Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
At some point in our lives we all get scared – of making the wrong decision, of not being a good parent, or that everyone will figure out we’re just making it up as we go.
I’ve spent years helping leaders work through fear, stress, and uncertainty. Now I’m making a podcast about how they face their fears and come out stronger.
It’s for founders, leaders, and business owners who feel like they’re constantly fighting uphill and not finding the balance they need to be effective at work and present at home.
Sally Ann Marie 00:00:16 I'm Sally Ann Marie and welcome to Fearless Forward, the podcast that asks leaders how they face their fears. Today I'm in conversation with a man who, 21 years ago, had already spent more than 20 years in a conventional and successful business career. Ray Martin was CEO of his own company, and in 2002 had been awarded the Daily Telegraph Business Leader of the year award. But like many of the guests on this podcast, his life then took an unconventional turn. Ray's pivotal moment came in 2005, when, in a short space of time his marriage ended, he lost his business partner and his father became ill and died. Feeling lost and broken, he decided to take a six month sabbatical travelling the world. Six months became a 14 year odyssey through 28 countries, described in his 2022 book Life Without a Tie. Those years exploring different cultures, perspectives and ways of living became the foundation of Rae's current work as a leadership coach, author, and mindfulness teacher. Along the way, he became a blogger, a meditator, a coach, a marathon runner, and a charity fundraiser.
Sally Ann Marie 00:01:16 He learned the power of intention and connection and formulated a set of principles and rules for happiness, which he shares in his book. In our conversation, we explore what it really means to live and lead with freedom and to be, as he puts it, the source of your own creation. So, Ray, that fabulous expression, you are the source of your own creation. Tell us, what do you mean by this?
Ray Martin 00:01:49 Well, it was a years and years ago, Sally Anne, that someone enabled me to see a way of looking at life that I didn't know growing up as a teenager. You know, I thought that life was what happens on the outside, and whatever happens, you can't do anything about, you know, it's just what happens and what you think and how you respond is, is a given. It's sort of fixed based on what's happening outside. And then I received a sort of a teaching, I suppose, where I was enabled to see that it wasn't actually like that in reality, that we have agency and free will over our thinking and over how we respond to any given moment or event.
Ray Martin 00:02:34 If we're if we're able to be fully present in that moment, we there is no particular way in which we do have to respond. We can choose a different response based on whatever feels like the wisdom or truth for us in that moment. Michael O'Neill, in his book Inside Out Revolution, describes this as an inside out way of living rather than the outside in way of living. And when I did my first Vipassana retreat in 2006, the Buddhist monks explained to me this cycle of craving and said, you know, you have this feeling of emptiness because you think you're not enough. You therefore start wanting, craving, needing something to fill the emptiness. You find something outside which you think is going to do that. And for maybe for a few minutes, it does. And then once that starts to wear off, the clinging and the feeling and the wanting comes back again, and that's the outside in way of living. But when you're the source of your creation, you can choose to just rest in peace and rest in happiness.
Ray Martin 00:03:39 Whatever's happening on the outside, you don't need something outside to make yourself feel okay. That's how I that's my interpretation of it. I'm sure the Buddhist monks would elaborate it. Perhaps potentially. That's mine.
Sally Ann Marie 00:03:54 Well, it sounds like an extremely important moment of transition for you.
Ray Martin 00:04:01 Oh, it was you.
Sally Ann Marie 00:04:02 Yeah.
Ray Martin 00:04:02 Yeah.
Sally Ann Marie 00:04:03 So tell us what was happening at that time, the moment that you received this teaching? Sounds as if it came at a moment when you were ready to hear it.
Ray Martin 00:04:13 Yeah, because I'd experienced a lot of unhappiness in that up to that moment. And the Buddhist call that dukkha suffering. So I'd experienced a lot of suffering to use that term. And suffering, I thought was because of the events that had happened. You know, I got divorced unexpectedly. My wife, who was my also my business partner, quite suddenly announced she wanted to leave both me and the company. my father passed away at the same time, and I had to leave my home because of the divorce.
Ray Martin 00:04:49 And the business was going to change irrevocably. so within 3 or 4 months. Everything that I knew to be my life, that gave it the shape and identity and form it had just disappeared. Literally. I was kind of really the most lost and broken I'd ever been in life, you know, at that point, just really hopelessly lost, 44 years old, you know, how why why is this happening? Those kinds of thinking I can't ever see. I could be happy ever again. And so going to. And then as a result of all those things, I took a year where I wasn't really capable of doing anything much. I was just on the floor. But a friends rallied around and one of them actually said, why, why, why don't you take a six month sabbatical? And I at first I kind of rejected the idea, because it didn't fit with my kind of achievement business mindset kind of thing. But, but I but then as time unfolded and different events unfolded, it suddenly started to sound like there was something in me.
Ray Martin 00:05:51 Some little quiet voice of wisdom saying, great. You know that's the right thing to do for you right now. That is the thing. Go and take a sabbatical. And I thought I'd go for six months. And I planned my life around a six month sabbatical. And it was when I got to the end of that six months, like month five, I think it was. I was still anxious, feeling a lot of guilt and shame about the loss of my marriage and just feeling very unsettled and very agitated, very frightened and worried about the future. And someone said to me, who met me in that moment. Have you thought of doing a Vipassana meditation retreat? I said, what is that? I'd never heard of it. I didn't even know what meditation was. Literally I was I couldn't believe, I didn't really know. And they described it. And as they described it, I had a body sensation. I suppose physically my physical body was sort of going, oh, oh, this just feels right.
Ray Martin 00:06:47 It didn't make any sense on some level. I laughed because I said, do you have to be silent for ten days? And they said, yeah. I said, oh gosh, I've never been silent for ten minutes. You know, like, I don't think I could do it. And you have to see it for long periods of time as well. You know, things like that. But but I just knew. I just knew that was something I needed to do. And so I committed to it and it was, it was, it was a life changing experience because the teachings I received through that journey of Vipassana enabled me to see the cycle of craving that I spoke about a couple of minutes ago, and enabled me to see my own mind in action in a way that I'd never, ever been able to see it so clearly and so separately to me. You know, I just had this space where I could do nothing other than observe my mind at work with no distractions, nothing taking my attention away from that horrible experience of your mind running amok? Yes.
Sally Ann Marie 00:07:48 Oh my.
Ray Martin 00:07:49 Goodness. I'd never seen it like that before. I'd never felt it like that before. It wasn't pleasant. It was uncomfortable. But I could. There was no. I couldn't just go off and watch a movie or go and go for a swim or go. You know, do any of the things we do in our lives. And when we get a bit uncomfortable feeling, we go off and do something to make ourselves feel better. There was none. There was none of that. So I just had to sit with it until I became really familiar with that part of me. Yes. I don't know if I'm answering the question, but that was what I was thinking when you asked me.
Sally Ann Marie 00:08:21 Yes. Fabulous answer. Thank you very much.
Ray Martin 00:08:24 And it changed how I how I have been ever since. Because for the first time, I saw what it meant to be mindful about and conscious of what we're thinking and what we do with that thinking. And I could. For the first time in my life, actually take responsibility for my thinking and not have to blame it on anything outside or anyone outside.
Ray Martin 00:08:51 And it gave me a sense that I could actually drive my experience of life from within myself. And that was a very powerful realization. I never had. No one ever told me that. I never, never learned that school, my parents teaching was right. If you want to be happy in life, you know, get you got to get good wife. You got to get a good job. You got to get house. You got to do these things. And if you do all those things and you're successful, you'll be happy. That's what that's what your happiness is going to come from. And I believe, I believe them, I totally did. I set my life up according to those instructions. And when I did all those things and reached what I felt was the measure of success, it didn't. It felt hollow. It didn't feel like it really was a success. Yes.
Sally Ann Marie 00:09:40 I suppose you were living your life according to someone else's instructions, right?
Ray Martin 00:09:46 Yeah.
Sally Ann Marie 00:09:46 And maybe. And maybe, you know, it worked for them.
Sally Ann Marie 00:09:49 Who knows? Yeah. It's like.
Ray Martin 00:09:51 Another. I can't remember who it was, actually. But another blogger or someone came up with a beautiful phrase, which I stole. She said she described it as an off the shelf life story. So that was it was that I was living because that was the best one I could find. Was this successful businessman. Happily married. House. You know, that was the best one I could come up with. Yes.
Sally Ann Marie 00:10:16 And again, I hesitate to assume anything about other people's lives and the choices that they make. But in the end, we are responsible for our own right.
Ray Martin 00:10:28 Exactly.
Sally Ann Marie 00:10:28 And as a starting point, you have responsibilities beyond that, of course. But perhaps our primary responsibility is. Understanding what? Who we are.
Ray Martin 00:10:42 Definitely.
Sally Ann Marie 00:10:43 And finding some way of figuring it out. And what you're saying makes total sense in that if we don't kind of get to know ourselves, and how are we going to do that other than just sitting and listening? I don't know, maybe there's another way, but I'm not aware of it.
Ray Martin 00:10:59 Me too.
Sally Ann Marie 00:11:00 And, yeah. My goodness. So you went from no meditation whatsoever to sitting for how many days? Ten.
Ray Martin 00:11:09 Ten? Yeah.
Sally Ann Marie 00:11:09 Ten days in silence on a cushion or whatever. Yeah. Not able to go and do all the things that you'd ordinarily would have done to get away from the thoughts, but just sitting with them and, you know, that's like a very, very cold shower, isn't it? You know, when you've always been used to warm water. can you remember going back a long way? No. Yeah, yeah. 2006 a long time ago. But yeah, I imagine it's quite ingrained in your mind. So.
Ray Martin 00:11:39 Yeah.
Sally Ann Marie 00:11:40 Tell us the highlights. What lowlights. What were the sort of in terms of the experience of that for you?
Ray Martin 00:11:47 Well, physically it was quite an austere experience because when you arrived at the monastery, when I arrived, handed in my mobile phone, we didn't have some of the gear you have these days because 2006, the iPhone hadn't even come out.
Ray Martin 00:12:01 So it was before that. But I handed in the mobile phone and books and other distractions, and they were kept locked away for safety. And then you were shown to your accommodation, which was one a one bed room, but the bed was just a piece of concrete with a wooden block for a pillow and a straw mat to lay on. Oh my goodness, no comfort. And they were actually instructed. We were instructed in our joining instructions not to bring any cushions or comfortable blankets or anything that would bring comfort, because that would be disrupting the process, you know. And so I adhered to that because I'm. I'm a good learner, Sally. And if I get instructions, I follow them. I don't kind of go. Oh, I don't need to do that. I'm going to bring my pillow. I kind of go along with what I'm being asked to do just to get the full experience of it and experience it properly. And so I did want to do this as as uncomfortable as it was.
Ray Martin 00:12:58 so, yeah. And no talking at all in the dormitory. Not literally. No talking, not just in the meditation, but if someone walked past you, you know, I would lower my gaze so that I wouldn't in any way signal that I wanted to connect with that person. And someone I knew who I was traveling with was in that group. And so we had to we came to an agreement beforehand. I said, this is how I want to experience this. And if that's not okay for you, I suggest I do this one or you do this one, I'll do the next one and we can do it separately. But I don't want to contaminate your experience or vice versa. So we're not going to we're not going to act as if we know each other at all, you know, no contact, smiles or any of those things. And that's what we agreed. And we didn't do that at all. and so and so then of course, not everyone has 120 people on the retreat, so not everyone does follow the rules.
Ray Martin 00:13:50 Hear this whisper, whisper, whisper at night in the dormitories and some people talking and there's a bit of you. And then your mind goes crazy. Like you want to kind of interrupt. Hey, don't you know what you're doing? You're messing up. But, you know, all of that comes up, everything comes up. But and you're just having to stay within your own space and just observe all these things happen going on in the mind. Yeah. And it's perfect. It's a perfect incubator for for observation. Yeah. It's brilliant. Yes. And then and like, no showers or hot water or anything. Washing was a big, like low like a kid's paddling pool around one but made of concrete, low on the ground, full of water and lots of bowls. So you call it a Mandy. So you put your bowl in the water, fill it, and you kind of douse yourself and wash it. And then, you know, just wet yourself and dry off and all done in silence, of course.
Ray Martin 00:14:47 and two meals a day, I thought, God. One meal at eight and one meal at 12. And that's it. I thought, I'm never going to survive on two sort of vegetarian meals a day. I mean, how am I going to do that? But it was plenty. It was really wholesome and plenty.
Sally Ann Marie 00:15:02 Gosh, you really entered into this. Embraced it fully. Any low moments?
Ray Martin 00:15:14 Mother, I can remember just remember times when I was feeling so physically tired from the sitting and just sometimes touching into like, oh, this is too hard, this is too difficult. Well not being able to sleep sometimes. and so not feeling particularly well rested once or twice, but mostly no. Mostly it was a very enlightening and positive experience for me.
Sally Ann Marie 00:15:40 Yeah. Yeah. And the physical business, you know, of of sitting.
Ray Martin 00:15:45 Yeah. The way they help.
Sally Ann Marie 00:15:46 Are hours on end. Yeah. How did they.
Ray Martin 00:15:48 Well, the way they helped us with that, because I know for people from the West who are not very, you know, conscious about exercise and things like that, they know that they understand that.
Ray Martin 00:15:57 So they have the first sitting meditations at something like 530 or something. And so at four you get up and go and do an hour's yoga with a teacher that they bring in to just teach yoga. And you do a routine of yoga to get your body ready for the city. Yes. I've never done any yoga, ever. This is like, what is yoga? I didn't know what it was. and, and so that's that's how we tackled that. And and you were allowed 115 minute conversation a week with your allocated monk, if you like. If you had a problem or you needed some support, or you were struggling with something, you could have a 15 minute conversation with your monk, which I did once.
Sally Ann Marie 00:16:48 One time I was going to ask. You did? I'm curious, you had this opportunity to talk to this monk for 15 minutes.
Ray Martin 00:16:58 Yes.
Sally Ann Marie 00:16:59 Can you remember how you felt about the prospect of doing so? Did it feel like something you really needed? Or were you just happy to do it because it was there? I mean, what was your relationship with that?
Ray Martin 00:17:09 I was I was kind of slightly nervous because my need was actually quite an unusual one because I was in Thailand, and I realized that my visa expired the day before the retreat finished.
Sally Ann Marie 00:17:25 Oops.
Ray Martin 00:17:26 And I was extremely worried and anxious about what they call overstaying, because the Thai authorities do not like that.
Sally Ann Marie 00:17:35 No.
Ray Martin 00:17:35 And, I was in a dilemma because I thought, oh, it'll be all right. I can just overstay one day and get a new one. They'll be fine. No one will, you know. So I had to sit with that for two days. I was thinking, no, it's not because I'm actually someone who values integrity and doing things correctly. You know, that's a big part of my value system. And I thought, how am I going to resolve this? So I went to the monk and said, this is my need. I don't know how to resolve it. And he said, you know what's the right thing to do? I said, well, ideally would be to get it renewed the day before when it finishes. He said, okay, so that's what I'm going to ask you to do. I'm going to ask you to leave the monastery for three hours in silence and travel on the bus to the place and get it done in silence, or speak absolutely minimally to get it done.
Ray Martin 00:18:25 But just stay in the bubble of the past and come back. And that's what I did. And it was such a challenge. It was such a challenge. I don't know if anyone else on the passenger side ever had to spend three hours on the bus to get to the visa authority and get the visa and come back and get joined in again?
Sally Ann Marie 00:18:44 But gosh. So you really tested yourselves. I did, yeah. And I love the question, what's the right thing to do? And you knew the answer. You'd been wrestling with it, but you knew, didn't you? So he gave you that permission? Yeah. Off you went. Quite a thing. Yeah. So I'm now curious when you then came to leave a couple of days later at the end of your ten days. How did that help your transition back to, let's call it the normal World?
Ray Martin 00:19:12 Yeah. Well, the first thing was a practical one. It meant I could stay in the country I was in for another three months without needing to think about that.
Ray Martin 00:19:21 So. So that was a feeling of safety and secure ness. but I also had learned so much from. From being able to see the temptations of thinking but choose a different way. You know, literally. Oh my God, this is what I'm thinking. But that's not the right thing to do. Here I'm going to consciously choose a different way. Yeah, that feels mindful and right. And that gave me a sort of modeled the behavior. I felt I wanted to continue to evolve, and it gave me a very strong anchor and reference point, how to repeat more of that in different ways. And so I, I, I decided because of the meditation, I wanted to next go to a place where there was a community that meditated regularly. I didn't know where exactly, but so I could join the community and get more support and evolve my practice. So I went to a place called Chiang Mai. Oh yes, in northern Thailand. And there were a lot of people there who are on the self-awareness path who are exploring those kinds of things.
Ray Martin 00:20:39 So I found there a sangar that was part of the Plum Village community. Yes. Which is one of the most beautiful communities I've ever been part of. It's brilliant. Yeah. And, I discovered who ticked that Hanh was. And that there were 30, 40 people gathering every week to meditate in the tradition of Plum Village, and that there was a lot of support for me to evolve and grow and develop my meditation practice, and have conversations afterwards with people that would help me embed it more deeply. Yeah, and I did, and that's what happened. And I stayed in that community for quite a long time. Yeah. And I'm still actually friends with a lot of those people I met. And it was 2006, 2007, you know, so.
Sally Ann Marie 00:21:24 It's funny you should say that, because I'm realizing that I first encountered the teachings of Hahn at around about the same time. Yeah, just just a coincidence. It's just, occurring to me now. And the support of the sangha, the support of the community.
Sally Ann Marie 00:21:40 Yes. Who've had a similar, I want to call it awakening, you know, a waking up to the workings of the mind and how we can consciously relate to them.
Ray Martin 00:21:54 Yeah. What was great for me about being in that sangha was a couple of things that were weird to say, but they're true. one is it was full of kind of really cool people, you know, like it was they were like young, handsome, attractive, you know, doing good jobs. And they weren't how I'd stereotypically mentally thought that meditators would be like, you know. And so that was a real eye opener for me. I realized how much kind of ordinary people were wanting to master there in a world, and that really excited me and sort of motivated me to do it myself. And there it was. It was it was just such a lovely space. Whenever I turned up at the meeting place for this anger, you could just feel dropping into that mindful energy. It was just so lovely. It's like getting into a warm swimming pool after you've been out in minus two degrees temperature.
Ray Martin 00:22:52 You know, it was just really lovely leaving the ordinary, unconscious world to come into the mindful, conscious energy of this anger was such a contrast. It was lovely.
Sally Ann Marie 00:23:05 Yeah, like a kind of a topping up of.
Ray Martin 00:23:07 Yeah, like the energy. Yeah, totally. Like a sanctuary. Almost. And and and and in, in, in it encouraged me to sort of start to consider how I could bring that kind of feeling out into the world afterwards, you know, and because I'd. I'd always had an interest in it, but I'd never really seen myself as a sort of as a as a torch bearer for it, if you like, I'd say.
Sally Ann Marie 00:23:32 So you went from, you know, means like, suspicious of the whole thing to entering into it fully, embracing it wholeheartedly. clearly absolutely transformational for you. Yes. And then, okay, so knowing how powerful this thing is, knowing how much it had helped you. How can I put words into your mouth? But how can I take this out into the world? So you must have changed the direction of your work then at that point.
Ray Martin 00:24:01 Yeah, I did, yeah. one of the members of the sangha, a lovely chap, Gaston. He was involved. He was a sort of change maker, and involved with a charity, an NGO that was doing facilitating change and stuff like that. And he and another guy who lived in Chiang Mai who was running mindfulness retreats from his home. They they they had this vision to sort of somehow harness the mindfulness teaching for people in the business world. This was like, it sounds ridiculous, but back in 2006, it wasn't really mainstream thinking at all. It wasn't.
Sally Ann Marie 00:24:42 Absolutely not.
Ray Martin 00:24:43 Yeah. and so and I, when I sat in the Vipassana monastery, having come from London and that whole busyness of the business world just a few months before, I remember sitting there thinking, some days, do you know, I was looking around and seeing one day all the CEOs of all companies are going to come here or this is going to be, I don't know when, but one day everyone's going to be doing this.
Ray Martin 00:25:03 They this is like too good not to know. You can't get through life without knowing this.
Sally Ann Marie 00:25:09 I love that too good not to know.
Ray Martin 00:25:12 Everyone's going to want to know this because this is. This is rewriting the life rules for everything, literally everything you know, Ronnie Ware said in her book The Top Five Regrets of the dying. She said, I ask every person on their deathbed what they most regret about their life, and they all say the number one thing. They all say the same everyone. I wished I'd lived my life true to myself and not the life that others expected of me.
Sally Ann Marie 00:25:39 Oh goodness me, yes.
Ray Martin 00:25:40 And that was I read that and I was down on the floor before I went for the sabbatical. I know, and I was thinking, that's what I've been doing. I was I won the Daily Telegraph Business Leader of the year award in England. I was yes, I was living the character of Ray, the businessman, so competently that I even got an award for it.
Ray Martin 00:25:59 But it wasn't my life, and I did exactly that. I just never felt it was. I was living the life that others expected of me, proving I was good and all that stuff. But it never felt right for me. And, and so I thought when I read that and I realized, that's the quest I'm on now. That's the quest question. The quest I am on. the quest I'm on is to find out what is living life true for myself? What does that look like on a daily basis for Ray? And so the vipassana and meditation was the first piece of the jigsaw that I picked up. I thought, whatever I do, I've got to bring this mindfulness to it. I've got to use this understanding and awareness somehow. What does that look like? I don't quite know. But eventually it turned out that Gaston and this other guy developed a leadership program called, the three C triad program. It's a and and it takes three CEOs or corporate executives together with a facilitator.
Ray Martin 00:27:01 And you go on a six month journey and have nine modules together, and you work through all the aspects of mindfulness, and they run experiments in mindfulness, each between each session. And it's sort of like code. It's a code facilitated learning. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful program. And I still facilitate that program sometimes. I've done it ever since I became a certified facilitator in 2015. So it did start to influence how I, how I worked. Yeah, but also it had there was a bigger impact on me before that, happened because I was so I was so see in the world differently. Sally Ann, I started to see the world more in terms of what I could give than what I could get. Now, I'd been very much at what I. Can I get out of this person?
Sally Ann Marie 00:27:50 Yes.
Ray Martin 00:27:51 And so after I left the monastery and went to Chiang Mai, I went to a place called, the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Dao, where the this lovely woman called Lek was given a natural home to rescued elephants that had been distressed or her or had cruel owners, and she was creating this beautiful habitat for elephants.
Ray Martin 00:28:13 And I went there and I and I was just so moved by it and so in awe of what she was doing. And and of course, I asked her how she financed it. She said, well, it's all by donation. There's no government support or anything. And I also went to an orphanage in Nepal when I was up in the Himalayas. And a friend of mine had been there and said, could you could I run a picnic for the some of the kids? And so I did. I went there and ran a picnic for 60 kids, and it was about $20 or something. But I saw the joy in lightness of that brought. And so those things were starting to stick in my head. And I was collecting these experiences and thinking all the time, what could I give? What could I do to help these people? I've got time, I've got some expertise. and I've got energy. What can I do to help? Yeah. And then I was in the middle of that kind of soup of not knowing.
Ray Martin 00:29:04 I met a guy traveling who was a marathon runner, and Matt Campbell, his name is. And so I said, well, tell me about running marathons. He was about ten years younger than me. And he described it. And as he did. I saw that my body was doing the same kind of physiological responses as when the guy told me about the Vipassana retreat. I thought my body was letting me know there was something in this I needed to pay attention to. And so I listened carefully, and I said to Matt, do you think I could run a marathon because I was 48? And I he said, have you ever run before? I said, no, not even 100m. Not really. he said, well, you look reasonably fit. we can go for a tryout, but I, I, I want to make an offer to you. Right. If you stay here for six months, I will train you to get to the start line of your first marathon, and I'll coach you, and I'll put the program together, and we'll do it together, and I'll.
Ray Martin 00:30:03 I'll support you to do that, because I know why you want to do it. Because I wanted to raise money for these things by running a marathon, you know, and that's that's exactly what happened in the 1st of November of 2009, I, I ran the New York Marathon and raised $15,000.
Sally Ann Marie 00:30:19 Oh, amazing.
Ray Martin 00:30:20 And then I took that money back to the orphanage and the elephant sanctuary, and we deployed it and got things built and got computers. And, you know, we did so much with that money.
Sally Ann Marie 00:30:29 It was a fantastic rate. I mean, what I'm hearing is so much purpose in that run, both in yourself. Yeah. it perhaps demonstrating, showing yourself that, you know, your body and mind were capable of this, you know, big endeavor, New York marathon. My goodness. I mean, yeah, that's a huge thing. And then the, the purpose in raising the money for the two causes that you had directly experienced. Yeah. what a fabulous thing to do.
Sally Ann Marie 00:31:00 And so when you did that, you ran it. You achieved this thing. You took the money back?
Ray Martin 00:31:06 Yeah. And and was able to deploy every single penny because I didn't need anything. And it was just me. I didn't have any staff or anything. It was just me doing all of it. All the fundraising, all the training. And I'd never run. I've never worked in the charity sector. I had no idea. I was just using my common sense, you know, like, here's a pot of money. I'll sit down with the guys and say, how do you want to use this? And if I thought, oh, well, that doesn't sound like a good idea to me, I'd tell you that. Or how about this instead? And we come to a place where everyone was happy, how it's going to be used. And then I'd say, well, I'm going to if they said, we want to go get a boat motorbike, like, especially in Nepal, I was.
Ray Martin 00:31:44 To be really honest, I was a slightly nervous about pilfering and shrinkage on their side. so I, I say, well, I'm going to come and do this with you because I want to make sure it's all above board and everything gets paid exactly how it should. And and so I was the guardian of that.
Sally Ann Marie 00:32:05 Yeah. Yeah. Sort of keeping it accountable, I suppose.
Ray Martin 00:32:08 Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. What a wonderful world.
Sally Ann Marie 00:32:10 Yeah. What a wonderful partnership. Yeah. That guidance sounds immensely helpful in that context.
Ray Martin 00:32:16 Yeah. And it led to a kind of creator that I had to create a foundation so that people could make donations to something. And that's. And I did five marathons in my 50s in the end. I was we raised about $50,000 in total.
Sally Ann Marie 00:32:30 Fantastic. Or for the same causes or did.
Ray Martin 00:32:32 You know some of them I devoted the money to to to other things that I found. Like I came across this thing called schools of Hope on the Thai Burmese border because Burmese children or Burmese families that migrate to Thailand for a better life, their kids don't qualify for a place in a Thai school, you know, because of the rules.
Ray Martin 00:32:54 And so they're going to have a sort of less than standard education somewhere or none. And so someone had set up the schools of hope to, to, to represent those kids, to get them places in high schools so that they could actually get a start in life and get an education. And that needed to be funded. So I diverted about £13,000, I think, from a fund raised to them.
Sally Ann Marie 00:33:18 Amazing.
Ray Martin 00:33:19 Yeah.
Sally Ann Marie 00:33:20 So you were there in that part of the world for quite a few years.
Ray Martin 00:33:23 Yeah. About on and off for about maybe 6 or 7 years.
Sally Ann Marie 00:33:28 Okay. And you said you needed nothing. So how were you? Where was money coming from for you to learn?
Ray Martin 00:33:34 Yeah. Well, I had, you know, an affluent life as a businessman, and I'd run a profitable business, which which got sold in 2008. Right. And and so I had savings, you know, I had savings, but the world was changing. I mean, in 2008, the global financial crisis hit, and everyone was panicking, me included.
Ray Martin 00:33:54 You could see that our savings weren't going to last. And, so I started to think about that. You know, I thought there's going to be a point which came for me about 20, ten, 11. I thought, I need to think about how to generate some income. Yeah. If I'm living here, living in Asia, Sally. And the the income requirements are very low because I was living in a very modest room, you know, not just not a house, but a room in a guest house, which was part of a Thai family. So I had very low expenditure and very modest needs, but still needed to make sure I was secure for the future beyond that, which I didn't know what that was, but whatever that was. And so I, I thought right at 2010, I thought, I'm ready now to put my toe back into the water of the business world. And so I started to look for something I could engage with as a coach in Asia. And that's that was the next move.
Sally Ann Marie 00:34:51 And I did that when you started facilitating on this program for CEOs.
Ray Martin 00:34:54 Actually, no, I that came later. Okay. The foot. I mean, I I'm a I'm a huge believer. It's one of the things I've learned from this journey is that if you ask the universe for help, it will arrive. Maybe not in the form you thought, but but the but what? I've. One of the things I've really learned at a deep level is to is to put it out there, ask for help. So when I was ready, I thought, I'm ready to try this, but here's here's the circumstances. I don't know a single company in Asia. I don't know a single person in a company in Asia. How am I going to find work? I don't even know where to even look. So I went on to LinkedIn, which was relatively new back then. Yeah. And, I looked up Coaches Asia and saw what came on. Just lots of heads and faces and I didn't know anyone, but I just randomly picked 2 or 3 and sent a message saying, if this is me, I'm wanting to do some part time work and as a coach, and I was embarrassed to ask, and I'll tell you why.
Ray Martin 00:35:59 It was a very particular reason. I was embarrassed because I worked out, based on what I thought I could be paid to do the coaching. I worked out I really only needed to do about 20 hours a month, not a week a month. And I was really embarrassed to ask for such little amount of work because I thought people would say, what are you on about? You know, who do you think you are, just 20 hours a month? You know, something like this. Or they would have a judgment about that. It wasn't that I should be slaving away or something like this. You know, I had I was quite conflicted by it. But in the end, that's why I decided to go with my honesty about it, and I, I was directed by the 2 or 3 people that I messaged. I said, go and talk to this guy. He's the president of the Asia Pacific Coaching Alliance. He he'll sort you out. You know, he's the person who knows everybody.
Ray Martin 00:36:49 So I went. I went to see him and he said, I think I know a couple of people I could send your profile to would help you. You said you've got one, haven't you? I said, yeah, I didn't. I made one up that night, but I didn't have one and I sent it to him. Well, two days later I got a call from somebody in Singapore. Lady call Danielle. She said, I'm out here in Singapore. We we're a European coaching company, but we've opened an office in Asia because we've got a lot of client demand coming from Asia. Now we've just we've we've got plenty of cars. We just don't have enough coaches. And I heard from Warwick that you've got 20 hours a month. Can we have them all. You know more if you want. But and I said, well, you know, I'm happy to do that, but I don't want to be coerced into taking a full time job. I don't want any pressure to make it big.
Ray Martin 00:37:36 You know, they said it's fine. It's absolutely fine. We'd really love to have you on board and do that, and you would be a good fit for us. And so I went from the idea, I'd like I feel I'm ready in just 2 or 3 steps to actually working with real clients in Asia with effortlessly. It was it was you couldn't sort of make it up. And I was thinking, how come, how come this happens? And I reflected on that a lot. And I came to the conclusion, I thought for the first time, I'm doing things that fully align with my values, with who I am, with my feel for life. I'm not. I'm just literally living as anywhere said, true to myself in every moment. And these things are happening. And I thought, that's the connection, that's what it is. It's something to do with that. That when you're living in that kind of alignment, the things you need come with, without the effort and it's the effort is coming because there's some slight misalignment, perhaps not always because I heard your podcast with with Jack Hubbard and then, you know, obviously he's got a huge project there and it takes a lot of effort because he was describing it in that interview.
Ray Martin 00:38:47 So I don't mean that kind of effort, not the effort of physically building something that's different. But yeah, but, you know, I've had experiences where I was trying to make something happen and I just put all the effort, no matter what I did, it just seemed like it was going further away.
Sally Ann Marie 00:39:01 I wonder if it's, you know, something to do with one's own alignment, it being the right thing? Yeah. Listening, noticing. You know, the distracting voice of judgment. You know, in your case, you just described how you were sort of questioning whether or not 20 hours a week was a reasonable request. Shouldn't you be? You know, how did that fit with all of the norms of working and so on. But you put that to one side. You trusted your instinct, you put it out there and you met a need, didn't you? Yeah. Because there was a need. There was a gap. And unbeknown to you, people were looking for people like you as it happened.
Ray Martin 00:39:44 Well, this is one person that was amazing. What was the most magical thing? I found that one person who was looking in the middle of Asia like that, I can't, I couldn't, I couldn't quite, couldn't believe it. It felt like a miracle.
Sally Ann Marie 00:39:56 So I suppose you I want to explore this idea. We hear it quite a bit. Don't we, you know, put it out to the universe, so to speak. it can take many forms, can't it? Yes. What is it for you when you send a message out there and the universe responds with perhaps the one person who just happens to hear it, you know, and there's a sequence of events that can be articulated that got you to that point as you've just done. But nevertheless, it was there. You know, the universe puts you together. If we look at it that way, when you put your message out, what is that for you?
Ray Martin 00:40:39 It's somehow like a it seems like a kind of radio signal.
Ray Martin 00:40:43 Oh, that's about the best way I could describe it. It's like you're signalling a frequency, an energetic frequency that is being received somehow by what Jack Penske and Sid Banks call the universal intelligence of all things, which I can't describe. I don't know how to describe that, but I haven't the concept of what that is, and it tunes in and it starts to then somehow. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie The Adjustment Bureau. No, I haven't. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, it's a Hollywood movie, but it's a lovely story.
Sally Ann Marie 00:41:23 And, you know.
Ray Martin 00:41:24 It's like the people on Earth are being watched and monitored by people from heaven. And if they take and take a decision to go somewhere which is not in their fated story that the Adjustment Bureau hold, they have to be nudged back onto their story. It's kind of it's kind of like this. It's it's a it's a I'm probably not describing. But it's a lovely movie.
Sally Ann Marie 00:41:48 Yeah, it sounds fun.
Ray Martin 00:41:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ray Martin 00:41:50 And, and so there's this, there's this kind of divine guidance that's coming, and it might not look exactly how you thought, because I've got loads of stories where I got the guidance, but it wasn't how I imagined. But it's still nonetheless was brilliant. I've got loads of stories like that, but, this, this instance, it was, it was spot on. You know, I, I wanted to find someone I could do some work before or with. And the universe took me there within a couple of days. You know, it's brilliant.
Sally Ann Marie 00:42:18 So I'm now deeply curious. Yeah. Can you give us one example of where the response, the universal response to your request was not what you expected, but nevertheless you listened and went with it? Yeah. Tell us one time.
Ray Martin 00:42:36 Yeah. So one time was before I went on the sabbatical, and I was in the deep loss and grief. paralyzed feeling of being hopelessly lost. Someone came forward in my friends network and said, why don't you try finding someone who really needs your help and just going 100%.
Ray Martin 00:42:58 Put your attention on them for a while. Just take your attention totally off yourself. Forget about your troubles, put them aside. Just focus on serving. I thought, okay, thank you. I'll try that. And as luck would have it, I don't mean it like that. I tried. I sadly found out that a really good friend of mine who had moved to Australia had breast cancer, and I contacted her because she had. I knew her husband, Matt, had lived, shared a house with him for years before and they just had a young son called. He was two, I think. And and Matt worked full time and I said, how about I come out to Australia for a month and just look after you guys or serve you, you know, take care of you, take you to the hospital and just be useful. You know, somehow she said, oh, that'd be great, so I did. I went to Australia to do that, and I had a few like 5 or 6 days left at the end of my month or so.
Ray Martin 00:43:57 And I knew another friend of mine in Cairns, which is not far from Sydney, really relatively. And that's what I was so far on the other side of the world, I thought, I can't not visit, it's too, too close. So Julie said, my friend Julie said, yeah, come up and stay with us, you know. So I got to her house and she said, me and my mum are going to see this play at the theatre. The advice I was given was find someone to help take your attention off yourself and something will crack. Something will change. Some something will emerge. Something will happen. Honestly, that's the thing to do. So that's what I did. So I went up to Cairns and Julie said to me, me and my mum are going to see this play at the theatre tomorrow night. Do you want to take ticket? You want to come? I said yeah, sure. You went to the play? I'm looking at the program in the interval, reading about the actors.
Ray Martin 00:44:46 And I saw this little note on the last page saying, we're auditioning for the next play here at this theater. It's called. It's called Out of Order by Ray Cooney. He's a very famous British playwright. Yes. Whitehall farce. And, it centers around a British MP called Richard Wylie, who's up to no good in the Westminster Hotel. And it's a comedy. And I turn to my two friends, my two Australian friends, and said I should be in that play. I've got the perfect English accent and I could be a member of Parliament. And I said it just for a joke. I mean, I was just killing time in the interval. They both looked at me quite seriously and said, well, we know the director of the play who's doing the casting, and you're here on Sunday for the audition, why don't you go? And I thought, well, I did it. Come on, don't be ridiculous. I'm not an actor. I've got no training. Let me know some decent actors there.
Ray Martin 00:45:37 I never get a part. And anyway, I've got to go back to England. I've got all this work to do to pay my mortgage on my own because my wife's gone and blah, blah, blah. I came up with a million reasons why I couldn't do it. And and of course, I hadn't done the Vipassana then, so I didn't know my thinking was not was questionable. I was just believing my thinking. And, and and they said, well, why don't you just do the audition for fun? You know, don't try to be in the play. Just do it because you're here and it's fun. I said, that's a really good idea. I'll do that. So I went to the audition and because my my sister in law's an actress professional, and I knew someone else who was an actress, so I had some understanding and awareness of it. And I wasn't shy about performing because I've been having to give a lot of speeches at conferences and stuff as a businessman, so I wasn't too uncomfortable with that.
Ray Martin 00:46:26 and so I threw myself in 100%, and I read all the parts and acted the parts they asked me to. And at the end of the audition, the directory said, that's great, everyone. You can all go. Thanks. Up. All right, would you? Would you stay behind? Oh, what is that? Oh my God. I've done. I've done something wrong. You know, I've lied on my form about something. So what's your situation, then? Are you actually here? Living here? I said yeah. I knew I wasn't, but I didn't want to say no because I didn't want to be excluded for geography reasons. I said, yeah, I'm staying here for a while, indefinitely. You said, because the play is going to take three months to rehearse and just want to know if you were in it. Would you be able to do this? And so I said, yeah. Yeah, I think so. I said, when are you going to decide? Because I was going in two days.
Ray Martin 00:47:15 He said, well, about a week's time we'll decide. Oh, I said, okay. I said, well just let me know, you know. And so I told my friend Julie, this is what's going to happen. They're going to call you or me because I've given your number. That's where I'm staying. And they're going to tell me if I'm in it or not. I said, but to be honest, I can't do this. I can't come back here. It's like just one tiny part. I come on and make the tea and go. It's got to be one of the two central characters, otherwise I. It's no point. And and they're never going to offer those to me because they're too complex and difficult characters. I got back to Heathrow, and Judy had called within two hours of me landing to say, I want you to be in the play, and they want you to play the part of George Picton, which was the main character of the entire play.
Sally Ann Marie 00:48:02 Oh my goodness.
Ray Martin 00:48:03 And I knew that this was going to be a life changing thing. I knew it, I knew I had to do this even though it seemed ridiculous. I had bills mounting up. I'd made 3 or 4 clients promises about work. I was going to do that. I got home, I thought, I'm in a dilemma here because my spirit, my soul, my energy wants me to go back and do this. But my logical, rational mind wants me to have integrity. Do the work. Pay the bills. I thought I need a confirmation signal from the universe that this would be the right choice if I go back. What is that? Don't I look like. And so I thought, I know, I know what it is. I'm going to call each of these clients. I'm going to tell them this story exactly like I'm telling it to you. No, no, no waffling, no lying, no trying to spin it. I say, I've been asked to do this play. I feel like God wants me to do it.
Ray Martin 00:49:02 I'm being called to it. I feel like I've got to. But I've given you my word I'm going to do this work. And if you insist on me doing it, I promise you I will stay and I will do it. I'm only going to go if you give me your blessing to go. And it's got to be with your full support. And it's got to be. I thought my confirmation is me. All three would say, yeah, go. They all said if I was you, Ray, I'd go. Go with my blessing. All three. So I went and I did it. Yeah.
Sally Ann Marie 00:49:28 Now permission. Yeah. So this was before you went to Thailand, is that right?
Ray Martin 00:49:33 Yeah. Before I went off on the sabbatical. Because I didn't have. I didn't agree with the idea of the sabbatical in this moment. And so I that but the realization of doing all that came as I came back to England afterwards, because I so loved freeing myself from the confines of the personality of Ray.
Ray Martin 00:49:52 I so love being another man for three months because I was George Picton, I'd become him. What's his voice? What clothes does he wear? What are his think thoughts? You know, I had to become that guy and it took me out of being Ray. And so as I flew back to London after three months of the play and it was a tremendous success, Sally, I got a standing ovation some nights and loads of newspaper articles about how good I was in the role and stuff. It was brilliant. You know, it was. I couldn't believe how great it was. But when I flew back to London on the plane, I noticed I had this feeling of dread in my body. I was feeling really unhappy and dread. Yeah. And I sat with that and I thought, what's that out? I thought, you know what? I just don't want to play Ray the businessman anymore. And then I suddenly hit me. I went, oh my God. Oh my God, Ray, the business is the character I've been playing.
Ray Martin 00:50:49 It's not me. And I never thought of it like that. And until I did the play. And that's why it all made sense. Now, suddenly, retrospectively, all the dots connected. Go and help someone. Something will crack. They didn't say it's going to crack within a couple of minutes. They they didn't give a timeline. So it took a few months after doing that before something cracked. Yeah, but but that was the that was the universe's guidance. That came in a form that I never expected. Yeah. And that was that was a life changing realization. Because the minute I got that realization, I put my house for sale on the market in London, because that was the thing that was secure in me, that was tying me to the character of Ray, the businessman, because I had to finance that life because that character had high income requirement, you know, affluent lifestyle in west London, bills that that character had all those props. And I didn't need to be that character.
Ray Martin 00:51:48 Tony Robbins, as the coach says, you know, you're you're not just the actor, you're the actor, the scriptwriter and the director. Yes. So you can rewrite the character, or you can kill off the series and just say, that's it. We're done. Yeah. So I had all these options then that I didn't have. And so that's when the idea of taking the sabbatical really fired up. Yeah, yeah.
Sally Ann Marie 00:52:09 That's all. Everything sort of came together, didn't it? It really did in the realization. Yeah. That's not a part you want to continue to play.
Ray Martin 00:52:17 Yeah, I played that character for 25 years dutifully. And I did it really that really well done.
Sally Ann Marie 00:52:23 Well.
Ray Martin 00:52:23 And I was done with it. I was really done. Yes.
Sally Ann Marie 00:52:27 So, Ray. Today?
Ray Martin 00:52:30 Yes.
Sally Ann Marie 00:52:31 Ray. The human being.
Ray Martin 00:52:32 Yeah.
Sally Ann Marie 00:52:35 When you think of where you are in your life at this time, in this moment. What does Fearless Forward mean to you?
Ray Martin 00:52:46 I think the way I'm interpreting it now is that it's obviously come to my awareness through that journey and other things I've done that I've got four core values and one of those is exploration.
Ray Martin 00:53:00 And for me a life well lived is one in which I feel I'm constantly willing to explore what's beneath the surface of how I see things and decide things and do things and, and and I. Being fearless means being willing to go into the dark, dingy areas or the areas where I would be, you know, not happy to admit I've got tightness or judgments or fear or anxiety and explore those and continue my commitment in life to do that. because that underpins all of the work I do as a coach. And it it creates a safe foundation for all my personal relationships and all sorts of things come from that mindful way of living. So for me, that's what being fearless really means, is staying true to that commitment of living true to myself, doing that. And it's scary sometimes, and it feels like a lot of effort sometimes. but that's that's what it means. I think for me, I don't, I can't I wish I could sort of say something like, like your friend Jack, who's building this fantastic center, a project.
Ray Martin 00:54:14 You know, I don't have a project like that that's got a physical manifestation. and I'm 66 this year, and, you know, facing what life in retirement might be like. Oh, whatever that means these days. so I don't know exactly what form it's going to take, but I'm fearlessly out in the world, you know, looking to support those who are on this kind of path. Yeah.
Sally Ann Marie 00:54:42 Thank you very much, Ray, for this conversation.
Ray Martin 00:54:46 You're welcome.
Sally Ann Marie 00:54:52 Sometimes the life you built stops working. No amount of discipline or achievement can save it. And maybe that's the point when life reveals the truth about what no longer fits. Pushing on through is not what's needed. Rather than clinging on, better to pause. And as best you can, let it go. Ray's was not a tidy breakthrough. It was a real collapse. He lost his marriage and the identity he'd built around success. But when he finally let go of his old life, a different question began to emerge. Whose life am I actually living? Through meditation, Ray found awareness and space to notice his thoughts, his habits, his fears, and the choices that were his to make.
Sally Ann Marie 00:55:46 Perhaps the invitation here is to ask ourselves, where in our own life might we be performing a version of ourself that it's time to let go of? Thank you for listening. Fearless forward is edited and produced by Rob Lawrence. I'll be back with you in two weeks for our next conversation about how leaders have faced their fears. To be sure of catching it, go to Fearless Forward or subscribe to my weekly bulletin at Skillful Leaders.