How Spirituality Can Unlock Next Level Performance with Rob Begg (#53)

Show Notes:

Rob Begg helps high-achieving entrepreneurs align mind, body and spirit to
attain next level performance with ease, certainty and speed.

His work goes beyond mindset, or ‘behind the mind’, to guide his clients to exceptional, tangible, measurable results but from a foundation of knowing who they truly are and residing in that awareness.

So they get what they truly want much more quickly without all the unnecessary exhaustion as they’re not coming at it from a sense of lack or ‘I’m not good enough’ beliefs and thinking.

Topics explored:

  • The path to the true origin of outcomes
  • The importance of getting behind the mind
  • ‘Coming out’ with the spiritual label at 54
  • What’s conditioned in our consciousness plays out in our experience
  • “The cave you fear to enter, holds the treasure that you seek” Joseph Murphy
  • Ego resistance that pushes us back when we look for our true identity
  • Just learn to get out of the way of our true desires
  • Goals from a heartfelt desire rather than ego based lack of self worth
  • What changes is what they start to entertain in consciousness
  • It is that simple, we’re conditioned to believe it’s hard
  • Remain aware of what we desire, not what we’re faced with
  • Knowing who we truly are is the golden key to be and get what we truly want, which ultimately is to be happy and fulfilled

 

Transcript

Al McBride 0:04
Okay, so welcome to the dealing with Goliath podcast. The mission of dealing with Goliath is to sharpen the psychological edge of negotiation and high impact conversations. For business leaders with skin in the game, we want to be more effective under pressure, uncover hidden value, and increase profitability. With expert guests across the business spectrum, we deliver Gems of Wisdom delving into their methods, their thinking, and approach to business life into problem solving. This is the Grande cup of insight long form podcast interview, where we take a little bit more time to delve a little bit deeper into our guests experiences, stories, and to get those priceless nuggets. I’m your host, Al McBride. And my guest today is Rob bag. Rob helps high achieving entrepreneurs align mind, body and spirit to attain next level performance with ease, certainty. And speed. Welcome to the show. Rob, great to have you here.

Rob Begg 1:06
Thank you. Great to be here. And thank you for the invitation.

Al McBride 1:10
Oh, well, I’m very glad to have you come on, this is going to be a very interesting conversation for me because you, you’re a little bit you are distinctly different to dare I say your average executive high flying executive coach, who works wonders for business and entrepreneurial people. And you’ve recently had a little bit of an epiphany, if you don’t mind me bringing it up. He recently wrote a great post, entitled at 54 years old and finally coming out. Or Ted, you just tell the audience about what that is? And what what that sudden, sudden revelation was.

Rob Begg 1:52
Yeah, and it wasn’t it wasn’t really a sudden revelation or an epiphany, I would say, as such, but

Al McBride 1:59
as as how you speak about yourself?

Rob Begg 2:01
Certainly, yes. So you refer to moments go to executive coaching and traditional executive or business coaching. And I did that for a number of years after selling my business. And it led me on a path if you like to the true origin of outcomes. And the email that you referred to just now about coming out of the age of 54 was really a reference to the fact that the origin of outcomes is spiritual in nature, it’s, it’s not an ever to do with what we’re doing. As such, it’s to do with our state of being. And whilst I’ve spent a lot of time around mindset, coaching, traditional mindset, coaching, and so on, in order to really shift the trajectory of our results, we’ve got to get behind the mind, which is an identity piece, it’s about understanding the truth about who we really are.

So it’s spiritual in the true essence of the word. And the other reason for writing that email was that I fully acknowledge, appreciate and respect that a lot of people are closed off to this whole notion of spirituality and so on, because they perceive it to be and understandably so they perceive it to be rude and ethereal, and for, you know, for people that want to sit on Christians all day. And that’s absolutely fine. But we’re all spiritual beings, nonetheless, whether we accept it or deny it, or are open to it or close to it, we’re spiritual beings, nonetheless.

But the reason for that email was that I’d rather push against the door that’s slightly open, then a door that’s fully closed, I respect people’s choices and so on. So I thought I would just come out and speak my truth about the fact that what I really do is, is spiritual first mind, body and spirit, not not mind and body, which is the mind and body the domain of most coaching and support interventions

Al McBride 3:53
very much and from your raving successful fans. You have a huge amount of for people who’ve worked with you, and I’ve come across a few of them, they have not been rubs, good rubs, great. Dave raving fans, I think would be a fair description, because they have such remarkable leaps, significant shifts, as you say, in their state of being and I know, some people will be thinking, Well, what do you mean by state of being rob? So So give us a little insight on that one, like, what does that mean to you?

Rob Begg 4:34
That’s a great question, actually. And I’m not even sure if I’ve been asked that before. But so, when we when we go back to what I start with this, when we go to the truth about who we really are, who we really are is is unconditioned consciousness. But we’ve all been conditioned on our life journey, you know, unwittingly by our parents or early childhood influencers.

We’ve been Given messages at an agent stage in our life before we had the ability to think for ourselves or to reject ideas, so many of us were told that money’s hard to earn, or if you want to earn a lot of money, you’ve got to work really hard, or X, Y, and Zed if you’ve got to get a real job and muscle to survive. Yeah. And we’ve been conditioned and programmed. And I’ve already forgotten the question you asked me, but we’ve been conditioned and programmed and because of, because of who we are, what’s what’s conditioned into our consciousness plays out in our experience. And it’s playing out in our experience, ultimately, for our benefit to wake us up to the truth about who we are, but how powerful we are.

So if, if our experience is that money is hard to earn, if that’s actually our direct experience, or it’s hard to hang on to, or that, if that’s our direct experience, the only reason for that is that it’s in our consciousness. But it’s probably subconscious. And the reason it’s in our experience is to help us to become conscious of it so that we can change it. It’s, it’s really a story that we’re running in our in our mind, that’s playing out on the screen of our our own very own movie. And if we want to change what’s playing out on the screen, we’ve got to change what we’re putting in the projector. And we can do that in two ways. We could do it in the more traditional mindset coaching kind of way, which is change the beliefs and hammer your subconscious with affirmations, and all the rest of it, which is pretty much pretty exhausting. And it’s also a form of suppression that ignores some of what needs to come off and be released. Or we can go to the truth about who we are, which is our true identity, pure unconditioned consciousness, and then we can connect with what it is we we really do desire to play out in our lives. And

Al McBride 6:49
how does one start to do that hit like, I know we’re getting a little bit into your process here, but I’m going to be because I am fascinated by it. Because this is something we talked about before the coal where as we said, there are only two times in my life where change was almost immediate. And was stayed change ever since. And we mentioned this to one was doing the Wim Hof Wim Hof Method, I had viral vertigo, which has all sorts of stuff connected with that unpleasantness, but it and Wim Hof helped me immensely.

But the cold showers the breathing the mindset, I just took to it. Yes. And I do it every day for, I don’t know, four or five years now, without thinking it’s all automated. The other was when a colleague of mine, we did a coaching swap, and he was a personal trainer. And I mentioned this briefly to you know, I lost 22 pounds 10 kilos, in less than four weeks, and kept it off ever since. And again, there was just something where it just clicked the diet change the the I was in the gym, or whatever I was doing.

But we didn’t even talk about running or lifting weights or any of the tactical things. It was much more about identity based. Yes, Revelations. And I’m not even sure what he did. I just in the gym, like the second the third week in a row going, I didn’t think I was a gym guy. Shit, I must be a gym guy. Looking in the mirror. There’s a guy that looks like me holding weights and like, this feels really good. What’s going on? So the identity shift, I was doing the actions before they shifted. So I’m just wondering, help me out here. What’s going on? Yes. And is it connected to what you’re talking about? Are we talking about to quit?

Rob Begg 8:41
No, it’s, it’s absolutely connected out? Yeah. So we’re conditioned. And we believe and we perceive that that we’re in charge of our thinking, and we’re in charge of our doing and our actions. And then we give ourselves a hard time when we don’t when we’re not able to necessarily align our, our behaviors, with our intentions and so on. But the reality is that we’re human beings, there’s a clue in the name. And it’s our state of being our identity, that drives all of our thinking and our doing and our subsequent having and our experience.

So if we want to set ourselves up for an on our state of being will always move us to take action to think and to take action in ways that replicate the state of being. So if we’re if we’re in a state of being, and maybe an example would be would be helpful in a moment, but if we’re in a state of being of like, not not enough, I’ve not got enough clients and not enough money, and I need to do something, we can throw ourselves into action, which in the moment feels like we’re going to create an outcome that’s in harmony with our desires. And we may get an outcome that that gives us some temporary relief.

But if the state of being is I’m not got enough clients, not enough clients, and we can do all the action in the world, but we’re still going to come back round two of not not enough clients not going to have clients in the same way that if we stand in front of the mirror and say I must lose weight. I must Lose weight, I need to get fitter. We might join the gym and we might go to the gym for a week. But the likelihood is we’re going to stop going to the gym, or we’re going to keep eating the foods that cause us to retain the weight because we’re in the state of being the person who wants to lose weight.

And being in the state of being that person, whether it’s weight, money, relationships, is going to perpetuate the state. But of course, because we’re conditioned the way we are, we blame things outside of us, like, oh, well, the, I’ve got too much on at work, so I couldn’t get to the gym, I’ve got this or I was invited to a wedding. So that was the only food available, etc, etc, etc. And we we point to the outside world for for cause when actually, it’s our state.

Al McBride 10:47
Right? This is something previous guests said that when you realize who you are, the decisions are easy. Yeah, this guy was big into Paul was big into health, and whatnot, quite bodybuilding, but that kind of area. So his whole thing was when the option of to want to have an alcoholic drink is like, No, I don’t do that. Just like as a Muslim. It’s automated. Yes, I am. My original original mate. I’m the sort of person who then therefore, it’s a shortcut of No, I don’t. Yes, it’s the same. But it was for him. It was up but with diet like it was, oh, I don’t put that in my body because he was living as if his body was a temple, right?

Rob Begg 11:39
Yes, because the state of being was such and therefore you don’t rely on willpower, because willpower is a finite result. A finite resource. But yeah, your state everything’s automatic, from your state everything. And of course, the key then is to is to be able to maintain, maintain and embody a state that’s in harmony with your desires. That’s, that’s really what I teach,

Al McBride 11:59
if you like, this is the root in this route in, and but how do you then find out what this true self is? Because this is sounds very familiar to you. There’s an awful lot of research, particularly out of several universities now in the states on MDMA therapy and LSD therapy and these sort of things. Yes. And they have amazing success rates from helping people quit neck nicotine to drug addiction, alcoholism. And people kind of want to how can it be useful all these things, and what they suggest what the evidence seems to show is it turns off what’s called the default mode network, or at least turns the volume way down. Your default mode network for a lot of people, it’s our internal voice, it’s our chattering voice. And they say that, that allows our true voice, which is usually very quiet, to actually speak, and people hear who they truly are, is this again, what we’re talking about here, Rob, that

Rob Begg 12:59
probably So partly, you know, the risk of getting maybe two or three, you know, for for some of your listeners, who who we really are. We can only really understand that experientially, in the same way that I can’t teach you how to drive a car in a classroom, you only ever know that you can drive when you’ve got behind the wheel of the car, and you’re actually out on the open road. Until then it’s an intellectual. An intellectual exercise, which is one of the reasons people, people turn to books, self development, and personal development books and all the rest of it and read all these books. And in the moment, those books feel like they’re helping us.

But fast forward in time. And we find that actually, the books haven’t really shifted helped us shift the trajectory of our lives much. Because what all we’re really doing is soothing, soothing, the very part of us our ego when we read the book, the very part of us that wants to maintain the status quo, but is equally clever kidding us on that we’re on the path to change. So experiences is really key. And we’ve got to get to do that we’ve got to get high in the mind and do the one thing that most people don’t want to do, which is to take their awareness away from the contents of their experience. And to go go within you Joseph Murphy said the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek. And it absolutely does.

But of course what happens out for us the reason we don’t want to go there is because we identify as being a body. So I’m a body and a mind body with the mind. And the analogy I often use with with clients is if you were an illusionist, and you your that was your career and you got on stage every every night in front of a large audience to perform this grand illusion and you got paid at the end of the night and you that money you paid your mortgage and fed the kids over so you were reliant on that that income. So if you’re on stage one night, and you see somebody In the audience, getting up from the chair and sneaking around the back of the stage with a view to finding out how you perform this illusion, what do you think you’re inclined to want to do?

Al McBride 15:13
Right, it doesn’t mix very well.

Rob Begg 15:15
Well, they’re inclined to want to do everything in your power to get them to sit back down. Exactly. Because if they break the illusion, your career is over, at least that’s how you perceive it. So that’s what’s goes on for us when we seek to identify, seek to discover our true identity, our ego, our mind and body is is hugely threatened by that. And the fear the overriding fear is fear of death. Okay, but it’s, it’s the ecosphere of death. It’s not actually death, we that’s another conversation. But that’s why people are so resistant to spending time going within and getting to the truth. But of course, we don’t, we don’t, we don’t realize that we just say,

Well, I’m too busy. It didn’t work for me, I can’t meditate, I can’t do this. And I don’t teach that we need to spend hours meditating, I teach about embodying states of consciousness, but from an understanding, but that’s the reason people don’t want to go there. That’s the reason people dismiss it. It’s too scary. And yet, it’s the key to the freedom because what everybody’s looking for, or everybody’s chasing in the outside world is happiness.

Everybody’s thinking, Well, when I have this amount of money in the bank, or happiness, security, safety, etc. When I have this, then I’ll be happy. And I’ve done this, then I’ll be happy. And the reason everybody’s chasing happiness is it’s because it’s who we are. It’s our natural state. We can we can be happy all the time. Not to say that we don’t get bummed around by our human adventure from time to time, but that that never who we really are never leaves us and who we really are at source is love. Think the Beatles said Love is all there is to me? Was it the Beatles?

Al McBride 17:11
Because all you need is love. Exactly. Exactly. So

Rob Begg 17:19
sorry. Go ahead.

Al McBride 17:20
No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Rob Begg 17:21
Well, I was just going to just touch on what, you know, if I’m working with high performing entrepreneurs, well, how does that all tie in and the and the reason it, the way it ties in is that if we have an aspiration or a desire, that desire is actually given to us by our true self for us to experience. So all we’ve got to do is learn how to get out of the way. So when entrepreneurs and those who want to take their success to the next level. When I when I meet with them, or they speak with me, it’s really always required us to take them to an understanding of who they are and how their imagination works. And then they can get whatever

Al McBride 18:00
they want. So you’re saying that their very desires, or the struggle, so to speak, is the clue to unlocking the struggle?

Rob Begg 18:11
Yes, it’s, I think, I think they are over all the rules for the game playing the game of life are hidden in the paradoxes. But the key is to learn how to accept our desires. Because what we’re what we do is we we reject them, or we condition them. I’m going back to the start of this conversation now is when you know, did you drink

Al McBride 18:33
coffee? I do enjoy coffee.

Rob Begg 18:37
So you have a cup of coffee in your hand in the morning. And if you go back to where that started, how did it end up in your experience? Well, the answer to that is that you have you imagined you had you had a desire for a cup of coffee. And you accepted that desirable. Yeah, have a cup of coffee. It came it came into your mind as a desire and you accepted it. And then you were moved to do everything you needed to do in order to experience the coffee.

Right? What you didn’t have to do was go well, actually, I need to, I need to just check that there’s water in the water in the kettle first, then what are those? Nope, just in the wall, whatever, turn the kettle on doesn’t work. Maybe I’ve not got enough coffee in the jar. You didn’t You didn’t go through all that. Sure. You just accepted the desire. And it works exactly the same for big things as small things because it’s only us from our ego perspective that puts the label on whether it’s big or small anyway,

Al McBride 19:33
that that’s very interesting because it reminds of actually, I think Tony Robbins I think was somebody that talking about why some people find it so easy. Again, the health thing. You know, you are someone who doesn’t really want to go to the gym, but it’s forcing themselves to Yes, and they’ll mention 42 steps that are irritating, like oh, I have to pack the bag and then I have to get in the car and go to the gym. And then if we get a lacquer and, and all these irritations, or which are all building to an excuse to not do it at some point in the future, yes. Yeah, right for the person who I did, I use the gym as one example of whatever it is people like to do. Some people have gone jogging and I hate gyms, that’s fine. But it’s that same point of other people go there because they want, what it feels like they’re, like, I understand that feeling that little endorphin buzz that you get from doing something that your body feels difficult, and your mind goes, Oh, that was good. You know, as you said, so you kind of unless there’s amazing barriers in the way you’ll go, No, I want to do that. That’s perfectly fine. And as you said, is it a level of acceptance, as you said, you you accept the desire,

Rob Begg 20:51
you set the desire, and then you move in as a function of the acceptance of the desire, you move into the state of being the person who already has it, and therefore you are then moved to do what’s required of you in order to have this physical experience? So it’s spiritual, mental, physical, spiritual, spiritual? Well, yeah, it’s a bit of a bit of a loop.

Al McBride 21:09
Here’s a question this is, play me. Sure. It’s like a lot of people is what I jokingly refer to as the Leonardo effect. So the VINCI started 1000 projects. But he didn’t really finish all that many of them. Now part of it was maybe procrastination part of it, maybe it was a little bit of bright shiny object syndrome back in the day. But being fair to him having read some of his biographies and things, I don’t think that was I think he just did things to his own satisfaction, but it was the same thought of, Oh, I’ve kind of worked that out. And you get that dopamine rush, it’s like that.

What I’m saying is that there’s there’s two blocks of evidence, like, if you have a goal or objective, should you tell people or not, and some evidence says, oh, you should tell those people because then it’s accountability. And then you’ll want to do it so that you’re, you know, in alignment with who you say you are to others. Whereas loads of people say, that’s nonsense, because by saying you did it, you get the boat to the dopamine rush of the victory, but without having to actually do the action. And then people just procrastinate and put it off. So what’s missing in that equation? Ego is that because you were talking about earlier that the ego fires to little rewards, but you’re not actually shifted to that person who does that? It’s not the difference.

Rob Begg 22:38
I think I think you’re taking the liver, to the lid off for cataracts. But it’s, it’s a big conversation now. So the acceptance of our desires. So the acceptance of our desires, we have desires, ultimately, desires arise because we’ve momentarily forgotten who we are, we have we have desires and let me backpedal to when we reside in who we really are in pure unconditioned awareness. What we experience as a function of that is happiness, bliss, contentment.

When we have a desire for something in the world, call it a new car or a house or building a business that desire springs from a momentary forgetfulness of who we are, from, from our perception that we were lacking something from the awareness of I don’t have that I’d like it. So it’s, it’s from it’s so there’s a there’s a sense of, there’s a sense of a lack of fulfillment, which can only arise from not residing in who we are. When we accept the desire when we go, oh, I accept that in the same way we accept having a cup of coffee that leads us back in feeling back to who we are. And when we accept the desire, we also get to experience it, but we’re no longer chasing it out of some sense of lack.

We don’t need it in our lives anymore, because we’re already fulfilled. It’s already been fulfilled, that opens the door for us to be able to have it. But because this world that we live in is a mirror of what’s going on in our consciousness. What happens when if we have a big goal for something and I’m absolutely a fan of goals, we’re here for experience. So I’m absolutely a fan of going after what it is we want, but going after it from the point of it being a true heartfelt desire rather than an ego based I need that in order to prop up my lack of self worth my lack of sense of self or my lack of self worth. So it was so lost my lost thread fascinating

Al McBride 24:46
as he said that it’s when you notice the desire. Say it’s two. Oh, I’m trying to give a tip. Think of a typical example. That’s some of your clients but like, earn that next huge contract. Right from Yeah, huge, huge business opportunity.

Rob Begg 25:07
double my income work half is quite common, right?

Al McBride 25:10
This kind of thing, right? It’s it’s not very desire that Oh no, I’m enough already. Which was strangely takes that ego pressure off of that, Oh, I must have it otherwise I’m not enough. Yes. Right. And so is that the awareness that you’re you’re literally, you’re not just thinking you’re feeling you’re realizing truly that no, I’m enough as I am right now.

Rob Begg 25:40
You’re Yeah. And who, who you already are has that already has that desire, it’s coming from within who you are. So, but yes, that’s essentially it. And when when we, when we accept the desire, we come back to our fulfilled whole state of being, then then we open the doorway for the for the experience of that desire in our physical experience, because we’re no longer resisting it through our egoic sense of lack. Because ultimately, ultimately, so it’s all energy anyway, indeed, without resisting or allowing,

Al McBride 26:13
this friend of mine many years ago explained why the secret was both true and bullshit at the same time. Yes. And the point was, was that when people are using their ego, to try and attract stuff, oh, anyone have a new car, and the Big Mac mansion and all this rubbish, you’re never going to get it because you’re coming from a place of lack.

Whereas when you bring it from, as you say, your heart’s desire, then you tend to gravitate toward these what externally people look at and say, Wow, you’ve gone to this whole other level. How did you do that? Because they’re asking probably, both from both perspectives. But it looks like this amazing ego charge, but an actual fact, it was the opposite.

Rob Begg 27:00
Yes. And I don’t teach the law of attraction at all. But,

you know, I do teach. I teach something, which is that the law of assumption that actually everything is our consciousness, our self pushed out? We don’t we don’t attract as such, but Oh, yes, you’re right. Yeah, of course, the ego gets a grip of that. When I say everything is our self pushed out, the ego gets a grip of answers what me Rob Begg, the mind and the body? No, I’m talking about our true self, our true identity, pushed out in our experience through our finite mind.

Al McBride 27:41
This is a little off topic, but I was in Japan a few years ago. On the last night there myself in front of it, we’re talking to these two Japanese chaps, a very interesting guys. And I sent one of it like this is one of the most highly packed in cities in the world and Tokyo. He had everybody nobody hits against each other ever. They just glide by almost effortlessly. And he said to me, and here we go. He said to me, when you realize you’re a little god, and I realize I’m a little god, then we can just flow gently by each other with no problems. And he said not the gods. Not a big God. Just a little. Oh, wow. Okay, mind blown. But there’s a little bit of that, though, isn’t there? There’s not an ego thing. It’s really your true expanse and potential greatness. And then yeah, you don’t need to knock by other people when you’re really doing.

Rob Begg 28:45
Really good.

Al McBride 28:48
Very interesting. Does, there’s so many things going on there. Oh, great.

Rob Begg 28:53
Yeah. I wonder whether we should ground it a bit in levering it back into that spring it

Al McBride 28:59
back down? Yeah. So where do we bring that back down? Where do we start back to Earth? Because this and let me just reiterate, and I should reiterate this area, you help your clients get stunningly substantial business increases. If you aren’t, you know, my, as I often say to clients, you always need to sell it to the psychopaths in the room, you know, the cold economist bit.

So it’s great to have all the meaning and all the great all that and that I’m not denigrating that for a second. But just on the actual results side, your work gets truly remarkable results. So this is why I want to just re grounded in us that because we were going all the very esoteric, and I’m all good with that. But as you said, Yeah, let’s bring it back down to earth.

Rob Begg 29:53
Yes, because you’re right. You’re absolutely right. My clients come to me because they want a tangible measurable outcome in some way, shape or form. A lot of the time is around money in business. Not always, sometimes health. But yes, they want they want, they want something in their experience that they can put in the bank measure, spend travel with whatever it is, it’s real.

Al McBride 30:17
Do you read? Do you hear that request and understand and empathize with that ego? And then do you hear an underlying request as well? Or how do you deal with that? Yeah, I

Rob Begg 30:29
think, you know, we need we need ego, ego is not the enemy. So there’s no judgment on my part, ego is not the enemy, we need ego for our human adventurer for this, to have experience. So the mind and the body are a requirement for objective experience. So there’s nothing wrong with having an aspiration to build a huge business, web income work, half travel the world, big cars, big houses, absolutely. All in favor of that, I guess, where I come at it from is that if you’re, if you’re looking to those things to be happy, you’re going to find that they’re not going to provide what you’re looking for, for very long.

So whilst most personal development, teachers will support you to, to understand how to go and get those things, you know, which is typically in the form of you know, set a goal, goals take massive action, all the rest of it, the realization of those objective of those objective goals is not going to support you to get what you really want. So where I come at it is I support clients to get the tangible measurables, that they’re looking for big house, big card, business, income, whatever, but from a foundation of knowing who they truly are, and residing in that awareness. So that A, they get what they want, much more quickly, without the effort and personal exhaustion and exhaustion, but they’re not coming at it from a sense of lack, and I’m not good enough. And I’m not happy until I have they can actually enjoy their life whilst there was a home

Al McBride 32:09
and talk through that. And so what actually changes like if you if I was to look at their calendar, which this is literally where they spend their time. Now I’m used calendar as you know, what they’re doing their day to day experience, plot has changed, like, why are they not working 60 hours a week anymore.

Rob Begg 32:33
What will change for them and will will be very subjective, it will be determined by what it is they desire. So that’s that’s kind of stage two, if you’d like to add there’s three phases in working with clients. First is identity and awareness. The second is well, equipped with that awareness and understanding of who you are, what does it you know, want. And then the third is aligning those two parts, but you’re not some people are very, very happy working long hours. And

Al McBride 33:02
isn’t they love to process they love the

Rob Begg 33:06
objective. So I’ve got some clients that, that just come to me say I just want to earn the same amount of money, but I work half the time, great. Or someone say I want to learn more in a month than I currently earn in a year and I want to work about the same number of hours. And some say I want to just earn more money but and and not do what I’m doing. So it’s all about what changes is what’s what they start to entertain in consciousness. What the they start to tell a new story in consciousness and get emotionally involved in it. So it’s using imagination in the way that it’s designed to be used. And then that that gets expressed or pushed out in their experience.

Al McBride 33:50
That’s fascinating. Because when someone asked like, what one book would I recommend, is, is a book all around narrative therapy and story? Yeah, and how virtually every form of therapy when successful, has managed to either overtly or covertly changed the client’s story. Yeah, and I understand that with my own identity stuff is that thing if just forever anyone listening to it, you know, your your identity is your story. It’s how you explain who you are, what you do, how the world works, and how all that stuff fits together in a neat little narrative.

So talk to me about that for let’s let’s dive into the story element in particular that I understand you’re changing it you’re hearing the desire but moving into a place of not of lack but of interest or fascination of all those sides desire. Yes, so So what is changing in the story because you mentioned imagination. Is it? Is it putting pictures in? You mentioned pictures? So is it really a picture in the head of the client that new ways are possible or what? No.

Rob Begg 35:08
Well, it’s not, it’s not. I mean, that may be part of it. But I was just wondering how deep the rabbit hole we go down here

Al McBride 35:17
as deep as we can,

Rob Begg 35:19
because because of who we are, because of who we are our stories play our internal condition stories play out in our experience, because who we are, is infinite. So if I, if I feed my consciousness with, with, with money, being easy to earn, and I’m great at this, and I’m that, then that will play out as my experience, just the same way that you know. And throughout the passage of time, all the great teachers have taught us this, that the stories we tell ourselves, become our experience.

You become who we think about and all that stuff, but it’s it’s because of who we are. So, an imagination is, is really all that there is, you know, if you go down the scientific route and quantum science, and I’m not a scientist, I’m not an expert on that. But if you go down what I call modern, the modern science, the science of the last 100 and something years, you know, science tells us that everything is energy and actually dive into dive into what appears to be solid and there’s nothing there. Atoms are 99.999% base energy, empty space, there’s, there’s, there’s really nothing here. It’s it’s a grand illusion. So when we’re when we’re telling ourselves we’re imagining, we think we think we’re imagining in our head, in our in our in our body. But it’s not. It’s not our mind and body that are doing the imagining. It’s who we really are that’s doing the imagining the perception and the awarenesses that it’s contained within our head. But it’s really not. We are we are just a character on the screen of the movie. And who we really are is the screen

Al McBride 37:08
a mind melter for people.

Rob Begg 37:13
But you know, you don’t observe it. He’s praying we don’t need to get you don’t need to get into all of that change your life. Right? What to change your life, you need to really do three things, I guess, one, decide what it is you want. Much easier to do when you know who you are. Because most of us are making decisions on what we want based on our conditioning. Based on our limited concept of self,

Al McBride 37:38
how do you know because that sounds like a tricky one that a lot of people were really trying to do work on themselves, or maybe they’ve been in therapy or coaching, whatever. And they think, Well, this is what I truly want, as you said, they think they’re getting toward that truer identity. Is there any kind of indication that it might still be your ego? Just tricking you? You know?

Rob Begg 38:01
Well, yeah. But

Al McBride 38:04
like, Hey, I know you’ve gotten to Pay dirt. You don’t? I mean, you’re right down at the base level.

Rob Begg 38:10
One of the things I hear a lot as people say, Robert, I just don’t know why I want I said, Well, I know what you want. egotistical and flippant here, but what people really want is time and money freedom doing what they love helping other people. Yeah.

Al McBride 38:26
I was gonna it was gonna be essentially my next question. Is it that simple? It’s like, yes, it is. And then

Rob Begg 38:31
and then you can then you can, you can shape it. But really, if we if we, if we go back to identity, which is why it’s so key it is. And it’s the sadly, it’s just missing from most personal development, personal growth, mindset teaching. So if we go back to identity, and we embody how we want to feel, because that’s what everybody’s seeking. If we just stay true to that, we will be moved to find our path in terms of what it is we want. Because we’ve been moved anyway. We have absolutely, absolutely.

Al McBride 39:04
You remind me of something that last week, I was struggling with a particular question, one for you what was but I felt stuck. And I felt Oh, I have two crappy options that were just not there. They weren’t good either way. And there’s walking down the street, I walk quite a lot, you know, to clear my head listen to podcasts or the times just thinking whatever. And I thought what would the best version of me do here? I was like, sub after substitute bench in pops, whatever you want to call them optimal owl and immediately went, there’s the answer. Yes. I was like yes. But of course. It was so obvious when I literally just said what would that version think what would they say what they think what’s question where they are and I didn’t even ask you a question. Just that’s the answer. Yes. Oh, right. Yes, of course. City man.

Rob Begg 40:02
Yeah, so cool, isn’t it? And I think I started an open loop there a minute ago. So three things we need to do one is know what we desire. Second is well to imagine what would imply that we already have it. Something, something after the event, and then stay true to that desire in consciousness, and we’ll be moved to experience it. And people say, well, that’s just can’t be the way it is. It can’t be that simple. But but it is that simple. We are just conditioned to make it bloody hard. How many? How many people do you know? That actually living a dream? Like? Very rare condition, we can just conditioned from early on to believe it’s hard where we’re told at school that if we want to survive in the outside world, we’ve got to really work really hard. And yet, no, none of us have ever experienced the outside world. We’ve, we’ve never we’ve never, um, can never have anything in our experience outside of our awareness of it.

Al McBride 41:01
I

Rob Begg 41:04
guess our inside world we need to worry about.

Al McBride 41:05
I mean, the one of the key questions I often ask clients when they’re struggling with negotiation, is who are you negotiating with? They say, Oh, the other side? And then they say, Oh, well, then there’s the other side. And that person needs to sell to that department, you know, if it’s a bigger company or something, and it’s like,

Yes, this is all true. And then you keep asking, and they keep saying, and then sooner or later they go, Oh, I’m negotiating with me? Yes. It’s you start you the first negotiations with yourself? Yes. Am I truly worth this? Why am I worth this? Knowing all of these things? Which version of me is going to turn up? Am I going to be very aggressive? Or am I going to be very friendly, and maybe all of these, which version of me is going to turn up? So it’s

Rob Begg 41:50
the one that’s already made the sale? Preferably?

Al McBride 41:53
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Rob Begg 41:58
And that’s it. That’s what we have to do. And then we’re, then we’re moved to do everything else to see the things to think of things to do the things everything else looks after itself, because we’re not doing anyway.

Al McBride 42:13
We’re not in any way. This is looping back to where we began very neatly. It’s all it is. So

Rob Begg 42:25
we’re just we’re just the avatar, if you like, who we really are, has the controls, but respects respects our ability to choose our state.

Al McBride 42:35
Right. This is where we’re certainly very esoteric. But yes, where what can people do other than reach out and work with you? I mean, Robert begg.com, and just just throw in Rob bag, Robert bag into LinkedIn. They’ll obviously be in the show notes, if you want to talk with Rob, and potentially work with Rob. But, Rob, what can a lot of people do to move in that direction? Should they be meditating more as a certain question they should ponder as their books they should read, of course, what could they do to to just even start moving in that direction?

Rob Begg 43:15
I think the most potent and simplest answer to that is to realize that it our awarenesses, we’re replacing our awareness with emotion is what gets pushed out in our experience. So being conscious of what we’re choosing to be aware of moment to moment. And that’s maybe a bit simplistic as an answer. But if I’m aware that I’m struggling, if I’m aware that I’m struggling, and I need to get more clients, or I’m aware of a problem, I can only from that state of awareness, I can only continue to perpetuate that experience. So what I’ve got to come back to at some point is, well, this is the experience, but what do I desire? And then I’ve got to take myself in my awareness to that desire, like what if I’m thirsty, what do I desire, I’d like a cup of coffee, take myself to Ah, that feels good to have the coffee. And what happens then is you open the mind you get the you open the mind, to your truth, to allow your true identity to move you in your experience to that end.

Whereas when we’re in when we’re in the midst of something we’re wrestling with, where we’re, we’re restricting, it doesn’t feel good, you know, when, when we have an expansive thought it feels expansive when we allow ourselves to be whereas when we get caught up in stuff that we’re trying to wrestle with, it feels contracting and the reason it feels contracting is because it is we’re reconstructing our true self or the ego is getting in the way of our true self, fulfilling our desires and it’s a conditioning. So the answer our really is To is to remain aware of what we desire, not what we’re faced with. Right? And to start to be stay true to that.

Al McBride 45:11
That’s fascinating. It’s that constant recalibration,

Rob Begg 45:15
well until you’re until you until you’ve shifted your state to be in your new dominant dwelling place, which happens very quickly if we commit to it. But the thing that we have to be aware of is when we, when we shift into a new state of being, let’s say, we’ve been in a state of lack for however many years of not enough struggling, whatever we shift into a state of abundance and plenty, what has been residing in our consciousness has to come has to come up.

For us to transcend. It’s a bit like, you know, pouring, pouring oil from one bottle. So in other words, what’s it been in the original bottle has to spill over? For most people, what happens is they then start to identify back with that again, and they go back to their old weight. And that’s the bit that’s the missing link from most teachings is how do you transcend the fears and the doubts and the old conditioning when it comes up? Because it has to come up in order to be replaced. Alright, right. And that’s what is typically brushed under the carpet.

Al McBride 46:19
That’s the tricky part.

Rob Begg 46:22
What’s only tricky if it’s brushed under the carpet, it’s not tricky. If you it’s not so tricky if you’re aware of what leads to what goes on what’s going on.

Al McBride 46:30
But as you said, That’s why so often change doesn’t take hold. Yes, you’re not there as the default. It’s not a new default.

Rob Begg 46:45
Yeah. And you’re also it’s people are mostly coming at it without an understanding of who they really are. That for me, that is the that is the golden key. Not just because it supports us to create the change we want. But it supports us to get what we really want, which is to be happy. I have no no qualms and send to you, I don’t know how many people will listen to this hour or whatever. But you know, as I was, the reason I got to this was I spent most of my life being depressed. I was running a business to the outside world, it looked like you know, I had it all had lovely home family, three kids nice cars, business horse, but I was like, seriously depressed.

Al McBride 47:28
Serum and what I mean, I’m not saying just you but what a lot of people are in that situation. They’re have all the things that, as you say, from people looking at them, they go, they have everything they have it all going on, they’re super successful on the other. And yet they’re sitting there going, Why am I not appreciating this? Why am I not finding meaning in this? Yes.

Rob Begg 47:52
Because they’re consumed by consumed by the contents of their experience. And that’s never going to give us the happiness. We really only find the happiness when we connect back to who we are. You know, it’s why people do these extreme sports out. It’s why people get drunk on a Friday night. Yeah. No objections to that I do a bit of that myself from time to time. But you know, it takes us it’s state altering.

Al McBride 48:16
Yes, of course,

Rob Begg 48:18
that people are trying to get back to them to who they are. We can do that we can do that. We can have that we’ve got access to that. 24/7.

Al McBride 48:30
Amazing stuff. Rob, um, we could talk for another hours, hours and hours. But we better not. But we’ll pause it there. So yeah, so you have an interesting, weekly email newsletter? I do. Yep. I’ve been reading and listening now to them. And just to say they’re a little bit different from a lot of people’s newsletters, because there’s a practicality to them. There’s an application to them. There’s I thoroughly recommend, is it just easiest for people to go to Robert bag.com to sign up?

Rob Begg 49:08
Yeah, I think I think so. Yeah, I think so. I think you can sign up, or there’s a subscribe thing on my on my website. So and then you can add it in and you get it’s every Saturday or Sunday, I send them out.

Al McBride 49:20
And as I said, I speak from experience that last time you sent a few sound recording video recordings as well. That were very interesting. So, so thoroughly recommend that anyone who’s enjoyed this conversation and wants to learn more about Rob’s work and Rob’s approach. A great first step is to get on that email list. The other is to just reach out and see see if you can have a conversation. So anything else you’d like to add just before we we

Rob Begg 49:52
know just to say just say thank you. I appreciate we went off in various directions there but I loved every minute of it. So thank you for the opportunity and

Al McBride 50:00
Well, thank, you know, as I said, and thank you for being so grateful with your your thoughts on your work and your approach that I’ve touched, as I imagine a lot of people have those moments of doing similar or in the vicinity of what you’re talking about, but I can’t do it with. So it’s been quite fascinating and also previously frustrating. But yes, excellent stuff. Well, look, thank you so much, Rob. Thanks so much appreciated. And have a great day. You too. Thanks for being on the show. Cheers. Thank you. Buy

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Connect with Rob Begg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertkbegg/

Website & Rob’s Weekly Newsletter: https://robertbegg.com/

 

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