to stay sane, and I need to keepopen and keep my quest alive,
(19:02):
and have the faculty to searchand then process information and
not be disturbed all the time.
And so I wrote these 10 guidingprinciples to help myself,
purely for myself, just to helpmyself have an easier time. And
as that's why I included them inthe book, because they were like
my guardian angels. Those 10Principles, they kept me safe
until someone said to me, haveyou ever thought about doing a
(19:27):
Vipassana meditation retreat?
And I said, I didn't even knowwhat that was, Agi Vipassana.
What's that? I said, Well, yougo into a Buddhist monastery for
10 days, you sit in silence for10 days, you don't speak to
anybody at all, and you justmeditate with the monks, and you
follow the programme that theyrun. And you get an opportunity
to observe your own mind andstart getting deep self
(19:49):
awareness, you know, andunderstanding how these the
cycle of craving works, andthings like this. And I thought,
Oh, my God, I've never beenquiet for more than 10 minutes.
How can. I can't imagine 10days, but I did that. I went
into the monastery after sixmonths, and when I came out, I
was like a different man. It'slike someone if had a, if I had
(20:09):
a volume knob on the side of myhead when I went in, and it was
up 10 out of 10 noise in my headwhen I left, it was like turned
down to one hour 10. I hadn'tgone completely, but it was, it
was hardly there. I was so quietand so calm and so grounded and
so kind of serene on the inside,I realised that, you know, I was
(20:30):
causing a lot of my own anxietythrough through the way I was
thinking, which I'd neveroccurred to me before.
Agi Keramidas (20:38):
I've also done it in Dave persona meditation. So I
Yeah, you know, I know, yes, itwas in in store market, in
Suffolk, so it was, I know whatyou say, but before the the
noise or the loudness goes downfor me, it went up much more
than it was. Yeah, I'll comeback okay, to something you said
(21:02):
about the transition. You saidabout the neutral zone. And
thank you. That is, I think,very useful to think of it as
such. I suppose one of thethings that are scary about
being in that neutral zone isthat you don't know exactly when
it's going to end. It might beyou said, it might be a week. It
(21:23):
might be much, much longer. Soduring that time, when you are
in that neutral zone, and it'sstill not 100% clear of how your
next life or your next role, aswas saying, is going to be, what
are you talk about, confirmationsignals? And I would like to
(21:46):
ask, what is the role of thewhat Sudan will be looking for
when they are in that neutralzone, you know, to gain strength
from and for social trust thatI'm going through this, there is
an end
Ray Martin (22:02):
to that. Yeah, yeah.
That's a great, great thing totalk about, how it occurs to me.
Well, first of all, the idea ofconfirmation signals. I learned
that originally as a pilot whenI was flying aeroplanes, because
when you're when I learned howto fly, which was in the 90s,
they didn't have GPS in thecockpits, you had to fly using a
map and a ground recognition andused radio instruments. So if
(22:26):
you, for example, if you're inLondon, you wanted to fly to
Brighton. There's an inchthere's a beacon on the ground
in Brighton called a vor and itemits a radio frequency. It's
got a certain number, it's in abook. So you tune the instrument
in your cockpit to the Brightonfrequency, and it's got a couple
of decimal places, digits afterthe dot, and you think, right up
(22:46):
the needle in your cockpitstarts to point to that beacon,
and so you fly in the directionof the needle. It's perfect
system. However, if you don'tconfirm that you've chosen the
right beacon from the book, youare flying down the needle to
the wrong place, so you need toget a secondary confirmation.
And the way it works in theaeroplane is you press a button
on your control column, and youget an audio signal in your ear.
(23:10):
It's Morse code, and it kind ofgoes and the signal is, it is
unique to that beacon. So if youdon't hear the unique signal of
that beacon. You know you'vechosen the wrong one. If you
hear the signal, it's confirmedthat you are going in the right
direction. And so I was lookingI thought that's a really good
metaphor for me. For me everytime I had to make a decision, I
(23:33):
thought, I'll get a confirmationsignal if I can. So for example,
I'll give you some concreteexamples. When I came back from
Australia, after looking aftermy friend, I was offered the
part in the play. It was amassive decision, because I was
already back in London. I hadbills to pay. I was on my own
now, my wife had left, and I hadthree or four clients that I'd
(23:55):
lined up while I was away whowanted me to do work. And they
said, Can you help us? I said,Well, I only want to get back.
If you can wait till I get back,I can do it. And so I obligated
myself and made commitments thatI'll definitely do this when I
come back. And as soon as Iarrived, I got the offer to do
the play, and it was like reallydisturbed me, because on one
hand, I really wanted to keep myword and promise to these
(24:16):
people, and I needed the money.
And on the other hand, there wassomething compelling about going
to do the play as like, as ifGod wanted me to do it. It was
it. Was it. I couldn't makesense of it rationally, but
there was my inner wisdom wastelling me, you must go and do
that play. So I was in adilemma. I didn't want to let
anyone down. I didn't want totake a risk, but I didn't want
(24:38):
to miss the opportunity. Ithought, What do I do? What's my
confirmation signal? So I wouldI? What I decided was I would
get the blessing of each personwho I duplicated myself to. So I
called each one and I told themexactly what had happened. I
didn't make up a story or lie. Isaid, this is what happened. I
went to Australia, I did thisaudition. I unexpectedly been
offered the lead part, and Ifeel like my. Soul wants to do
(25:00):
it, but I don't want to let youdown, so I'm going to go and do
it. I'll only do it if you sayyou go with my blessing, and you
can help me when you come back,if you tell me you give me your
blessing, that I'll go and doit. If you say, No, I want you
here, I will definitely 100%stay here. And all four of them
said, go with my blessing. If Iwas you, I would go. And that
gave me a confirmation signalthat I was doing the right
Agi Keramidas (25:22):
thing. Four of them, four signals, yeah,
Ray Martin (25:26):
four signals. But you know, I needed, I needed. It
was like an all or nothing. Ifeven one had said, Stay, I would
have stayed. I would havestayed. It's a
Agi Keramidas (25:33):
very bold and courageous way to make that
Ray Martin (25:38):
decision, yeah, but I knew, then I knew it was
right. Yeah,
Agi Keramidas (25:42):
definitely. And you don't have any possibility
of regret because you went witha blessing. That's amazing.
Ray Martin (25:48):
Yeah, I've got, I've got more examples, but we'll
come back to them if you wantto. But
Agi Keramidas (25:54):
definitely, I mean, give us one more example,
because it is, yeah.
Ray Martin (26:00):
So I've been travelling about four or five
years in you know, by the time Ileft in 2005 I was around about
2010 in that period, I'd hadloads of conversations with
fellow travellers over coffees,over supper in the hostels I was
staying in, and things likethat. And it all asked me, How
did I start travelling and why?
And I told them these stories,and they just listen and listen.
(26:23):
And at the end of thoseevenings, some people said to
me, can I give you my emailaddress? Ray? I say, why? They
say, well, because we love whatyou taught. And if you ever
write a book with some of thesestories in it, we definitely
like to read it. And I laughed.
I said, God, I don't know whatyou think. You know, I'm not
doing any of this to write abook. I'm doing this because I'm
(26:44):
I was a broken person. I'mtrying to heal myself and find
out an answer to my quest. Thisis for me. I'm not doing this to
be an author. I've never writtenanything except a blog I was
writing, and by the time I gotto 2010 I I'd had about 100
email addresses on this list.
And I thought suddenly dawned onme, oh, my god, the universe
wants me to write a book. I keepgetting one or two people every
(27:05):
month give me their addresses.
How could I not see this? Howdid I miss this message that
I've been called to write a bookabout this? So I thought, I
don't know how to write I don'tknow how to write a book. I
don't know what's in a book. Ibetter learn. So then, as I was
thinking this, I'm not kidding,literally, within a couple of
days on Facebook, which is stillquite new, in 2010 on Facebook,
(27:29):
someone had advertised that theywere coming from New York to
Chiang, Mai, where I wasstaying, to run a five day
writers course. And it was helpanyone who was interested in
writing a book, learn all thebasics and be begin the journey,
and they'd know everything theyneeded to. And this, she was a
published author and a literaryagent, Big Shot, and she wanted
(27:51):
$1,200 for her course, which isway beyond what I could afford.
And it looked like it was forpeople who'd already written. So
I wrote to her, and I said, I'mlooking for something to get
myself going. I said, I'm notsure if this is the right thing
for me for two reasons. One isit looks like it's for people
with a track record. And two isit's $1,200 I said, I've never
(28:14):
written a thing in my life.
Would I be in the way if Ijoined the course, or would I be
a nuisance? Can I do it as abeginner. And the second thing
is, I can't afford $1,200 but Icould pay $500 if you'd let me
do the course. And she wroteback and said yes and yes, and I
knew that was a confirmationsignal, right course,
Agi Keramidas (28:36):
and a very good discount Yes,
Ray Martin (28:38):
because I just knew once I got confirmation on those
two things, and it was, that'swhat I meant to be doing,
Agi Keramidas (28:44):
absolutely, you know, you you the word
synchronicities came to my mindwhen I heard these things that
you said. And it is, howwonderful confirmation that
there is more there. Yeah, onthe path. Ray, well, I know
(29:07):
there are about 150 other topicsthat I could go with you today.
However, there is certainly onemore thing I wanted to at least
briefly touch upon and I willswitch gears. Yes. Now so you
have in your book, which, by theway, you were mentioning your
book, I will show it here, whichis a the word massive. Well,
(29:31):
it's huge. It's over 400 pages,which is a
Ray Martin (29:37):
long period to write about.
Agi Keramidas (29:41):
Definitely in there you have, like towards the
end, you talk about the sixrules for happiness. Yeah, there
is one in particular that Iwould like to hear you know your
thoughts about i. Sure love tohear your thoughts about all of
(30:01):
them. Okay, however, for youknow the practicalities of the
time we have together, the onethat I'm very much interested in
to hear how you interpret it andhow you advise someone you know
to apply this rule is the onethat says, become your own
(30:24):
observer. Yeah,
Ray Martin (30:27):
yeah. Well, I learned this when I was in the
monastery. That's where my firstinsight into this came, because
I sat for 10 days and watchedmyself sitting with all my
thoughts passing through mymind, and I realised, gosh, at a
certain point, it became clearto me that I wasn't my thoughts.
And that sounds like a verycliche thing to say, but if you
(30:49):
can observe yourself having athought going like right now, I
go, Oh, I notice I'm enjoying myconversation with Agi. So I'm
noticing that I'm thinking thatI'm enjoying this that's
different to me just beingconsumed in the thought. I'm
just enjoying it. And so thatability to put ourselves in the
(31:11):
third person role and observeourselves having thoughts means
we're not the thoughtsthemselves. We're the awareness
or the consciousness that isaware that we are having that
thought. So what I am is theawareness, not the thought. Now,
I never had this separation inmy thinking before, and I
realised that was a verypowerful way of looking at life,
(31:32):
because it meant that I didn'tneed to be necessarily agitated
or annoyed or angry or upsetcertain events because I wasn't
the person that was upset, I wasjust the person noticing I felt
like that. And it sounds like areally subtle thing, but it's a
massive shift in awareness, andit's saved me an awful lot of
(31:55):
suffering over the years to havethat awareness. And what it does
is it enables you to sit quitehigh up on the ladder of
accountability for your life.
You know, because if you don'thave that awareness, it's very
easy to blame circumstances oranother person for an event that
doesn't go according to plan. Sofor example, it's very common in
social conversations, oh, I'msorry, I'm late. The train was
(32:16):
late. Now that sounds fairlyinnocent, fair enough. But the
real truth is, I'm sorry I'mlate. I chose to get on a train
that there was a didn't leaveearly enough that if there was
any event where it would bedelayed, I would be late, and I
didn't. I chose to not thinkabout those particular
contingencies and consequences,because it wasn't that important
(32:38):
to me, and had I felt it was soimportant, there's no way I was
going to be like I would havegot a train an hour earlier. So,
you know, we're just not we'rejust used to in our social
dialogues to skip those things,but most of us live at quite a
low level of accountability,really honestly, on those sorts
of things, if we really thinkabout it. So having this ability
(32:59):
to be an observer really makesyou fully accountable for owning
everything that you do, thinkand say, and all the events that
happen around you, becauseyou're co authoring those
events, whether you know it ornot or like it. This is how I
see it. That's a good answer.
Agi Keramidas (33:22):
And accountability will also add,
not only to others, selfaccountability, also for, you
know, taking responsibility foreverything, of course, because I
will have to say that on thebecause it is challenge for many
as you, I'm sure know being amindfulness teacher that
(33:47):
becoming your own observer isnot necessarily something that
is easy or natural, or it canhappen once in a while, And then
you get carried away with thethought many, many times, and
then you realise, oh yes, theobserver had gone. So what's
(34:10):
your advice to someone who, yes,knows what you mean about
becoming your own observer, butthey're not in a, let's say
level. If I can use that word tobecome that often, or at least
as often as it would reallycreate that effect that you were
(34:32):
saying earlier.
Ray Martin (34:34):
Well, everyone's got to find their own way to this
kind of understanding. It's notone way that works for
everybody. But I would encourageanyone listening to to really
reflect deeply on what they whatthey say and do, because your
action, your behaviour, let'ssay, is mostly driven by how you
(34:55):
feel when you're in the momentwith whoever you're with, the
feeling that you're having. Andthe feeling is driven mostly by
your thinking. So we live in asort of, think, feel, behave,
universe. That's how that's howit occurs to me, and your
thinking is determined bysomething even deeper, which is
like, what are my preconceptionsand expectations of life?
(35:18):
Because often people sort ofsay, oh, that really upset me,
but they don't realise. They'renot consciously aware of the
fact they're holding a belief orexpectation of how that should
be in life and how that eventshould be and how it actually
are. Is is a different now youif you the different the
(35:38):
suffering is the gap between howit should be and how it actually
is. This gap causes a feeling ofsuffering. If you didn't have
the expectation at all, and youwere just observing as if you're
from another planet, and youremove the expectation and just
you're left with how it how itis, then there's no suffering,
because it's just how it is. Youjust accept it is the way it is,
(36:00):
and there is no gap, because theexpectation has been removed.
But you cannot remove theexpectation to your conscious
that you're holding it.
Agi Keramidas (36:10):
Thank you. You reminded me I was having a
conversation recently, and myguest was saying, let's change
the expectation. Yeah, with theword preference, yeah? Because
it really takes away all thepressure that, yeah, it's so
much mild,
Ray Martin (36:26):
yeah, yeah. And we all have these, even, you know,
I have them, you know, I expectpeople to be on time if they've
agreed to meet me. That's thingslike this. We all have them, and
we've also got mild levels ofirritation sometimes, if these
things don't work out, but it'swhether or not we can see those
as just being part of ourcomputer software, and they're
(36:48):
really meaningless in some ways,and whether we can let go and
surrender to what, what's,what's actually happening, and
just accept reality, becausemost of us are Fighting with our
realities a lot of
Agi Keramidas (37:02):
the time. And you know, when you think about the
expectation, many of them arejust some programmes that are
running. They're not even reallyour expectations, but we still,
you know, allow them to, yeah,
Ray Martin (37:17):
I have my dad in my mind, who passed away years ago,
sort of saying, you know, alwaysbe on time, right?
Agi Keramidas (37:24):
I remember also a phrase I have learned from Tony
Robbins, and it is to be earlyis to be on time. Yes. You know,
it's great for me to live bythat standard, yes, but I can't
expect everyone to be I wouldlove to, yeah, I prefer to now.
Rather than experience, I usethe word prefer.
Ray Martin (37:44):
And that means, you know, it's a challenge to our
belief system, because ifsomeone's a minute late, it
means they don't care. Theydon't care. They don't care
about this. Of course, it's nottrue. It's absolutely not true
our own rule, yeah,
Agi Keramidas (37:58):
yeah. We attach this inference to this event.
Ray, what a fascinatingconversation. As I'm going to
start wrapping things up, what Iwould like to ask you to tell us
next is direct the listenerwhere you want them to go and
(38:20):
carry the journey with you. I'msure they have been intrigued by
you and fascinated with thisbrief conversation.
Ray Martin (38:28):
Yeah, I mean, I in my in my belief system of life,
I believe that we're all tryingto find our way home, as I call
it. You know, that to that placeof peace and contentment and
where we feel like we're livingour fully authentic self.
Finding your own true path isthe way I say it. And so, you
know, I just want to beencouraging to anyone who feels
(38:51):
like they're quite slightly offtheir centre line or looking for
that just to keep exploring, tokeep going, keep investing in
that journey. It's what it'sreally worth it in my
experience, and just wanted tobe a torch bearer for that kind
of awareness around it.
Essentially, of course, I workwith people. I am a coach
myself, so I do actually workwith people to help support them
(39:11):
on that journey. But I wouldencourage anyone to do it in
their own way. You know what?
Get find what support andresources they need, because
it's definitely worth it. Andwhen you're in that place, a
couple of things happen whichare really unexpected gifts. One
is I found through doing itmyself, during the life without
(39:32):
a time journey, I can not onlydo you get confirmation signals
right, we talked about thethings happen with with so much
ease that they feel effortless,literally effortless, like
there's no trying. You just haveyour intention set it out really
clearly and within minutes orhours sometimes, but certainly
within days, something's comingtowards you that exactly is what
(39:54):
you need. And so there's aneffortlessness to live in when
you're in alignment. With whoyou truly are, and you're on
your right path, it becomeseffortless. And that's why I
think it's worth the struggle.
Because there's a you get in theslipstream of life and you get
pulled and it's lovely. So Idefinitely think that's that's a
good reason to do it.
Agi Keramidas (40:17):
I wrote that down because it was spoke to me as
well as I'm sure it has spokento many. Ray I have two
questions that I always ask myguests at the end, and the first
one is, what does personaldevelopment mean to you?
Ray Martin (40:38):
Personal Development? Wow, my answer to
that would probably be a sort ofrelentless pursuit of Wisdom and
Knowledge and Being curious. Ithink for me, that's a big part
of it. You know, when we get tothe point where we think we know
it all, we don't, there'snothing more, we're in big
(41:00):
trouble. I mean, I just had torecord an intro video. I'm doing
some coaching on a workshop in acouple weeks. We were asked to
do a one minute intro video topeople, and the question we were
asked to answer was, what's mostcommonly misunderstood about
you? And I said, Okay, well, I'ma 64 I'm an accomplished CEO and
a coach, and I've had loads oflife experience. So what people
(41:21):
commonly misunderstand is thatthey think I know everything
they think of success comesreally easy to me, and I'm
confident, and I I've got strongopinions about everything in
business and leadership andthat, you know, I'm infallible.
Well, you couldn't be furtherfrom the truth. You know, every
single day, I look at otherpeople who do what I do, and I
think, God, they're going tofind out I'm not very good at
(41:42):
this. I don't really know whatI'm doing. Gosh, they only knew
how much I struggle with some ofthese things myself. You know,
imposter syndrome is somesomething I've lived with my
whole life. It's never goingaway. It's never ever gonna
stop. It's always there. It'slike a it's like an unwanted
companion who won't go away. Andthrough becoming my own
(42:03):
observer, I've just been able tohear and see that voice and just
say, Hello, you're back. Hi.
Just stay over there. Keep wellaway from me. You know, don't
need you. Thanks.
Agi Keramidas (42:16):
A quick hypothetical question, also, if
you could go back in time andmeet your 18 year old self.
What's one piece for one pieceof advice you would give him?
Ray Martin (42:30):
Well, this on a practical level, I would have, I
would have said, you know, tomake much better use of the
financial resources I had when Iwas 18, which I didn't have any
sense around at all. I just bleweverything I created when I was
younger, and I can see, lookingback at the end of my life, how
useful that would have been tocreate the foundation of
stability and security in mylife. But I'd also say that
(42:53):
there are no mistakes, you know,just trust that the universe has
got your back all of the time,because that's something that's
really been obvious to me as Iget into my retirement years.
It's obvious that the universehas my back. I've never really
seen it any other way. So so I'dhave to say, That's what I'd say
(43:13):
to my Agi myself. You you justgo and take go where your energy
takes you. Don't worry, it'llall be all right in the end, as
they say, I love that Ray.
Agi Keramidas (43:27):
I want to thank you so much for this wonderful
conversation I had with youtoday. I believe it's been just
inspiring, but also useful, andour listeners have found some
insightful elements or somethingthat triggered them enough to
(43:48):
take some action towards that. Iwant to wish you all the very
best with your plans and youreverything from now on, thank
you. I will leave it to you foryour parting words.
Ray Martin (44:06):
Well, I love meeting people and talking about these
things, and I'm going to beappearing at several book fairs
around the UK between now andChristmas, Birmingham and market
harbour and Litchfield Coventryand places like this. So if
anyone wants to meet me inperson at any of these book
fairs, if you live near to theseplaces, I welcome you to come
and you know, have a chat thatwould be that would be great.
Agi Keramidas (44:34):
Thank you for listening to this conversation
with Ray Martin. I hope it hasgiven you a fresh perspective on
identity, personaltransformation and the power of
self awareness. If thisconversation inspired or helped
you, if it gave you somethingmeaningful, consider supporting
(44:56):
the show. Just visit personaldevelopment mastery podcast. Do.
COMM, slash support or tap thelink in the episode description.
Thank you for being part of thejourney until next time. Stand
Out. Don't fit in.
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