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The Smoke Trail, hosted by Smoke Wallin, is a journey into awakening consciousness, weaving authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests to unlock high performance and perfect health. Each episode delves into spirituality, leadership, and transformation, offering tools to transcend trauma and find your bliss along the way. It’s a reflective space for achieving peak potential and inner peace in a distraction-filled world.
Welcome to the Smoke Trail hosted by Smoke Wallin. Join Smoke on a unique journey of awakening consciousness, sharing authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests. Explore spirituality, leadership, and transformation, tools to elevate your path.
Rob:Where are you at the moment? Arizona.
Smoke:Yeah. So we moved to Sedona A Year ago and we live up here in the Red Rock Mountains, so it's beautiful.
Rob:I've been to Sedona.
Smoke:Yeah. It's it's magical.
Rob:Okay. I live in magical Cape Town. Let's rock and roll. I'm ready to go.
Smoke:All Terrific. Well, Rob, welcome to the Smoke Trail.
Rob:Doctor. Thank you, Smoke. Lovely to see you again. I haven't seen you in person for a long time, but it's really lovely to reconnect.
Smoke:Yeah, absolutely. And I was going down memory lane, when you filled out your pre questionnaire, I was talking about some of the history and big moments for you, learning moments, and you talked about Sportal and raising a hundred million dollars during .comone. You know, that's how we actually connected is because, you know, I raised, I think, a measly little 60,000,000 for eSkye. And you joined my European board to help me launch across Europe.
Rob:There we go. Reaching out across continents.
Smoke:Yeah. And that was a that was a heady time. Right? It was pretty crazy. And, you know, I think, you know, we had different but parallel experiences and learned a lot during that time.
Smoke:And it really, you know, it certainly taught me humility, you know, while, you know, the hubris of raising big capital and doing all the stuff and, you know, being with the big boys and then and then the fall from, you know, the dot com crash and all the things that went with that and, you know, and just picking up the pieces. As you said, you you you at one point thought maybe this is the end of my career. And I I think I had the same feeling at at you know, in passing. It didn't last long but that's the same thing for sure.
Rob:You dust yourself off, get up, and move on. It's like that beautiful poem by Rudyard Kipling. If, you know, every English schoolboy or commonwealth schoolboy learned it, know, you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. It's a beautiful poem.
Smoke:It's a beautiful poem and and I love that sentiment. It it's it's a a lot of the work that that I do these days. You know, I do I think, you know, I'm partners with Rob Follows, we we do m and a around the world. But when I'm not doing that, I'm spending a lot of time on spirituality and mindfulness. And and and and, you know, a CEO asked me, I was speaking in Thailand a couple weeks ago, and asked me, well, what's in it for me? why do I want to even think about this? And I'm like, well, how about this? What if you could, no matter what came at you, no matter what emotion, angry customer, angry person, you know, happy, whatever they came at you, you had the ability to respond without emotion. That you could actually stay centered and stay present minded long enough to think about your options and pick the best option, would that be better? He's like, Oh yeah, absolutely.
Smoke:Well, that's mindfulness.
Rob:As you were saying it, I was thinking of myself in moments where I get angry or I react the wrong way or I kind of dream about something and you're half awake, half asleep and you're thinking about something that worries you and you get angry or you've got some stress. And I've been stressed about something over the last four months and I've not handled it well. How do you center yourself all the time? It's like when you ask people, what's the goal of life? Name of life.
Rob:And they say happiness. It's not possible. You can't be happy all the time. You're not meant to be happy all the So I don't know how one stays centered all the time, but you've got to try and bring yourself back to the center without making mistakes.
Smoke:I mean, we're human. Right? So I think there's unless you become the Buddha, you know, everybody's gonna have the moment of of like, woah, wow, this is like affecting me. Right? But but I think your I loved your reference to the stoic philosophy.
Smoke:And, you know, my I'm no expert, but I also, you know, have a lot of affinity to stoism. And I really I love a lot of the thoughts there. And, you know, one of the most important things is, you know, the only thing we control is our own reaction to things. And, you know, all the other things that are outside of our control, we don't worry about, right? That's the stoic mentality, right?
Smoke:And it I think it's easy to forget in the moment when you're in a situation. But if we can bring ourselves back and one, you know, there's lots of techniques, but one of the simple ways is just to take three deep breaths, Give yourself a little bit of space between stimulus and response.
Rob:Yeah. It's like if you've got a lot of meetings internationally and you've got to fly there, try and fly at least one night before so you can have a good sleep and not walk into meetings tired. And then if you've got really difficult things to deal with or you want to send a response to something, try and sleep on it. It's great advice given, not always taken. The last four months I've been very stressed about something and I thought to myself, my wife said, It's only money.
Rob:Okay, which is kind of easy to say if you've got lots of it, which we do have. But it was more than just money. It was I kept getting a different story every week. And I kept thinking to myself, Can I do something about it or not? And I always felt like if I was top of the guy, it would move it forward.
Rob:But in retrospect, looking back, I think, I don't know if I could have made any difference. You know, it's one of those. It's easy to say, you know, Only deal with things that you can control. But there's a gray area, things where you think you could actually make a difference if you get involved. So there's always a gray area.
Rob:It's never that easy.
Smoke:Absolutely. There's always judgment and discernment, right? And it's about as we age, as we get more wisdom in our, our, in our upper years, we hopefully develop a bit of ability to discern and just, you know, it's just, And there's always going to be a gray area and there's no one right answer. Right? So it's like you can't hold yourself to too high of a standard.
Smoke:Just do the best you can with the information you have and move on.
Rob:Doctor. There's a wonderful description of gut instinct or instinct. It's the distilled essence of years of experience. You just feel this is the right thing to do. But it's actually distilled essence of years of experience.
Rob:That's what it is. The older you get, the more experienced you are. It's funny, a friend said to me the other day, he said, he's made a lot of money and been very successful, but he's my age, 64, and he said he would be happily bankrupt wearing just his underwear to go back to age 40. He said he would happily take all of his experience, give away everything he had and go back to age 40 and start from beginning. But and I and I know what he's saying.
Rob:It's like with this amount of wisdom and experience and mistakes made and and you know, judgment and instinct, imagine twenty years earlier. Wow. What you could do, what you would do.
Smoke:Well, hear you. And I think, you know, when that gut instinct, you know, some might call it intuition in some cases and maybe that's more the female version of it. Right? But I think our wives are the women in our lives are typically more aware of that. Like, they're more conscious of what is intuition.
Smoke:They have a sense that, like, don't do something with that guy. That's not a good business partner. Like my wife knows it all the time before I do. And I think men typically, you know, we're out there, you know, building our empires, doing our thing. And we're so in our ego mind that we don't pay attention to that side of us when we don't have it.
Rob:Have an example from you from last week, ten days ago. Yeah. I've got an example from four days ago and ten days. Four days ago, I've been on a three week road trip going on all the big American podcasters. Know, Patrick Bet David, Dave Rubin, Charlie Kirk.
Smoke:Obviously Rob.
Rob:Yeah. Talking about South Africa. Talking about trying to tell people what's what's going on. And this public speaking has become a whole new area of my life which is, you know, it's an obsession, a hobby, an addiction. I
Smoke:love it
Rob:and I'm good at it. At least I think I am.
Smoke:You are.
Rob:But about four days ago, I was in London driving to a dinner and I played golf that day with some wonderful friends I hadn't seen in years. Was such a wonderful day in the sun and I was a bit snippy on the phone and my beloved wife Katie in Cape Town said, I think you're dehydrated. And I just felt like, how can she, she's not even with me. And then I thought, I am dehydrated. I probably haven't drunk much water today.
Rob:How did she tell? It's like, wow, from another, from twelve hours of flying away. And then ten days ago, I had been invited to be on the Piers Morgan show. Now, most people know Piers Morgan is one of the biggest interviews, podcasters, television characters in the world. And you know, I'd just done Patrick Bette David, David Ruben, Charlie Kirk, Laura Logan, all the big Americans.
Rob:And it was, you know, I know Piers. She played golf with him. And I got invited on this show and I told my wife Piers Morgan's invited me. Kind of a made it now in England. And my wife went, I don't think you should do it.
Rob:And my hair on my back went up. I was like, why is she trying to restrict me? Why? And she said, Rob, you are at your best one on one. Being interviewed, interviewing, debating.
Smoke:Like a panel doesn't he? Right.
Rob:And he says, Piers is setting you up because he wants you and someone else versus two other people. Are there other people on the show? Or is it just you? So I checked and I said, no, There are other three others. Ernst Roots, who's in the same camp as me.
Rob:And then this lady from South African Broadcasting Corporation I'd never heard of. And this idiotic 23 year old DJ who's just a, you know, nonsense merchant called the three beanies Dan Corder. He's an idiot. And my wife said Piers is setting all four of you up and he wants you to fight and beat each other up. Don't do it.
Rob:And because of my ego I was still kind of like I think I can do it. Can handle it. I know how to do it. And then I've been listening to my wife a lot more lately than before. Are getting a I said okay, alright I won't do it.
Rob:Then I recommended someone else to do it. And it was exactly as she predicted. It would have been in a clickbait for Piers.
Smoke:Yeah. And you would have held your own but it may not have been the best look of what you wanted to
Rob:Correct. Right. And I sent this beautiful message to Piers, a video note. I do lots of video notes. I said Piers, I really appreciate you inviting me.
Rob:I'd love to appear on your show. But if you want me one on one, I'm yours. But I'm not going to be clickbait for your show. He hasn't responded. So that might be it.
Rob:It might be over with Piers. Unless he's listening to the smoke trail which he He
Smoke:should. I'm sorry my little camera just kind of
Rob:Yeah, it didn't look like you were wearing shorts or are you?
Smoke:I'm wearing shorts, yeah.
Rob:Just kidding.
Smoke:But it went silly on me. All right, there we go.
Rob:But you're so right. My wife, she's very perceptive. She's got intuition. She's got spirituality and she has something I've never seen or heard of anyone. She was trained as a doctor and she built a medical publishing business which we sold successfully last year.
Rob:I was a shareholder. But she has healing hands and she has an incredible ability to do walking diagnoses. It's scary on the one hand, magical and beautiful on the other. She'll look at someone and say I think that person has x y z affliction. Yeah.
Rob:And within two weeks they announced that and it's almost you know beautiful and spooky at the same time. So she could look at me and say you know you're tired, you're dehydrated, can even do it on the phone. She's magical in her ability to read people. So She
Smoke:is connect she's connected to the the source. Right? Like, to the universe. Right? And and it's like a it's a real thing.
Smoke:It's the the field is real. And, you know, you don't have to believe in God or whatever. But, like, there's a there's a higher power here. And
Rob:No question.
Smoke:Are more connected to it than others. It sounds like she's totally connected in, you know, in a healing way.
Rob:In a healing health way, she's the best I've ever I mean, she's magical. Last week, one of my business partners, Nick French, was sick for two days. He was meant to come to London and meet me and he was really, really sick. He said, I've never felt worse. And I messaged Katie and I said, Nick's supposed to come to London in two days.
Rob:He's really sick. Can't you just call him and get a read on it? She listened to what his symptoms were and she said, Go to hospital right now. Hospital. He went to hospital and diagnosed with swine flu.
Smoke:Oh wow.
Rob:Over the phone she was like, Go to hospital right now.
Smoke:Yeah, well that's amazing. Mean she obviously has got she's tapped into a higher you know whatever that is. No question.
Rob:No question.
Smoke:And it's real. It's a real thing. There's a lot of that out here in Sedona. A lot of like you know non traditional healing and energies and whatnot, which is
Rob:By the way, Smoke, you've got Indian, you've got American Indian heritage. I know you have. And I, aged 60, four years ago, I've never had a nickname. Everybody's always had nicknames. I've never had a nickname.
Rob:Never. I've been, Rob, Robert, they tried Bobby, didn't stick. And I've ended up with the nickname The Chief. Okay. Because I was at Africa Burn, which is a very beautiful spiritual, it's a burning man of Africa, it's beautiful.
Rob:Yeah, yeah. And this friend of mine put a beautiful Indian headdress on, on me and you know, I was staring into the distance and someone took a photograph and it's a beautiful, beautiful photograph of me, the thousand mile stare, the beautiful Indian headdress on and from then on my nickname became the chief and I just thought I have tell someone. That's great. You know?
Smoke:That's awesome. Well, of birthday, I just remembered I went to your fortieth birthday in Vegas. Guys all flew in from London. We met you from wherever we were and that was a big gathering. It was a lot of fun.
Rob:Fortieth birthday in Vegas. Yeah. Fiftieth birthday in Beijing. Sixtieth in Cape Town. So Nice.
Rob:You you you gotta come to the seventieth, which is in six years time.
Smoke:Alright. Send me the invite. I'm
Rob:there, man. I'm there. Okay.
Smoke:Well well, let let's talk a little bit about your well, in your journey recently. Right? Because you're you're obviously out there and you've become a important voice in a very important issue, I think, to the world. It's not just to South Africa. And I just wonder, and I'm just not a political show, obviously, I'm interested in what healing from a societal standpoint is like, what like, you know, you hear this rhetoric coming out of the political parties, and they're like, it's just it sounds crazy from here.
Smoke:Like, it's like, wow. Like, how would they even do that? And I hear I've heard your interviews. I know, you know, it's like, there's an obvious lot of I mean, clearly transgressions, you know, things that are, like, not right, they're happening. But, I mean, the there's a relation there.
Smoke:There's there's all kinds of ethnic backgrounds, black, white, whatever. I'm not one who differentiates. I'm like, people are people. It's about consciousness. And we're all, you know, we're all spiritual beings on a journey of remembering, is my view.
Smoke:But, you know, what does it take in, you know, in terms of the situation there to really get the discussion going to a more positive plane than the craziness that we're seeing in some of the videos?
Rob:I'll give you the human aspect. From my perspective and from the market's perspective. The human angle. Four years ago I made a speech at a business and I've always liked public speaking and I'm good at this. I think I am anyway.
Rob:I made a speech at a business conference to a hundred people in the room and it went viral. And it went viral to an extent where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people saw this. And it changed my life. It threw my life into a maelstrom and my life has never been the same. And in South Africa we have challenges other countries don't have.
Rob:History, apartheid and an existing liberation movement turned government called the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela's party, has run the country for thirty years. And for the first fourteen years the world said we saved South Africa, South Africa is saved, it's heading in the right direction and then turned their attention elsewhere. That was giving you the context. And from 2008 to today it has become a nightmare to be white or to be non black, to be colored Indian, whatever minority. And the ANC government under Jacob Zuma and Saru Ropposa, our current president, have turned the noose, the economic noose onto the minorities and introduced racist and socialist laws and anti American laws that is basically throttling the country.
Rob:We get 1% economic growth, 2% population growth. We're going backwards. We're de industrializing. The country's being looted. It's only because our government, and then I'll wrap up the politics side, it's only because our government hasn't had the world spotlight on it.
Rob:They've been getting away with almost murder. They're getting away with farm murders but economic genocide. And four years ago, made the speech. It went viral and I had people screaming at me, death threatening me, calling me a racist. And then my father said to me the most powerful words that I have heard in my life.
Rob:Rob, I've never been more proud of you for doing and saying what other people can't afford to do and say. At that point I decided I'm going to keep going. I'm not going to give up. And fast forward four years hence, every day I go down to the shopping market, I for my car with gas, I'm walking down the street and I have people of all shapes and sizes, colors and hues and cultures coming up to me, the average person in the street and saying thank you for giving us a voice. But on the flip side, all my big corporate chieftain billionaire buddies are scared to meet me, turn their backs on me or bad mouth me because their vested interests are a threat.
Rob:What I've done is I've managed to get many other people to get the courage, the backbone to stand up and start speaking out. Last week, as my international tour of podcasters was ending, my wife said to me, she was in tears, and she said, you know, I'm tired of being scared. I worry about your security. I don't want you to be bumped off like everybody says. Because people have been saying to her, you know, it's amazing Rob has not been bumped off yet.
Rob:And she said the children are afraid. I'm afraid. I love you too much to lose you. And I jokingly said, well, there's lots of money and I won't know if I'm bumped off. But it was the wrong answer.
Rob:It was not what I was meant to have said. You know, I may be reaching the end of the South African political podcasting because others are standing up and it's a form of leadership but it's also for me the first time that I've actually been truly truly proud of what I've done because as you know, was born into a very wealthy family given every privilege. I've got been to Harvard Business School, Goldman Sachs. I've met the good and the great. I've made amazing friends like you.
Rob:I'm the luckiest human on the planet. But every time I looked in the mirror, I felt it had just come too easy. Yeah. Even though I've taken advantage of every opportunity.
Smoke:Yeah. And and and Rob, I mean, there's lots of people that start out with a great advantage and then squander it. And you didn't. You you you went out and and you took huge risks. Sporterl is a great example.
Smoke:Like, you didn't have to do that. You were at you put yourself out there. It that was a
Rob:It failed. And it failed.
Smoke:But you you I think you you don't give yourself enough credit for being independent of it. But I I understand where your where your your mind is and this feels Yeah. This feels genuine and, like, authentic from your heart that you're you're just doing what you think is right. It's not necessarily in your in your personal interest.
Rob:Do you know there's a poem and I actually it's the only thing that I haven't learned by heart but I put it on my iPhone and it's called The Man in the Glass and it's by Peter Dale Winero I think it is And it's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful poem. I'll just read you the last four sentences. But your viewers can go and I'm gonna read you the whole thing.
Smoke:Yeah. Read the whole thing. Read the whole thing and I and we'll put it in the in the in the show notes too.
Rob:The man in the glass. When when you get what you want and you'll struggle for self and the world makes you king for a day, then go to the mirror and look at yourself and see what that man has to say. For it isn't a man's father, mother, or wife whose judgment upon him must pass. The fellow whose verdict counts most in life is the man staring back from the glass. He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest, for he's with you clear to the end, and you've passed your most dangerous difficult test.
Rob:If the man in the glass is your friend, you can fool the whole world down the pathway of years and get pats on the back as you pass. But the final reward will be heartache and tears if you've cheated the man in the glass. Beautiful. Had little tears building up my eyes because it's so poignant you know and it's the first time this public speaking was standing up and telling the truth and taking hits from all sides financial, social, death threats, de platforming. But I've looked in the mirror and I said I've done the right thing and I believe in myself.
Rob:And in some ways it's a calling. If your viewers are very spiritual, it's my it's my calling.
Smoke:And I fulfilled it. I feel that. I can feel it. And and I love that poem. And by the way, I I wrote I often dig it up.
Smoke:It's a couple few years old, but I wrote something around that poem a while back. And I'll I'll put it in the show notes, I'll send it to you, book two, but I love that. It it is so true. Look. It's about recognizing what's in our core.
Smoke:Right? It's your it's your you know, kinda uncovering your true self. And and for me, that's a spiritual journey, but it's like it's you can call whatever you wanna call it. It's about discovering what is true and genuine in your heart and living to that. And and I I often say there's a guy who gave an amazing talk at YPO, the global leadership conference in in December or in in DC, and I was helping coach because I did the talks last year.
Smoke:I did my own talk, and then this guy was getting ready to speak. And he's got a beautiful message and he's really amazing. He started he grew up homeless and he he, like, scrapped himself out of this, you know, situation and became this really successful entrepreneur and he's still only in his twenties. So he's super young, super successful. And he was, like, negative self talking himself, like, before the talk.
Smoke:And so we were backstage, and he was like, yeah. You know, he's just kinda like that little negative talk that he probably didn't even notice, but he just was doing. And I'm like I'm like, hey. Hold on a second. And I I pull him aside and listen.
Smoke:You can't do that. You're you're you can't say negative things to yourself. You've gotta be you gotta say positive things before you get out and talk to the rest of the world. And I said, and one of the techniques that you can use is go look in the mirror and stare at yourself. Don't make break eye contact and tell yourself all the great things that you are, you you represent, you, you know, you do, whatever.
Smoke:That's harder than it sounds. You know, it's it's it's pretty hard to do. But he was like, man, I I could never do that. I'm like, trust me. Try it.
Smoke:It takes practice, but it it's real. It you have to be pleased with your own actions. And the we are vibrational. We're we're energetic beings. And no matter what you face, you put onto the outside world, the truth is the truth is always evident.
Smoke:So our higher self knows if we're being genuine or not. And when you're genuine and you know in your heart like, okay, this is me. This is me speaking from the heart. Everyone knows that. Like, it's a vibrational thing, Rob.
Smoke:It's not a It's like your wife's healing. Her knowing what people have.
Rob:The
Smoke:truth is bigger than anything else and people feel it.
Rob:You know, she's extraordinary. Even the animals in our house gravitate to her. I am. And not just because she's the provider of food. But you know, even sitting at the dining room table, they sit next to her.
Rob:They follow her. They and she she, the cat, adores, loves her. Know? And it's just it's it's magical. I look at it and go, it's there's something magical about her.
Rob:This, you
Smoke:know Yeah. Well, you guys have to come you guys gotta come to Sedona and do some hikes with us. And it sounds like she'll go on great with any truck.
Rob:The mesas. The beautiful red mesas. Yeah. Exactly. But you know, we were talking about happiness earlier and I've been reading a great book called Philosophy and Life by AC Grayling.
Rob:It's a very good book and I just I opened a chat. I don't read it beginning to end. I pick chapters on life, death, spirituality and things like that. And there's a couple of things really reached me. And the one was if you do the same thing every day, get up in the morning, go to the gym, get the kids packed out to school, you know, do the work, the lunch, have you lived one day or many days?
Rob:Okay? And it sort of hit me quite hard because I'm not one that's very good at being in a rush scheduling. I know when I'm high energy, which is in the morning because I love going to bed early and I know I'm slow down in the evening and when I have to do prioritize my work, you know, the reading the shareholders agreement mid morning is about the right time because then I can concentrate. Being creative is from seven in the eight, you know, six in the morning till nine, you know, I've kind of worked out my pattern at age 64. But the thing about happiness that struck me the most was a a friend said to me, happiness is three things.
Rob:Something to do, someone to love, something to look forward to. And if there's a very old person, you know, often they've nothing to do. They've lost don't have jobs or hobbies anymore. Yeah. You know, they might have lost many of the people they love or the person they love.
Rob:They might have lost them. And you know it's very hard for them to look forward to anything and at that point they will probably pass on. They'll die. And then we as younger people or even younger than us are so busy during the day. You're busy for the sake of being busy or you're trying to make money or trying to make a way in life.
Rob:But you know those three things, if you can have those three things at all times, know, at a seven to 10 out of 10, you know, something to do, someone to love, something to look forward to, you are happy. Happiness is not this thing that you're 20.
Smoke:No. No. I love that. And and I think, you know, I use maybe different words, but I think it's it aligns with that nicely. It's the what I like to say is and again, this is like getting out of our ego mind, which is what we always do.
Smoke:Right? Like, I mean, we're always like thinking, thinking. Getting out of that and and go with your heart. And what that what that means to me is where you're in it what gives you energy? If it gives you energy, it's like, okay.
Smoke:The the universe is saying do that. And if it doesn't, don't do it. And every time I've gone against that that feeling, I've been it's been like, oh, I shouldn't have done that or like, I mean, like, oh, yeah. Maybe I learned something, but it wasn't something that I should've like, should've done something different. Right?
Smoke:But every time I follow that energetic, like, oh, this feels like I need to do this, it's right. And I think, you know, and it usually has to do with, you know, love and doing something that's important that you feel like it's important to do. Right? And, you know, I agree, like, what's that's the point of life. And, you know, for those of us and, you know, who have had a degree of success and, you know, been able to do kind of our own thing whenever we want, you know, it's really about that.
Smoke:It's not about the success, it's about the being able to choose to do things with people you care about that you feel matter, right?
Rob:Do you know, it's interesting because on this trip, a friend said to me, I was having a dinner and he said, he's ten years older than me, and he said, I have lived an extraordinary life and I've done everything anyone would want to have done and I'm happy and I now live for my children and my grandchildren. But if I were to die today, I would have had a great life and I'm satisfied and happy. And I thought, I feel the same way.
Smoke:Yeah. I'm I'm with you.
Rob:I don't I don't I don't want to die. Yeah. Yeah.
Smoke:No. But but My preference is not is not to die for just for the record.
Rob:Correct.
Smoke:But but I'm with you. Like, yeah. I mean, it's and that
Rob:Thank you. You know?
Smoke:Yes. Thank you. Exactly.
Rob:Thank you, god. Thank you.
Smoke:Being in gratitude. Right, Rob? Bringing in gratitude is the feeling. And if you're in gratitude, more good things come. That's the thing that took me a long time to understand is because I was seeking, you know, I came from lack.
Smoke:You know, I grew up in a very different situation where, you know, with a lot of childhood trauma that, you know, I've recently uncovered and kind of gotten through, but I'm like, okay, what, what, so what drove me was lack and seeking and, you know, and it made me go take big risks. It made me do things, you know, that a lot of people wouldn't do. And I was like, but I was like, whatever, I gotta do this. And it took me a long time to go, wait a minute, I don't need, I have everything I need. And I had it already, you know, before, but I didn't know it.
Rob:But you know another thing my wife did to me here on the path was she minimalized me. So we were living in London. We made an economic decision, political decision to sell our house. And we sold it at the top of the market for the wrong reason. Okay.
Rob:How good is that? But anyway, sold the house and we were moving to a rental house in London and my wife said, why are we moving what looks like a thousand of your books that you never read? And I go, Well, I love my books. She said, You don't love them enough to read them. Why are we moving a thousand books?
Rob:Okay. And your wine cellar. And you know, it's like we haven't got room at the next house. And to cut a long story short, from then on till today, I became a minimalist. And when I proposed to her, she said to me, she said, I thought you'd never ask.
Rob:I was in a tree in Germany hunting wild boars who were standing next to me in the snow. And she said, thought you'd never ask. I'd love to marry you. But if you ever give me a diamond ring, jewelry, watches or anything, I'll sell them on eBay and give the money to my parents. And I said, that's interesting.
Rob:Why? She said, why should De Beers tell me this shiny stone is worth anything? Why should Hallmark cards tell me tomorrow's Mother's Day? This is marketing. Cut a long story short, I became a minimalist.
Rob:I only wear blue and white. Look, blue. This is blue. I only wear blue and white. I have no watches, gave them all away, gave them to my sons.
Rob:I have few books that I've kept. We don't collect art, we don't collect anything. And the only things that matter to us are big houses, money in the bank, and great experiences. Memories for the rocking chair, I call them. You sit together, you're with friends and you say, We were in the desert and this happened.
Rob:My wife says one of the many I'm making this up now. One of the many reasons she married me, there's probably very few, is that she'll ask me, What did you do today? And I'll turn a very ordinary story into something very, very funny. So my life is made up of great, great, great experiences. That's a beautiful thing.
Rob:Being a minimalist means possessions are not unimportant to me. I mean I only own a car because I have to have a car and drive around it. But everything else is just you you like this picture, can have it. We buy it because we like it, not because we collect it. And it clears your mind.
Smoke:A liberation There's so much in society that's been glamorized and whether it's stuff or it's, you know, celebrity or whatever. Like, I I I'm good friends with Kenny Chesney, the art the country singer. And he play he's playing he has a residency at the Sphere right now in Vegas. So I went on Wednesday night and went and saw him. It was beautiful.
Smoke:It was an amazing show, by way. The Sphere is incredible. It's like mind blowing technology. And then we had lunch yesterday and and and he's just like the humblest, nicest, genuine person. And honestly, like, you know, we had we have it in a private room because he's he's really well known and, you know, you know, people come up to him all the time.
Smoke:But he's just like he's just a great guy. And I look at him, he's just a friend of mine. You know, he happens to have a giant stage and, you know, he's got all these but it's like the the glamorization of everything, it once you you get over that or get beyond that or whatever, it's like, it's such a freeing thing. I I love what you said. It's it's a you're free because, like, right now, we're in a we've been we we spent the last year.
Smoke:We got we we sold got rid of our house in California, we went to Sedona because I on a whim, I said, wanna go to Sedona. And we said, well, before we decide which house we want, let's just try all the different areas. So we've been literally living in, like, Airbnbs in different Fantastic. Different for all for a year. So we we had one for three months, then we had a couple short terms, then we had one for five months.
Smoke:Now we're in another short. So we're like, now we've lived all over town. We actually met people in these different areas. And, you know, I know which That's fun. Yeah.
Smoke:It's been it's been wild. But I mean, I'm ready to settle down. But but it's been like, oh, well, you really don't have our stuff. Like, we have like the minimalist stuff. Talking about minimalist, we have almost nothing.
Rob:So there's a billionaire friend of mine who's from Switzerland called Nicholas Berggruen and he lives in America. I think he's called the Barefoot Billionaire. He doesn't own any houses, any cars, any anything. He goes from hotel to hotel in a private jet but I think he charges it. And then each hotel he stays in the same room in his suite and they bring out his clothes for that.
Rob:He doesn't have any possessions. It's liberating. It's fabulous. So I don't know how I got onto that subject. Oh, It's important.
Rob:Oh, I want to say Marcus Aurelius. So Marcus Aurelius, the greatest Roman emperor, was a stoic. Stoicism began in ancient Greece. Zeno died off, reappeared, reappeared. And then it had its prime time with Marcus Aurelius.
Rob:He was the most powerful Roman emperor. He was the richest man on earth and the most powerful man on earth. It was you know, at the peak of the Roman empire.
Smoke:And
Rob:he would get up every morning at the same time, early in the morning. He would do his work. He was kind, generous, believed in people, and did not believe in possessions. And he, you know, if you ask me who would I like to have met that has long gone, it would be Marcus Aurelius. The man who had everything.
Rob:Most powerful man on earth, the most richest man on earth and yet he lived the life of a stoic. He practiced stoicism and it's a, you know, it's a way of life. To that religion, it's a way of life. And and you asked me about my spirituality. I guess you meant religion.
Rob:And Well,
Smoke:I actually no. I I think you interpreted it correctly. You know, I I really I mean, I I've been a student of learning about all the religions because there is truth in all of them, and there's also a bunch of human Confusion. Layered layered on that that confuse the real message. So, like, I I'm not I'm not talking about religion, but but it's more of a state of mind.
Smoke:It's a it's a way of being. And that's why I totally resonated with your stoic comment. I thought that was that made sense to me.
Rob:So my family, mean, my father's, I wasn't brought up particularly religious. My mother was a Christian Scientist and for those who don't know, it was a religion, It's not Scientology. Christian Science was founded by Mary Baker Eddy, a lady in Boston. I think in the nineteen twenty's. I got the date wrong.
Rob:At one point it was the wealthiest, of the most influential religions on earth. So the premise of Christian Science is that God is love. At all the Christian Science reading rooms around the world, it says God is love. And if you boil every religion down to its absolute basic tenet, it's God is love. And I then went to an Anglican school and then I lost, you know, I lost my religious path.
Rob:But I but I instead of saying I'm an atheist or an agnostic or I don't believe, I I just say that I have an open mind and an open heart and an open soul. If religion does find me or if a god, if there is god, finds me and gives me my instructions and my calling and I'm waiting to be called. I'm open minded. I like to think of myself like that as ready to be filled with the love of a God or God or religion. But till then
Smoke:I'm Well, I love that. It look. God is love, and that is that is my understanding as well. And when you follow your heart and when you when you stand up and you speak out and you do what you feel is right, you are already being called. That is God talking to you through you.
Smoke:Yeah. Think it is. And so you may not recognize it, but that's what's happening. And so you're you're already there. You just don't like like, that's one of the biggest so a great Christian mystic, Meister Erichardt, who was in the, like, late 1260s to, like, early 1300s in Germany.
Smoke:But he's a very learned man. He was, you know, ran the theology department at one point at the University of Paris, which at the time was the most important. You know, and he was, you know, very high up in the church. And he recognized one of his famous quotes, which I love is, you know, the eye with which I see God sees me. In other words, we are all divinity.
Smoke:We are there's no God outside of us. There's we are It's within us. Yes. It's within. And and he was God is within us.
Smoke:Yep. Very, you know, heretical it wasn't a very popular statement, but it's right. If you ever read like, check him out, you might enjoy it. But it's like, it's not about like the religion. It's about recognition of our self of God himself and in each other.
Smoke:And that's, you know, that's look, the the the troubles we have around the world, the troubles you guys have in South Africa, you know, it's a level of consciousness. And as people who are of a higher level of consciousness, which is recognizing the divinity in all of us is, and that there's, there's love all over. And there's, it doesn't really matter who they are, what they look like, it's, it's all one. And you have to treat everyone like you're treating yourself and not any differently. And that's, that's how we rise up.
Smoke:And it's, you know, it sounds like, you know, it's, it sounds all nice and, you know, like, that's never going to happen. Well, but you know what? It only takes a few people because the power of a higher level consciousness is magnitudes. It's a logarithmic scale. It's magnitude stronger than the lower level.
Smoke:So people who are operating in shame and anger and emotion and, you know, chanting and doing these things, you know, yeah, they can be dangerous, but they're they're they're living in a very low low vibrational, you know, environment. And as you raise your consciousness, you're affecting the entire world. It's we're we are in an energetic world. So what you're doing is very important, and I applaud you for your efforts. Thank you.
Smoke:And and I and I really Rob, it's great to reconnect. And I I wanna hang out with you guys at some point along the way again.
Rob:But Let's do it, Smoke. Let's do it. I'll come back I'm gonna come back to The US. I think I'm gonna be back in August. Yeah.
Rob:And I'll tell you why. There's I don't know if you follow UFC. Ultimate Fighting Channel.
Smoke:Know about it, yes, yes.
Rob:Yeah. So I hadn't followed it until a South African called Driscus Duplessi was fighting for the World Middleweight Championship. And then I got involved and I met him and he's such a wonderful, humorous, generous, compassionate, loving fellow, who's the UFC world middleweight champion. If you think of somebody who has to fight at that level, and you can basically use pretty much any form of fighting and yet on the flip side, you just want to hug the guy when you meet him. And it's such an extraordinary juxtaposition.
Rob:And I'm going to come and watch him fight in Chicago Oh, wow. In August. Maybe we will go together.
Smoke:Okay. Alright. Well, yeah, let's let's talk offline about that. Maybe we can get our old buddy Billy to to show up and
Rob:Billy Egee. Emailed me an hour ago.
Smoke:Oh, did? Alright. Well Yeah. We'll we'll have to drag him out of his of his house in Atlanta.
Rob:But you know, here's the thing about what I'm doing, this podcasting and this public speaking, know. I've got all my businesses and life could not be better. There is no real upside to doing this other than the man in the glass Because I've lost friends, I've lost business contacts, I've lost millions of dollars, but I still feel I'm doing the right thing. And here we are on the edge of the bottom tip of Africa, the white tribe of Africa. You know nobody loves us, nobody's coming riding to our rescue and we are under serious serious threat.
Rob:But this is where I want to be and my wife said to me a couple of years ago, I love she's a New Zealander. The safest place in the world is New Zealand. South Africa is not so safe. And she said to me, I really love this place. It's worth fighting for.
Rob:And I said, and then I'll fight for it. And she doesn't want to leave. The children love it here. She loves it here. And so I think I'm going to live here and die here.
Rob:And I love this country and I want to fight for it and help make it the place it deserves to be.
Smoke:That's beautiful. And from from all of us and all of I'm sure everyone listening, you know, my prayers and love are with you guys. Everyone just to like, it doesn't need to be that way. You know? It it there's lots of inequities and things.
Smoke:Know what? There's ways to solve it. It's just rising tide raises all boats. And that's the right solution. It's about how do we create abundance?
Smoke:How do we create more? Not how do we, cut and hurt the people that are productive? That makes no sense anywhere in the world.
Rob:And the answer is love conquers all. It's as simple as that. It's hard to practice it all the time, but it is so true.
Smoke:Awesome. Well Rob, thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate you joining me and this was a lot of fun and great to just connect and do this with people I love and haven't seen in a long time.
Rob:I miss you. I love you and I hope to see you soon. Thank you. See you, Thanks, buddy.