Rob Begg 0:00
yeah welcome to the dealing with Goliath podcast. The mission of dealing with Goliath is to sharpen the psychological edge negotiation and high impact conversations. For business leaders with skin in the game who 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 and problem solving. And this is the Grande cup of insight longer form. podcast interview, we take a bit more time to delve into our guest experiences stories, get those priceless points of views, and nuggets for you. I’m your host al McBride.

Al McBride 0:43
My guest today is Rob bag. And Rob helps high achieving entrepreneurs align mind, body and spirit to attain next level of performance with ease, certainty and speed. Now, it’s a little bit unusual today because Rob has been with us before. And with great demand, he was requested. A follow up a follow up interview, which is fantastic. There was a lot of positive feedback from the last one. For anyone who’s interested. That’s episode 53 how spirituality can unlock next level performance. So today, we’re going to expand further on some of those concepts. Don’t worry, you don’t have to have listened to that. But it may inform some of the stuff that we’re talking about today. So Rob, welcome back.

Rob Begg 1:28
Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Delighted to be asked back.

Yeah, it was fascinating for me. And obviously for quite a few, quite a few the audience quite a few the listeners were requesting. More on this, they said, Give us more of these ideas, because it was truly fascinating stuff. Rob. And we were talking about this, we were talking about a whole load of different things. But one of the things that came up was this idea of wanting an experience you’re not already familiar with, and some of the difficulties people run into, because I should just say, if you’re not familiar with Rob, Rob just doesn’t just sort of get in that executive coach and get some results No, rarely incremental sometimes and probably incremental.

Al McBride 2:12
But a lot of the testimonies and from people I’ve talked to talk it like record breaking months by 5x, you know, 10x, and yet a lot of them are working significantly less. So it really is that stuff of doubling or more the income and working half the time, if that’s what the goal was. So you’re getting hugely significant results for people. So as I said, just bear that in mind, when Rob was talking, if some of the ideas are a little bit out there for your immediate experience, this man gets serious results. So so let’s talk about that.

So a lot of your clients come to you and are sort of saying, right, I’ve heard from various people, Rob, that you’re fantastic. You know, I want to I want this, I want this sort of huge increase in the goal, maybe more control over my time, and maybe enjoying the experience more. So where do you meet them? What do you bring them into their talk us through that thrill? Through that? Their experience? Yeah.

Rob Begg 3:15
Yeah, big, big question. I may have to come back to remind me of the question, but the first thing I would say is I don’t I don’t get my clients any results. I support them to to get results for themselves. So my ego might want to own that. I as a coach, get my clients results, but any coach that claims to get their clients results is is really a bit misguided.

I agree. Best, we’re a catalyst. So

yeah, yes, exactly. That exactly that so. However, my clients do experience not not not all of them. Admittedly, it’s it’s predicated on a willingness to explore the unknown, predicated on a desire for what they want and a willingness to explore the unknown to most of my clients are seeking tangibly different experience and outcome. So call that you know, they’ve got income of x, and they’re working X number of hours, they want an income of y and to work y number of hours have more freedom, whatever, but typically, what they’re really seeking is something quantumly different. So that is not known to them in their experience.

And that the the aspect of themselves that is seeking that although we could get into this hour we’ve got there are two primary motivations, what I would call a negative vision, which most people have because they’re coming up, seeking an experience of life or seeking an outcome based on a based on a belief that they’re not going to be safe, secure, worthy or loved or approved of enough until they’re at that place. That’s what I would call it negative vision or Are they’re seeking that experience for the love of it. And there, they may be maybe the same experience, but the underlying underlying motivation is different. And one is getting in our way, and one is supporting us to go faster.

So we could maybe get into unpicking that? Absolutely. Regardless, they’re seeking a different experience and unknown experience. Because if it was known to them, who was already in their experience, they wouldn’t be seeking it. And the larger part of them, the spiritual side of them, is seeking that unknown experience that expression of consciousness. And yet the mind when we get entangled in the mind, and the stories of the mind, what the mind is for is for preserving the status quo. So what most people do is they try and create the new experience, by thinking their way to it. And in thinking their way to it, they’re using the conditioning of the mind and their past in order to try and create their future, which is akin to driving a car, trying to drive a car using a rearview mirror. It’s, it’s possible. But it makes for a bit of a messy experience. And people take 20 3040 years to arrive at an outcome call that a lifetime a career that might otherwise get to in, in a in a couple of years or five years.

And that’s presuming they’re finding the actual destination, they probably want rather than finding they’re at somewhere where they don’t particularly well.

Well, there’s that, ya know, one of the one of the reasons people don’t end up at a particular destination point is they hit an obstacle. And because they’ve set a fear based because they’ve got a negative vision, it’s a fear based orientation. Like, if I don’t get to here by by then then I won’t be good enough or I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have the life that I want. Then they hit a block in the road, and they change their mind. So it’s a bit like, let’s say we were driving from London, and we wanted to go to Inverness.

And all of a sudden, there’s a diversion on the M six. And we say actually, I didn’t want to go to Inverness that much anyway, why don’t we just go to Blackpool. And then we were on the way to Blackpool and we hit another obstacle and to actually Blackpool No, let’s let’s maybe change and we’ll go to Manchester. And most people spend their lives changing their minds and then wondering why their lives don’t change very much. And the reason they change their minds is either because they set a goal for what their current belief system believes in, which means they’re going to keep perpetuating more of the same, or they’ve set a goal based on something they don’t really desire. It’s just something they feel they should want.

So does that mean that resilience becomes a lot easier when you have that clarity of where you’re heading to?

Yes, and when you understand that resilience is who we really are. It’s not something we it’s not something we need to get from the outside. It’s it’s intrinsic to our nature.

Okay, let’s dive into that one, though a little bit.

So if you’ve listened to a lot of the teachings out there, whether it’s, you know, spiritual teachings, whether it’s Eckhart Tolle, or any number of other spiritual teachers, they talk about the presence of awareness and now and not now is when we, when we come into the present moment, like when we’re truly present, which is, which is rare for most people, most people can’t sit still in the present moment for any length of time. It’s, they find it too unfamiliar, too disturbing. And yet, everything we really seek is, is found in the present moment, that’s where life happens. The illusion that’s created by the mind is that we can be somewhere in the future.

And yet none of us has has ever experienced the future or experienced the past we only ever experienced now, the future the past are illusions constructs of the mind. And the irony is that when we when we come back to the present moment, we eliminate all the disturbances that are created by our mind, flitting us off, putting us into the future or drawing on memories of the past. And what we find is all the resilience overconfidence, all the wisdom, all the intelligence everything that we we need in order to to create the life of our dreams is accessible in the present moment. Because we’re tapping into our true nature where we’re getting the mind out of the way the mind is the is the is really the the intellect is the the gatekeeper or the bouncer to our heart’s desires. It’s the thing that gets in the way.

So how do you make it work for you rather than against you? Because, I mean, I was really listening to the interview the last time and you said something very interesting, which was the ego is not the enemy. The opposite of the Ryan Holiday book, the ego was the enemy because of the trouble that the ego gets you into. But yes. Or when you’re very go ego based goals, a lot of that was about but so how’s the ego not the enemy because as we were saying the ego was there to protect us it’s about survival. It’s about it serves this particular function in its own way, it’s helpful. But so this is where you

Yes, and we could we could, we could create a big rabbit hole here. So the ego is not the enemy, because the ego is actually just a belief. That’s all, that’s all it is. It’s a belief that we are just a mind and body. But actually, when you get into when you when you really dive into this material, and for most of our clients, we don’t need to go that far. But the mind and the mind and body are just a veil for our true nature to have objective experience. It’s but it in and of itself, it’s just a belief, but the, it’s the identification with our mind, that’s the that’s the problem for most people. It’s that we believe our thoughts and feelings are real.

So when I when I and the mind is so fast in preserving the status quo, or in crushing our hearts, desires, and our all of our hearts desires, our true desires that come from our true nature, seeking experience through that through this through this individually individualized aspect of consciousness. So we’re all we’re all individuals, here for experience. And yet the mind and when we identify with our mind, we crush our dreams and crush them and bury them without even realizing it. So if I said to most people, what do you want had a conversation last week? Someone? What do you want? The first thing out of their mouth was?

Well, what I don’t want us to continue working this hard. What I don’t want is this what I don’t want, is that really clear on what they didn’t want? Right. So what do you want? Well, I don’t I don’t really know. And I don’t think it’s possible currently anyway. And then I said, Well, what about earning double and working half? Well, I’d love that. But and the but is that mind? Yeah. And so the mind comes in with the reasons why we can’t earn double and work half. And the mind comes in with conditioned, conditioned response based on our belief system. And, and then we believe the mind. And of course, when we believe the mind, we get to experience the mind stories, because that’s what the mind is, it’s it’s a projector for its own contents. So what really to create the change we want, so many teachings are done.

And I, I went through this, I taught it, I tried to study it, I tried to change my beliefs on the way. And it’s a slow and torturous journey. And most people don’t succeed in changing their mindset, when we think seven, something last week, when we, when we try and create change, when we try and use the mind to change the mind. It’s like sending a police officer into Catch a Thief when the thief is the police officer. So we go around in circles, we’ve got to get behind the mind. And that’s into the nature of our true essence, our spiritual or spiritual essence. And that’s, of course, where a lot of people say, I don’t buy that spirituality stuff. But it’s it’s ignorance, in the true sense of the word is why they don’t buy it. Because the mind doesn’t want to know. But the ignorance of our true nature is the cause of all suffering.

Absolutely, because you’re not having like one. You’re not having a urine or you’re not being what you want. Or

you’re Yeah, exactly. And you’re striving to get somewhere in the future when that’s an IT. That’s just an illusion. That’s

it. But what’s fascinating about this is that it actually parallels closer than I had previously thought, with a lot of even just the top level stuff of cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral coaching, which, you know, I guess, lecture in some depth, but more familiar with it that, you know, we talk about the ABCs, you know, you have the activating event or the trigger. And most people think this happened, therefore, I feel like this. Whereas, even with CBT, one of the first things you learn is this happened. It’s triggered a belief Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s hidden. And that’s why you have this consequential feeling or behavior. And looking at that belief is how you actually change it. So you’re going kind of deeper again, but it’s just point out to everyone that this is this is sort of fundamental stuff through a lot of therapy. A lot of the belief systems?

Oh, yes. It’s eminently I’m a great believer in, in, you know what, ultimately what what everyone’s seeking out regardless of whether we’re regardless of, of our beliefs and our views of the world or our perspectives, or what we do what everybody’s seeking is happiness and fulfillment and joy scratched the surface on anybody’s go.

How do you know how do people know what they want? It’s like, well, they all want the same, to be happy to do interesting work to have more control over their time. What was the other one? Money that that’s not a stress, essentially?

Yes. Well, that’s it. You know, I said to someone the other day happiness, and I’ve had it sent to me twice in the last year. Rob, what if all I get from working with you is that I’m blissfully happy and fulfilled all of the time.

What about money,

as well, a million quid a year or blissfully happy, fulfilled, quit if you had to make a choice. And the money didn’t guarantee the other. You could have the money, but you might be miserable. Which would you choose? And, of course, blissfully happy and fulfilled. Because if you’re that the money doesn’t matter. But the reality is, you can have both. But when we go chasing our happiness, in material objects, when we believe that our new car in the driveway or the new house is going to fulfill us, it’s it’s really not what happens is it fulfills us in the moment of its realisation, but the fulfillment comes from the collapsing of our obsession. With time, it comes back to it collapses us back into the Now moment, like when you pick up the keys for the new Maserati or the new house, in that moment, the fulfillment of the of the desire, you come back to the present moment, and it’s that that’s creating the experience of joy and fulfillment and happiness. And of course, then you get your car scratched in the supermarket carpark and all of a sudden your happiness is gone. Someone scraps, your happiness,

well, even worse, if nothing happens, it’s called hedonic adaptation. We just the happiness level of that new maserati, it wears off surprisingly quickly, like, four weeks, and people are back. So it’s the same with lottery winners, yes, lottery winners, and people who are made, put in wheelchairs after car crashes, after a year, their happiness levels, even out, yes, think about that you went 40 million in the lottery versus someone else who’s lost the power of their legs. So one’s very unhappy, and the other is very happy for a while. And then guess what they both even an extra year to 18 months.

Because Because the thing was never the source of the happiness anyway. And, and on a separate note, I read a statistic the other day, and I, I don’t recall the exact stats, but I think 75% of all lottery winners end up bankrupt within five years or end up losing it all within five years.

Yes, I’ve heard that as well. It came to me a few weeks ago, and I was thinking what would rob say that? The answer is because it’s not in there. It’s not in their identity in who they think they are.

Exactly the they’re in the in the they’re in the spirit of maybe having been poor for one of a better word, and then all of a sudden they win the lottery, they got 40 million pounds, and they go out and spend it and they enjoy the spending and the enjoy the shift in, in lifestyle and ownership but their state, their underlying state of identity, their self concept, the the aspect of their infinite nature that they’re identified with hasn’t changed. So the the our unconscious, if you like, will always move us to continue experiencing what it survived in the past.

It’s always looking to find harmony with what with our predominant sense of identity. So you know that that’s why it’s so challenging to to be in a situation and have been there myself where you really wanting more in life, because you feel you’re not enough or you’ve not got enough, and you go out there and you strive for it. And you wonder why progress is so slow, and progress can’t be any faster than the internal shift. It just can’t be. So the key to getting five or 10x in comments to shift your identity first shift your perception of self first and then your your your reality or your outside world starts to catch up with your identity. But it’s just it’s just a mirror.

Al McBride 19:45
I can I can attest to this as well as the last few weeks as I emailed you there a few weeks back. I think I’ve got more done in the same or less time than ever Because I realize a vision of where I want to go. But the clarity Well, it’s more. So here’s who I wanted to be. Which Al, which version of Al do I want to be? And then I realize I, to a certain extent, I’m already that. Yes, you are. And so it just sort of shifted naturally. And a huge amount of things are so much easier. Any form of procrastination is just gone. Yes. But what was amazing was the level of self trust. So I can go, I’m gonna read this thing, because it’s relevant to that. But it’s not at out of procrastination, I’m like, then I’m going to do this. And I do that and then I’m going to do the other just things are just

Rob Begg 20:46
get done. Yes, exactly.

Which, which is amazing. And I don’t I’m also not there. Like I know I’m not there yet either. But that’s the fun that’s kind of growing into that. But it’s it’s it’s a growth pattern, but I was trying to think well enough that if you’re on the road to Dublin, and you’re in County, Dublin, but you’re not in Dublin City yet. I’m still in Dublin. So, but that’s exciting. That’s like, Oh, that’s great. So there’s nice surprises on the way of how is this gonna turn out? Where are the little swerves in the road?

Exactly, without without being overly obsessed about, about how you just stay true to the vision and that, you know, that’s any any visionary any, any great leader in whether in business or any high achievers sports business. In battle, you know, they’ve all been led by a heart based vision of the future. And then, and that being in the spirit of winning, being in the spirit of being in Dublin, when you’re in Belfast, or being being in the spirit of that will move us to do whatever is required of us in order to, to end up there physically. Because the order of play is spiritual, intellectual, physical, it’s never the other way around.

Exactly. So I think you said the other day it was it be to have? Yes. Not to have be. It’s just what most people are. That’s continually how most people are struggling and thriving.

Yes. Firstly, you say to them, if you say to them, Are you a human being or a human doing? There’s a clue in the name?

Absolutely, absolutely. And that is one of the traps that people keep, keep falling into.

Yes, all conditioned to, to from such an early age, if you want to get ahead in the world, you got to work really hard. When he doesn’t grow on trees, you got to go and work for it all the messages that we get. When we come into this world, that then because that becomes impregnated in our mind. And the mind then goes gathering the evidence for its own content.

Yeah, it’s confirmation bias. It’s like, Absolutely, this is what I believe. So I filter stuff to confirm.

Yes.

Exactly. It’s very, it’s very interesting. One, how do you start people off on moving out of that and to find so people go, right, great, I’m open to this idea. Right? Because all of the struggle, and all of that they can get there. But it takes as you said, a lot more work a lot more graft and struggle and all the rest of it. So how do you how do you start with your clients in sort of flipping that around to work at the B part.

So it’s my it’s my belief that we we can only really get this through experiencing it. Intellect the the intellect wants to the ego wants to hang on to an intellectual construct of, of learning. So you know, what the most people have, I think, has said earlier, most people have a desire to change something in their experience, you know, the three the three big buckets, health, wealth relationships, right and often when that desire becomes strong enough, or when there’s enough suffering with not being able to create the outcome, we turn to various resources. For most people, it’s books or YouTube videos, or, or something and when we read that book on wealth creation, or spirituality or mindset or growth mindset, or whatever, when we read that book, we the intellect is there and the insights are this is it this is why I needed this has given me the answers.

And we get comfort that we found the solution. But really what’s going on as the intellect the ego, which is all for preserving the status quo is the one that’s doing the comforting saying, Kidding, kidding ourselves on and then of course, we put the book down and we finished the book and six months later He’s like, Oh, I think I’ve got something, something’s still missing, I need another book. We can spend 20 years in the books. And every time we read the book, we think we’ve got the next nugget and the next answer, and we’re closer to what we never are. So it’s the experience of our true nature.

That is where I start. And so that’s done through a number of number of exercises, but the one hour and I can’t remember whether we did it last time was, you know, if we stand in front of the mirror, and, you know, we stand in front of the mirror today, everybody would agree that they look physically look fundamentally different to the way they looked when they were a small child. And our physical environment, our lives have changed beyond all measure, you know, our lives are always in a state of flux if you’d like. And yet when we stand in front of that mirror, and we look into our eyes, is there an awareness there? That is that has been with us throughout our entire life experience? Have you have you? Is there something constant about Al McBride?

Sure, it’s never left al McBride. Despite our grades, body and bank balance and world changing, there’s something constant about you, you’re I am ness. You’re conscious consciousness. And that consciousness that’s looking out from behind our eyes, is the constant. That’s the truth about who we are. And who we really are, is a point of perception for consciousness. And so that’s the starting point, giving people an experiential understanding of their true nature, and then helping them to understand that we have an emotional guidance system, to support us to realize where they were tuned in to a point of perception that’s in harmony with our hearts desires are a point of perception that isn’t an anytime we were tuned into something that’s more limiting or constricting, we feel the constriction and the contraction of that. Like, if I buy into, or there’s a recession coming, I’m going to be affected, I need to think about making staff redundant, we feel the contraction of that. Because we’re choosing a point of perception that we’re going to end up experiencing, but which isn’t what we’re here to experience or what we desire to experience. And it’s just as easy to say, oh, there’s a recession going on. But I’m tuned into my vision, and I’m going to experience growth and fulfillment and expansion regardless. And if we would

work. That’s a really interesting point. Because some people would say, the risk of burying your head in the sand and whereas just clarify, you’re saying, a recession, maybe on the way and everybody’s hazard recession on the way. And it’s not you’re burying your head in the sand, you’re saying, Oh, I wouldn’t. So how are we, you know, you’re stating that your vision is abundance and growth and things are gonna happen, even though there’s a recession. So you’re primed to talk about it at a different level, you’re priming yourself to see the opportunities of how you expand and move to get that growth. Rather than fall victim to the recession, like a lot of your Yeah, well, your competition.

Sir. It’s not it’s not a denial. Exactly. It’s an absolute, not a denial. But it’s back back to understanding that we were always in a position of choice, it’s just the mind is so fast in, in denying our awareness of that choice, masking our awareness of that choice. So if there’s a recession going on, obviously, we don’t desire to shrink our business and contract and suffer the impact of recession. So what do we desire? Well, we desire to be flourishing and growing and expanding and serving more people and all that stuff. So when we come back to our hearts desires, we come back to the present moment, to our true nature, we say, well, that’s what I desire, then we’re furnished with thinking, because of course, one of the things we believe in is that we’re in charge of our own thinking, which is nonsense. So we’re then furnished with thinking, and we’re furnished to move in ways that create the outcome to which we are attached, good, bad or indifferent. So

just just to clarify on that one, because, again, it’s one of these things where cognitive behavioral therapy is based, you know, a ancient Greek thinking, you know, with and the flip side of that is, you know, mindfulness is based on Buddhist thinking. And both of them are in relative a huge amount of overlap on that, that our thoughts are not us. There are clouds that float in front of you. They float by Yes. And equally our emotions are not us there are things that we do. You know? So it’s the same idea that to realize that there’s a gap that our emotions, our thoughts aren’t really us. They’re just they’re here and they’re passing by

us their thoughts and you know, there’s there’s a Buddhist philosophy and there’s a Hindu philosophy and the the both the both ends of the spectrum, but they’re actually talking about the same the same time really. But our thoughts and thoughts and feelings are is, in essence manifestations in in consciousness, but we don’t choose our thoughts. Like if I said to exactly, they’re just appear and they float. Yes. But the quality and nature of our thoughts, in terms of the ones we get attached to, is dictated or determined by our underlying state of consciousness. So guess what if I, if I turn on the news, and there’s all sorts of doom and gloom about the economy, and I start to get emotionally involved in that, or my mind goes, oh, what does that mean for you, Rob bag, that means people are not going to buy stuff, people are going to have less budget and or I could get onto that train of thought.

And guess what happens then is and I’m triggered, to do that by an something in my consciousness, but I get onto that train of thought. And guess what, before I knew it, I’m off down a line of thinking, and I’m experiencing the corresponding emotions. And the next day, I’m going into the office, and I’m saying, Guys, I’m sorry, we’re gonna have to make people redundant. And I go into shrinkage recession mode. And then I’m out there telling all my friends about how terrible it is. And I’ve had to make people redundant. And I play my part in perpetuating the recession. I am an active participant in perpetuating recession.

A lot of you’re talking about self fulfilling prophecies, basically. Yeah, yeah,

absolutely. And that’s what recessions recessions are triggered by belief.

Absolutely. And just just to, again, ground us in sort of the outcome or the reality of this. I think there were only two airlines, two key airlines in the world when the last great recession happened. That didn’t shrink, Ryanair, and Virgin went to Boeing, and Airbus, and said, Hey, you’re gonna do us an amazing deal, because you’ve just had billions of dollars worth of orders canceled. So they saw whatever and else’s disaster they saw as an opportunity. It’s the same with people in the stock market who owe the stocks are crashing, and stocks are crashing. And as somebody gave the analogy, it’s like going to a Ferrari showroom. And everything is 60 or 70%. off, and you’re getting afraid. Yes. Exactly. Right. It’s like some people see it as Oh, everything’s world’s crashing, and other people. Great bargain time. Yes. Right. And that’s a perspective which comes from, as you said, your emotion emotional and identity.

Yes. And then you get to experience the, the reality that’s in harmony with your emotionalized perspective. Because that’s what the mind does, the mind will always show you the evidence of the contents that you’re emotionally attached to. So so but we the one of the primary illusions of the mind is that this outside world is separate. And yeah, if we really do some self inquiry, if we’re prepared to and many people aren’t, it takes some take some courage, we can see that actually, our results in life are absolutely a mirror of our own internal machinations and beliefs and so on.

Al McBride 33:50
But what are the great coaching questions? And again, the coach was asking is probably talking about Allah at a slightly different level that you are, but it’s still, it’s that’s why it’s a great question. He used to ask, how have you often unwittingly contributed to the situation that you say you don’t want? Yes. And it gets people to really think oh, well, actually, maybe I did x, maybe I was doing y which led to the contribution to this problem. One of the things that that’s why that question is so great. Is it is a creates an awareness of agency where we think that we probably don’t have agency.

Rob Begg 34:32
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I think that’s the the essence of I know, it’s the essence of the work you do is the essence of the work I do is to because because the alternative is that we’re victims. Exactly. And who wants to go through life perceiving themselves to be a victim, we may as well just, you know, lie down and give up you know, we’re not here to be victims, but the alternative of, of choosing the alternative is To perceive it were a victim.

Absolutely. And you know, the the famous one was Nelson Mandela, wasn’t it? He was asked when he got it. How did you survive? 24 years in prison restaurant I said, survive. I didn’t survive. I was preparing. Yes. And that was his whole vision. I’m I’m bringing this country from here to there. What do I need to do to make that easier to make that better to make that happen? Yes. And he was preparing all that time, which is a fascinating perspective. Again, you see the manifestation of Exactly, yes. Certainly an identity and a belief. Yeah. Yeah.

I think the challenge is that the price of awareness is responsibility. You know, that’s the trade off. And of course, of course, human nature to a degree being what, what it is, it’d be nice to get everything we want without having to take any responsibility. Right? But the price of the awareness is, well, actually I am, I am creating my own reality here. I am responsible for the outcomes. In my experience,

there’s a heard Chris Voss, who wrote never split the difference, which is very popular book on negotiation. It’s full of stories. It’s very enjoyable. And he you know, he’s a former FBI hostage negotiator who then did stuff with Harvard and businesses and all the rest of it. I quite like a lot of his stuff. But one of the things he said in a podcast interview, which really surprised me, because he’s kind of a no mess and kind of old school cop, you know, this kind of guy, you know? And he said, fundamentally, you have his what are the traits of the best negotiators?

Al McBride 36:37
The ones that get like, a magnitude better than the average? And he said, You have to fundamentally believe that the universe has got your back. Yes, I thought, wow. For such a like a no mess and kind of guy, it was quite a spiritual thing to say that like, yes. I remember I think I wrote a post about this that. What does that do when you turn up at the negotiation room where all this problem is unsolvable? Oh, we’re never gonna work this out, oh, we hate these guys, or whatever the two sides are up against each other. And his fundamental belief that there’s a solution? And we’ll find it. Yes, that’s a hell of a way to approach very challenging situations.

Rob Begg 37:20
Yes, and yet, it’s the way to it’s, it’s just the perfect way to approach life in general is to surrender to, to life. That because life is trying to happen through us, yes. And yet, we have the ability, I used the analogy on a call this morning, you know, if you imagine a seedling sprouting in the soil in a fertile soil, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s part of nature, that’s who we are, as we are, and it’s, it’s heading towards the sun, and it’s seeking expansion and flourishing, and it grew branches and all the rest of it, and then you drop a great big paving slab on it, it, you know, it will still seek to go sideways and might crop up between the cracks of the paving slab, and so on. But we we as, as humans, unlike any other creature on the planet, as God’s highest form of creation, if you want to call us that, we have the ability to drop a paving slab on ourselves, to get on our own way.

It’s the classic thing help people get out of their own way. But that’s, that’s really truly what I think we’re all doing here.

And that’s, and that’s perfect. Because we can’t get out of our own way, if we don’t know who we are. If we identify as a mind and body, we’re going to keep getting in our own way. If we deny our true essence, we’re going to keep getting in our own way. There’s no two ways about it. Even if that means denying it, we’re stuck. Because the ego won’t let us accept that.

So people start tapping tapping into that I know of us is for any you started with that exercise. But how do you kind of get because, as you said, the ego was tricky. I mean, I’ve had this where myself or Franco’s ego induced amnesia where I kind of go All right, great. And I even start doing something that actually does feel right. Like this is fundamentally good. And then was like, Oh, look over here, distraction, you know? Yes. How do you help? How do we how do we know that we’re on the right path? That’s a great question. You mentioned some of the do we listen to the body is a manifesting of the body that

your body your body is like, it’s a very good guide you’re so So creating the change changes our heart desires, it’s about allowing ourselves to line up with them to surrender to, to surrender to them, we’re conditioned to, to need permission slips to feel good. So so we look to the outside world or when this happens, when when when the happens, then I’ll feel good. So we’re looking over time for permission slips to feel good. Whereas if I said, you know, what, what would you like to earn next year out? And and you said, X 1000 pounds? And I say, how would that feel you to feel great? And I said, well, all you really need to do is to allow yourself to feel the great now. Just feel that now and embody that now as if you already have it.

So well, that’s delusional. But that’s the mind telling you is delusional. So when we do that, when we start to embody our desires, it’s and it’s a commitment to our hearts desires is to embody it what happens is we are then faced with some of the not not Nestle, literally Facebook, we get to experience the, the trans, the releasing of some of the conditioning that’s held our old experience in in place. So but the fastest way to our desires is through embodiment, not through mindset work or intellectual endeavor. But through doing that, sorry,

how do we start doing that? Is it as simple as just thinking, using our imagination, as you said, in that much more creative, valuable way?

Well, yes, and but doing it from an understanding of who we really are, and how reality actually works is, is is the is the most supportive, you know, really, really getting clarity on when we say when we say I will say I’m more than any other words in in our lifetimes. And yet, do we? Do we really know who the eye is before it’s I am wealthy, I am rich, I’m fat, I’m thin, I’m poor, who is the eye? And do we understand the implications of what we’re attaching to our eyeness. So we can go at it we can come in at at any level, and succeed to different degrees. But if we really want to allow ourselves to, to live life in harmony, then it’s really just about being present.

Because Because when we’re present, but truly present living in now, we’ve become the observer of ourselves. And we feel completely fulfilled, because that’s our true nature. Have the reason everybody’s seeking happiness and fulfillment and joy is it’s because it’s who we really are. So when we surrender to that to the present moment, then everything that we’ve been working for striving for, etc, that’s heart based, we get to experience without all the effort, and the striving is just our mind, our identification with our mind gets in the way of that. So it’s not about mindset, it’s really about dissolving the mind. People say, Oh, hey, you can’t you can’t operate without the mind, you got to be able to think yes, you do need to be able to think that you become infinitely more intelligent. When you get the mind out of the way and you stay present. You think the quality of your thinking is drastically improved. You know, McKinsey’s did a 10 year study on flow, and whilst they never really got to the source or the origin of flow 500%, productivity increase.

I just repeat that for everyone. Five 5x. That means you can come in on Monday. Yeah. Do your day’s work on your equal to everybody else working Monday to Friday? That’s essentially 5x. Yeah. Yeah. And we mentioned before Steve coffers flow genome project where they researching a lot of that, again, you’re talking the level behind that?

Yeah. So yes, you get those dates. Yes, we can go looking for the, you know, for the for the physical reasons for flow, but actually, we’re looking in the wrong place. And that’s, of course, that’s the mind wants us to keep looking in the wrong place to perpetuate the illusion that I don’t know if I talked about that on the previous podcast. But the ego identity is so strong that when we start to pierce the illusion, we get met with all sorts of logical and rational and reasonable explanations for why it’s for why we need to be looking elsewhere.

The illusion does not want to be broken. Because because the fear is, the fear is death. That’s the fear that most people are unconsciously facing when it comes to creating the change they really want in their life. They just don’t know that. So that’s why the ego has such a hold on people. That’s why I really, really, really want to express myself in a different way. I want to be I want to lose weight, I want to earn X i want to serve more people, etc, etc. We’ve but the cost is sacrificing our current state of being our old way of being and in So we know who we are. And it’s going to be a challenge. We might get incremental over time. But incremental is not what we really want.

Now, as I said, it’s in line of when we say the ego, we’re talking about their survival brain survival mode, which no matter how bad things are, well, almost. We want the familiar. That’s the ego wants because it’s safe. Yes. And as you said, That’s why incremental progress is about all you get, because it’s just one tiny little bit more. So it can just about handle that. Yes. Whereas to make these huge leaps? Yes, we need a totally different approach.

Yes, and one of the scariest things can be when you start to when you’re when your new reality, if you want to call it that, that when your new desire start to when you start to create a quantum change in your life, you know, whatever that is, let’s say you’ve been working 80 hours a week, or 70 hours a week and and all of a sudden, you’re you’re now working 10 hours a week and getting the same outcome, like your old reality is dissolving. And for the ego, it’s like plot, this is not right. This is this is not right, I need to be working, or I need to you know, it’s that’s what goes on for people. So that’s where it being anchored to our true self as support.

It’s interesting that you take that approach. I mean, I remember that was a very popular hypnotherapist who helps people have the old state that’s no longer desired, seem less and less familiar, but more importantly, the new state way of being feel already familiar. So there’s a parallel there of that, so that you can glide into it rather than thinking it’s highly alien and scary.

Exactly. Yes. Exactly. And that that’s the that’s really the game we’re playing that’s the game of life is you know, decide what we decide what our heart desires, not not from a negative construct not from from identification with mind and body see the challenge? How are we okay, for time?

Yeah, go for the

challenge. When we’re born into this world, we identify as mind and body and we were conditioned to identify as mind and body we believe that that’s what we are. And because of that, we’re we’re we’re missing a connection with our true self with our true essence. So because of that identification, we can’t help but be running and unconscious. And to some degree conscious belief that we’re not viable or not worthy enough. So we go out into the world seeking to validate ourselves, you know, whether that’s to keep up with the Joneses have the house the car, the job the career meet approval, but it’s validation based. And it’s it’s essentially under, it’s driven by a lack of awareness of who we are. And and then, if we pursue that course of action, we get to a point of realize we might achieve a great deal. But we get to a point of realizing actually, there’s never enough of more.

Exactly. The never fill that void, as you say, yeah,

exactly. Yeah, it’s just temporary, temporarily satisfied at times by the next school.

Exactly. It’s just thinking there about the presence. I was on the west coast of Ireland visiting a friend there over the weekend. And seeing the amount of people it’s one of the great surfing beaches, and Slager in the northwest of Ireland. And just I read this about surfing, that surfing, for example, has for PTSD sufferers, has it I think it was four weeks of surfing was the equivalent of a 12 week meditation course, for stress reduction and all the bad symptoms. And a large amount of it is because people report just being you have to be fully present. And you’re fully present in this wider nature, which is a certain level of reset for the brain anyway. You know, like there’s these studies that wandering through a forest is a great reset of people’s blood pressure and everything else. Large matters because they get to turn the brain off the chatter. Yes. And feel as if they’re getting more in touch with who they truly are. But even just being aware in the moment.

Yes. And your ability to stay on the surfboard is enhanced by the degree to which you switch your thinking off. Yes. Yes. It’s because we allow our true nature to take over.

That’s an interesting question of your clients. Do you find some of them that have activities that which turn off brains actually get this stuff a lot faster.

Well, that’s what I, what I seek to, to support them with is to do less thinking. The, the more active our brain is. And of course, this is counterintuitive to what we’re educated. So we could go down a rabbit hole and get into the fact that the brain is actually just an appearance in consciousness appears relative to expectation and so on. But if you, if you look at the research on psychedelics, for example, you know, psilocybin or some of the other plant medicines, people report a vastly enhanced experience through psychedelic drugs. So it feels like there are so much more going on than they’ve ever been aware of before and, and so on, and yet wire them up to be a brain, whatever the term for the machinery is, brain monitoring equipment, and the activity in the brain is vastly diminished.

And what’s going on is, there’s a reduction in the disassociation from who we really are. So the the, the more we switch the brain off if you’d like, the more we come away from our chronic thinking patterns, which are all future and past base, which are illusions of the mind, and we come to the present moment, we diminish the amount of thinking, and we tap into our true intelligence, and then we’re moved to have intuitive inspiration. You know, many people say, I’ll have my best thoughts in the shower. I’ve been wrestling with a problem for weeks, and then I went surfing or I went, was in a had a cold shower. And the answer just came to me, Well, where did that answer come from? Well, it came from your true nature from your true intelligence. And if we only get out of our way, get out of the mind, we can experience more and more of that. And that’s why we can have 500% productivity increases and move so much faster. But for the for the conditioned mind, it’s a scary place to go. But it’s only scary because we don’t know, it’s actually the best place to go. What scariest thing where we are with the with stuck in our, in our current belief system.

Al McBride 52:19
It’s, it’s something we mentioned briefly before, it’s a fantastic series on Netflix for anyone who’s interested called changing your mind, which is from a book by Michael Pollan, where he goes into the research, which is from Johns Hopkins and Yale and a few other major institutions on the therapeutic approach of a lot of these plant based medicines, which were criminalized because of political reasons, which he goes into, it’s quite fascinating. You know, even back in the 60s, they saw the in crazy levels of therapeutic gain. Psilocybin is the substance in magic mushrooms, LSD, and even in the more modern MDMA created, but all of them had the familiarity of turning off the default mode network, which is what we would refer to as our internal voice.

As in the chatter now it’s very useful for focusing and planning and problem solving in it, in one sense, but it’s hugely problematic because it’s the inner critic, if most of us in the other set of what most people were saying when the doing their interviewed after these experiences, is, as I said, there was a self that just went away or the volume was turned down, and they can actually hear the true voice, their true self and they say it’s, it was as important as an experience as when their first child was born.

Yes, that momentous because as I said, they realize a certain inner truth. Yes. Which often then guides an awful lot of their their thinking decision making all the rest of it later on. Yes. Fantastic. It’s fantastic stuff. Just to talk a bit more going back, looping back a minute and to into the body and manifestation in the body. There’s a great book, called the Body Keeps the Score, and it’s largely based around trauma and recovery from trauma from an American psychiatrist. And it was this idea that yeah, that trauma you know, manifests itself in the body and you were talking about looking to the body for clues as to True Self or ego distraction destinations, could you talk on that a little bit more?

Rob Begg 54:49
Yes, we were entering territory can become contentious and and so on. So there’s no denying that in our, on our human Adventure. We’ve all, almost without exception, we’ve all experienced traumatic events in our life, I think it’s it’s part of the human journey in one form or another, and some are some much more than others. So in no way would I want to be seen to be disregarding our life’s journey and our experience and so on. However, when it comes to getting beyond that, to, to getting getting that trauma to no longer impact our future, I, it’s my belief, my experience, my understanding that if we can, because of who we are, because of who we are, if we take a materialist paradigm, and we say, well, we’ve got trauma stored in the body, and therefore we need to get rid of that in order to be able to live a life that’s free and all the rest of it if if, because of who we are, if we adopt that belief, that oh, yeah, you’ve got you need some, you need some therapy, or you need to do X, Y, and Zed or go through a process in order to release that, then that will be our experience, because we get to experience what we’re choosing to focus in believing. Right?

However, if we say well, that actual, that trauma, whilst it’s real, and it’s in our past, it’s it’s a, it’s right now, it’s a construct in our mind. And the mind is not in the body, the body is in the mind. So it’s a construct in our mind, it doesn’t exist anywhere else other than in mind. Yes, you could say, Well, it happened, it was real. But we can’t know prove that. We can’t ever we can’t prove anything happened yesterday. You can see oh, there’s yesterday’s newspaper, but we’re experiencing it now. We’re only ever experiencing now. So with an understanding of who we are, we can say well, what will what do? What do you desire?

What is your heart desire. And when we get connected to that, from the present moment, than any healing that we believe we need to do is instantaneous. Because there’s really no healing to be done. That’s a construct and a story of the mind. Consciousness is unaffected by anything that goes on in this experience consciousness, our true nature is unaffected. Our body might be I might carry a physical scar from an accident as a child, and that that physical scar is a physical scar on my body. But what’s causing the trauma is me relating to that is the is the meaning I’m adding to that. But actually, as far as consciousness is concerned, I’m just an appearance, a temporary appearance in consciousness, at the end of my life, I will dissolve back into consciousness, there’s consciousness itself is unaffected, and consciousness itself is who we really are.

So we can get absolutely entrenched in the belief that we’ve got trauma to heal and difficulties and others that we must overcome. And that can absolutely be our experience, if we believe it, because consciousness is just here for experience, through the veil of this body, and we’ll get to experience wherever we tune into. So it’s not that any healing modalities are are wrong. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying if if I believe that drinking a glass of water every day, and leaning out my spare bedroom window with a coat hanger, in my right hand, pointing to west, is what’s going to support me to 10x my earnings. That will become my experience. I’ve got to believe it, and the likelihood of me believing that is pretty slim. But we get we get to experience what we believe in. And if we would only understand that then we might be we might be more selective about what it is we’re choosing to believe. Because if I believe that when I turn on the news that what the news readers telling me is going to affect my business, then it’s going to because consciousness is here for experience and what I get emotionally attached to, I’ll get to co pictured in my reality.

It’s it’s Yeah, taught again, psychologists was talking about a slightly different level to what you are, yes. But she essentially summed it up by saying we don’t tend to get what we deserve. We get what we deep down, expect. Yes.

Yes. And of course, we’re experiencing a lot of the time we’re experiencing what’s been unconscious, because when we’re when we’re growing up, we’re, we’re we’re suppressing a lot of some of our more traumatic experiences. We suppress them because they’re uncomfortable at the time they’re too uncomfortable for us to deal with. So, so we, we suppress it and it goes into our our unconscious mind as can questioning if you’d like. And whilst the perception might be that it’s in the body it’s in it’s in our mind our bodies in the mind, and, and then we might experience something in our later life that is tied to that. So, for example, we might have an experience around relationships. And we might form a belief about relationships being difficult or relationships, never last marriages don’t last or, or whatever. And then

their relationships. The famous one is I can have it but I can’t hold it. As in like, I have a briefly but it never lasts. Yeah,

yes. So so you’re so you’re right, we were playing out what we believe. And then of course, when we have when we have, as we start to wake up to this realization, when we have experiences that are not in harmony with our desires, we go okay, well, you know, we can do some self inquiry, what’s alive in my consciousness that’s causing me to keep experiencing this this pattern? You know, what, one of the things I used to work with CEOs, but you know, recruiter, Sales Director, or the sales director is no good. You know, how many sales directors have you had in the last 10 years? I’ve had eight of them, none of them any good. I was not the sales director. It’s got nothing to do with sales directors. So it’s always about what’s going on within us. It’s, it’s never external. We can’t We can’t ever find anything external. That’s for another day.

Al McBride 1:01:36
There’s a lot to take in. Yes, a lot to take in there.

Rob Begg 1:01:41
And I’m aware sitting here, out, we talked about, I think the title of this podcast was about all performance being spiritual or something. Exactly. Exactly. I’m conscious that we’ve not really dived into that. But I guess the essence of it is that what we experience in our, in our physical world is at source coming from our spiritual essence, or from what we’re hopefully allowing to be expressed through our mind.

Al McBride 1:02:09
Absolutely. Absolutely. So I know, Robert, will pause for now for our next conversation. So just for people who want to learn more about you, I have to say I, Rob has a very fascinating newsletter, sometimes, which is an email, sometimes there’s an audio clip, I recommend anyone who’s interested in what Rob bag is talking about here, to go to Robert begg.com. And sign up for that and just start entering Rob’s world there, and you’ll get some very insightful, thought provoking stuff. Which, as I said, a good while ago, now it started to trigger triggered some changes for me going back to what we talked about earlier, and that of, of not in any kind of if then thinking but just being and moving toward a certain identity, which I realized was already part of me. So it’s been it’s been hugely helpful. And I know I’m only at the start of that journey. So it’s quite exciting. So yeah, Robert bagg.com. Or you can probably find again, on LinkedIn. At Robert bag. That’s BEGG

Rob Begg 1:03:25
WG Yeah, I’m not I’m not even sure you can sign up for my email or newsletter at the moment, but you probably can maybe by the time this podcast comes out, you can but yeah,

yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, look, thanks again. Rob. Great conversation for people to think about. Hopefully, get in touch with Robert bag. Yeah, if if you feel stuck, either get in touch with me.

Or even even if you don’t feel stuck, you know that that’s even better. You just want okay, generally don’t work with a well everybody stuck on some level which generally I work with successful fast growth entrepreneurs who just want to pick up the pace and do it with a bit more ease

and enjoy the experience. Okay, great filament.

Enjoy the journey. Yeah. Because if we don’t enjoy the journey, what’s what’s the point of the destination?

It’s something that as I said, as I mean, I normally have a very good time with the last couple of weeks in particular have just everything is more fun. It’s just joy. I love you nearly feel nearly feel guilty for

exactly. I shouldn’t be having too much fun.

Then you kind of realize is the truth of that. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be fun? Yes. As I said, the guilt is nearly because an awful lot of other people aren’t, I think,

yes, you know,

Al McBride 1:04:54
why do I get to it’s it’s literally the definition of privilege in a way Identify so lucky Yeah,

Rob Begg 1:05:03
yes. Well, I think, you know, part of the reason I do what I do is is it’s everybody’s birthright to have a have a joyous, harmonious journey, you know, we were going to experience some ups and downs and some challenges and you know, we’re in a, we’re in a world where we experienced loss and we experience things that are unwanted and so on, but we don’t have to have a miserable existence.

Absolutely. Similar level just to finish off, you know, one of the great tragedies is people not fulfilling a potential that they wish to fulfill.

Yes, as painful.

It is. It is. So, on that note, Thanks, Rob. Thanks. Cheers. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai