Latest / Mindful You / Empowering Your Inner Self: From People-Pleasing To Emotional Mastery, Mindfulness, And Forgiveness With Martin Salama

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Empowering Your Inner Self: From People-Pleasing To Emotional Mastery, Mindfulness, And Forgiveness With Martin Salama · Mindful You

• 0:04
  Alan Carroll: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the mindful U
• 0:09
  podcast. Purpose of the podcast is to expand our awareness and
• 0:18
  understanding and experience of this metaphysical concept that
• 0:28
  we label as mindfulness presents. Emptiness, the
• 0:37
  unknown, the unformed, the unmanifested. I look at it as a,
• 0:48
  the ability to erase things. And when you erase a something,
• 0:54
  you're left with a space. And there used to be a something
• 1:00
  there. Now I've erased it. Now there's an empty space. And we
• 1:04
  call it empty space, no thing. So mindfulness has a lot to do
• 1:11
  with the exploration of of nothing. And our guest today,
• 1:20
  fun fouzia mastic experience the UPS experience the downs and has
• 1:32
  an energy and enthusiasm which drives the engine through spaces
• 1:39
  that some people might get capsized in, and he uses it to
• 1:44
  strengthen himself. He has a book called worrier to warrior.
• 1:56
  And how can you develop the ability develop the skills to
• 2:05
  when the boat does get capped size? You can right size it up.
• 2:12
  Quickly. He makes a distinction I like between being self
• 2:19
  conscious or self aware. He makes a distinction between
• 2:29
  people having conversations versus confrontations. And be it
• 2:37
  and being able to be present stable right side up. When the
• 2:44
  waves start happening in your life, the emotional ups and
• 2:48
  downs start happening in your life is a skill that takes
• 2:52
  practice. And Martin has been practicing and experiencing this
• 3:01
  ability to maintain that stability as you view and
• 3:06
  perceive life situations. So Wow. Let's talk to Martin Come
• 3:11
  on. Please welcome Martin to the mindful you podcast.
• 3:21
  Welcome everyone to the mindful U podcast and welcome to our
• 3:25
  guest today. Martin Salama. He is a very interesting fellow. He
• 3:32
  is going to be sharing with us his journey, his journey into
• 3:38
  our call it being more productive, being more present,
• 3:42
  being more mindful. And if you can do these various things,
• 3:46
  whatever you touch, whether it be increase in sales, whether it
• 3:51
  be improve relationships, anything that you touch, if you
• 3:55
  follow a certain way of thinking will lead to more gold than to
• 4:01
  lead. So I'd like to welcome everyone. And please welcome
• 4:05
  Martin to our mindful you podcast. Hello, Martin. Hi,
• 4:09
  Martin Salama: Alan, thank you so much for having me. I'm
• 4:11
  excited to be with you. Well,
• 4:13
  Alan Carroll: thank you very much for being with us and being
• 4:15
  with our audience today. Let's start with a question with just
• 4:19
  take us back a little bit into the past. And what is sort of
• 4:24
  the foundation, the conditioning that you experienced that causes
• 4:29
  you to see the world a certain way? What were the defining
• 4:33
  moments that you shared earlier on? You're on your path of
• 4:37
  consciousness?
• 4:40
  Unknown: Right. Well, I think I have to go back to really pretty
• 4:43
  much when I was 10 years old, for the first real defining
• 4:47
  moment. And there's a reason I go all the way back there. It
• 4:52
  was a tragedy in my life, and it's about 50 years ago now.
• 4:56
  It's a little over 50 years ago that this happened. I I was 10
• 5:00
  years old. And this tragedy happened because I was walking
• 5:04
  home from school. And there was a school bus stopped in front of
• 5:07
  our house, I was walking with one of my four older sisters.
• 5:10
  And as we got closer, we realized the school bus wasn't
• 5:12
  moving. It was just sitting there. And the bus driver was
• 5:15
  standing in front of our house. And as we got closer, my mother
• 5:19
  came running out of the house carrying my five year old
• 5:22
  brother Michael in your hands. She jumped in the car and drove
• 5:25
  away. We came to find out that when Michael got off the bus, he
• 5:29
  dropped something in front of the school bus reached out to
• 5:32
  get it. The bus driver didn't see him and drove. And
• 5:37
  unfortunately, him and four days later, he passed away from the
• 5:41
  injuries from that from that bus accident.
• 5:44
  Alan Carroll: And how old How old were you, Mike? Martin? I
• 5:47
  was 10 You were 10 years old. You had that experience? That's
• 5:51
  that's does explain a tragedy.
• 5:53
  Unknown: Yeah. And this, this tragedy affected everybody in my
• 5:57
  family as you were sure baby of the family. My My parents were
• 6:02
  devastated. My sisters, my older sisters were, as was I. And for
• 6:07
  me, I told myself a story in the ensuing days. And that story
• 6:13
  was, you know, I had this brother, who I was going to set
• 6:16
  the world on fire with he and I, we were going to just, we were
• 6:20
  going to control the we were going to, you know, be kings of
• 6:23
  the world together.
• 6:24
  Alan Carroll: Wow, what a story, you
• 6:26
  Unknown: know, and now he was gone. And what my story I tend
• 6:31
  to myself was, I now have to have the the put all my burden
• 6:37
  on my shoulders, the legacy, I have to continue the legacy, I
• 6:42
  have to make sure that the salaam name continues, I have to
• 6:46
  make sure that I make my parents proud. And I never want them to
• 6:49
  be sad again. So it's my job to make sure they're always happy.
• 6:53
  And I can look back now and recognize that that moment, I
• 6:57
  became a people pleaser.
• 6:59
  Alan Carroll: So you had a almost a program, a script, a
• 7:04
  thought see a meaning of life now. Yeah, based on that
• 7:09
  experience. And once it was embedded in your consciousness,
• 7:13
  you began to play the role of whatever that script said,
• 7:17
  Unknown: which was truth, or truth in my world. Yep.
• 7:21
  Alan Carroll: Yep. And your behavior then corresponded with
• 7:24
  the truth. Exactly. And whether the pay view lead to
• 7:27
  satisfaction are appropriate or inappropriate. We'll find out.
• 7:33
  Unknown: And that's the journey we're gonna take together today.
• 7:36
  Yep. So yeah, so that's who I became I became a people
• 7:40
  pleaser, always trying to please my parents always trying to make
• 7:44
  everybody else around me happy. Well, I love people
• 7:48
  Alan Carroll: like you. I love people like you. I tell you, you
• 7:51
  ask them to do things. You're the people that will do
• 7:52
  everything for you. Yeah, God needs people like you, Martin.
• 7:56
  All right, people they do
• 7:58
  Unknown: good. As long as they understand the balance.
• 8:01
  Alan Carroll: Understand the balance to be thinking about
• 8:04
  that does do it. All right. Balance. Yeah, the balance. I
• 8:09
  got the balance thing. I appreciate y'all. And really,
• 8:12
  thanks so much.
• 8:12
  Unknown: This has been a great interview. Have a good day. No,
• 8:17
  seriously. But that people pleaser mentality went on to
• 8:22
  when I got married. I was trying to please my wife, I was trying
• 8:24
  to please my family, my parents. And it took me pretty close to
• 8:28
  40 years to recognize I was a people pleaser. But the irony of
• 8:32
  it was, I was pleasing. No one was myself. So yeah, and that
• 8:44
  came as a result of going through this almost 40 year
• 8:47
  journey of doing these things and always trying to make
• 8:51
  everybody else happy and never realizing that I'm not because I
• 8:55
  would rationalize that the things I was doing was for the
• 8:58
  greater good. But what I've come to learn is that the word
• 9:02
  rationalize and I talk about this in my coaching is really
• 9:07
  two words. It's really two words, it's, I'll pull out a
• 9:11
  card of mine in my car deck, but national lies. Okay, so I'll
• 9:18
  read the car to you. Whenever you think you may be doing
• 9:20
  something that goes against your values. You will rationalize all
• 9:24
  the reasons why it's okay. What you're really doing is lying to
• 9:28
  yourself that it's rational to think that they're nothing more
• 9:31
  than rationalize. So think about things that you might do. Like
• 9:35
  you'll wake up in the morning. Yeah, I'm too tired to exercise
• 9:38
  today. I don't think I'm gonna Are you really too tired? Are
• 9:42
  you coming up with a reason why you shouldn't. And now that
• 9:46
  you're aware of it, you realize it's really not a reason. It's
• 9:49
  an excuse. That's really a rational lie. Because most of
• 9:53
  the times if you start exercising 10 minutes and you're
• 9:55
  like, I'm so glad I decided to do this. So now me Imagine you
• 10:00
  do that in your daily event somebody comes and asks you can
• 10:02
  you do something for me? And your people pleaser is like,
• 10:06
  yeah, I want to figure out how to do it. And it doesn't matter
• 10:08
  if it goes against what I really believe. And I can make that
• 10:11
  person happy, then why not do it? Even if it goes against my
• 10:16
  core, that core values, and
• 10:18
  Alan Carroll: if it goes against your core values, there's it's
• 10:21
  a, it creates a friction, it's like rubbing against something
• 10:24
  and creating a heat and a friction, which probably creates
• 10:28
  a dis hyphen, ease, mentally, physically and emotionally.
• 10:33
  Especially if you are a a people, people pleaser addict.
• 10:38
  Right? You're like, you're like King people pleaser. Sounds like
• 10:41
  that's what I
• 10:41
  Unknown: was. I now I call myself it's when you use that
• 10:44
  word people pleaser addict. I call myself a recovering people
• 10:48
  pleaser.
• 10:48
  Alan Carroll: Okay. All right. All right. I agree. I agree.
• 10:52
  Yeah. Right. Because
• 10:53
  Unknown: sometimes I will fall back into it. And it's about me,
• 10:56
  we are adjusting and saying, wait a minute, am I doing this
• 10:59
  for the right reasons.
• 11:01
  Alan Carroll: But that's an that's an important insight in
• 11:04
  the mindfulness business, because you have to catch the
• 11:09
  action. Before you do the action, and ask, what's the
• 11:14
  source of the action? What's the thought that's fueling the
• 11:19
  action? Oh, the thought is people that's the people
• 11:22
  pleaser. All right, then I can choose to, to, to do consciously
• 11:29
  please Him. And all the joy doing that. I realized, that's
• 11:32
  just my, that's just my act. Right? I don't have to play that
• 11:36
  card right now. Variety, that consciousness that that is
• 11:40
  that's the, that's the power of observation. And that's
• 11:43
  wonderful.
• 11:43
  Unknown: Yep. And it's awareness, you can't wear
• 11:46
  awareness. And I'll get into that a little bit more as we go
• 11:49
  along. In our conversation. There's a difference about
• 11:53
  awareness, and self awareness and self consciousness.
• 11:58
  Alan Carroll: Well, that's, that's, that's definitely up my
• 12:01
  wheelhouse. Let's talk about those three distinctions.
• 12:03
  Unknown: Right. Okay. So everybody thinks they're aware,
• 12:06
  and they are. But everybody then thinks they're also self aware.
• 12:11
  But after I have a little bit of a conversation with them, they
• 12:15
  start to realize is that they're not really so self aware.
• 12:18
  They're more like they're self conscious. And the differences
• 12:23
  is huge. And once they learn the difference, it becomes something
• 12:27
  that they want to achieve the self awareness. So again, I have
• 12:31
  another card on it. Love it. All right. So to me self conscious
• 12:35
  self consciousness comes from a place of negative energy, guilt,
• 12:40
  conflict and doubt, self consciousness is more outward
• 12:43
  directed, it's being more concerned about what others are
• 12:46
  thinking of you, and how the situation is going to affect
• 12:50
  you. You probably react to uncomfortable situations instead
• 12:54
  of respond. When you're self conscious, you're questioning
• 12:58
  your decisions, little more to it, but you get that self
• 13:02
  awareness comes from a place of positive energy, acceptance,
• 13:06
  contentment, self assuredness, self awareness is more inward
• 13:10
  facing, you have an accurate and realistic understanding of how
• 13:14
  you are responding to situations, and how you feel
• 13:18
  about things.
• 13:19
  Alan Carroll: You bet, that's, that's wonderful, because that,
• 13:23
  to me is a very, it's one of the basic fundamentals of spiritual
• 13:28
  development, is to be able to observe what's going I use, the
• 13:32
  analogy is that you're sitting in the movie theater, and you're
• 13:36
  watching the movie screen of life. And it's playing out in
• 13:39
  front of you through your five senses, and you're there with
• 13:42
  your bag of popcorn, drinking, whatever you want to be
• 13:44
  drinking, watching the play of life, right? Versus I am the
• 13:51
  play of life. And most people I am the play of life, and
• 13:54
  therefore the player of life beats me up and I don't feel
• 13:56
  satisfied, yet what you described as being able to step
• 14:02
  back, see what's going on. Notice the energy, notice the
• 14:08
  emotions, notice the thoughts being stirred up inside of you.
• 14:13
  And that's right, it's the scene of the movie. And then you're
• 14:15
  conscious enough to I can press the go or the stop button,
• 14:19
  right? And boy, if you can control the goal or the stop
• 14:22
  button, then you can go to God and stop to the devil then
• 14:27
  control of it.
• 14:29
  Unknown: Exactly right. And you know, the old me what I learned
• 14:32
  about once I started to unpack this people pleaser, a part of
• 14:36
  me, which came about as a result of my 30 years of doing that.
• 14:42
  And then in 2003, my wife and I decided that we're going to
• 14:47
  start a new project. She came to me and she said, you know, you
• 14:51
  just closed the business. You're looking for something to do. I
• 14:54
  just started playing tennis and I could never find any courts
• 14:57
  anywhere near where we live. Maybe we should go put up a
• 15:00
  tennis center. Sure. So now, let me here's the another ironic
• 15:06
  thing. I am not an athlete. So much. So you could call me an
• 15:11
  athletic supporter. But here she is. And in the back of my mind,
• 15:18
  I'm like, Okay, I'm a people pleaser. I want to make her
• 15:22
  happy course. So let's go down this road. Yep. And we start
• 15:27
  this five year journey to decide that we're going to build a
• 15:31
  Tennis Center. We go out, we get a feasibility study, and they
• 15:34
  go, yeah, it'd be great. You have room, you could put seven,
• 15:38
  eight, and it'll have it the right location down by the
• 15:40
  Jersey Shore. Great idea. But it's not going to bring you a
• 15:46
  ton of profit. You need to add other things like a membership,
• 15:51
  like a gym, and other things. Spa blah, blah, blah, all these
• 15:55
  things. Like, oh, okay, well, let's go find an architect.
• 15:59
  Let's go find the lamp. Let's go find engineers. And what started
• 16:03
  out as an idea of putting up seven or eight tennis courts,
• 16:06
  we're gonna do 100 plus 1000, square foot tennis and health
• 16:12
  center, that would cost $15 million. Right? And it takes us
• 16:18
  five years, because you got to get the land. You got to get the
• 16:22
  architects and the engineers, then you go to the city, and
• 16:25
  they go, oh, wait a minute. You got to do a you got to do civil
• 16:28
  engineers. How's it gonna affect the traffic? House? Do you have
• 16:31
  enough parking all those things? The
• 16:34
  Alan Carroll: wetlands? What about the what about the animals
• 16:35
  in the wetlands?
• 16:38
  Unknown: Luckily, you have that issue. But but so now I'm down
• 16:43
  this road, and we're putting money in it. Yep. Yep, paying
• 16:48
  everybody out, getting investments and stuff like that.
• 16:50
  But at the end of the day, I was plus $3 million into it three
• 16:55
  and a half million dollars into it. And I'm like, Okay, where do
• 17:00
  we go from, you know, so finally, I'm one of the banks
• 17:02
  over the years. And they're like, Yeah, we love it. When
• 17:05
  you're ready, we're ready for you. And this was in the mid
• 17:09
  2000s 2000 567, when the lending out there was like going to
• 17:15
  Costco and having lunch from the ladies on the ends of the unit
• 17:19
  where they give you the free samples there. That's what they
• 17:22
  were doing in the bank, they were handing you money, people
• 17:25
  were refinancing their houses going back, you know, the
• 17:30
  subprime loans, they would give me money for anything. Oh, yeah,
• 17:33
  you're valued at 500? Well, now we'll give you 700 Oh, come
• 17:36
  back. We'll do a million like a year later. And like, this is
• 17:39
  how I was funding the project, as well as getting other people
• 17:42
  investment and all that. So now in 2008, we finally get all the
• 17:47
  approvals. We go to the bank, and the idea without lending.
• 17:51
  I'm like, What are you talking about? Liz Genua, handing them
• 17:54
  out like it was water? Well, things are changing. A month
• 17:58
  later, Bernie paid off, the subprime loans finally exploded.
• 18:03
  And just like that, the financial crash of 2008. And I
• 18:09
  was one of the main victims. In my life, I was the number one
• 18:12
  victim of that. And overnight, I lost everything. I stopped
• 18:20
  paying my mortgage, I stopped paying my car payments, few
• 18:23
  months into it my fault. My sense is that they're towing
• 18:26
  your car. Because I was being repossessed, that never happened
• 18:29
  to me, right. My house was foreclosed on. But luckily, I
• 18:33
  live in New Jersey, and they were so backed up on foreclosure
• 18:37
  that took them years till they finally finalized foreclosure.
• 18:42
  But you can imagine I went into a pretty deep depression was
• 18:46
  going
• 18:46
  Alan Carroll: on there. You bet. That's a that's a big, that's a
• 18:49
  big thing to see in the movie of life sitting there. Yes, your
• 18:52
  popcorn to be able to stay stable and mentally stable. And
• 18:56
  to deal with that outer world kind of stuff.
• 18:59
  Unknown: Yeah. And I wasn't I wasn't, I wasn't in that mode of
• 19:03
  being an observer. And what that meant, now I do, I practice it
• 19:09
  pretty much all the time. Wonderful. But I was deep into
• 19:13
  it. And I'm like, Why is everything happening to me? And
• 19:16
  it took me about a year to say, Okay, now what am I going to do
• 19:19
  with my life. And I decided I want to be a businessman
• 19:22
  anymore. I want to do something different. And I said, what I
• 19:26
  want to do, while I've been involved in community events,
• 19:29
  and as a leader, I was showing people how they can come in and
• 19:32
  give me a little time into organizations, whatever it was,
• 19:37
  and they can be productive. So I realized it was a life coach, so
• 19:40
  why not go out and get certified and become a life coach. So
• 19:44
  that's what I decided to do. And about two months before it was
• 19:47
  time for coach training to start was my 24th wedding anniversary.
• 19:51
  And my wife said, I'm done. I want to divorce. Oh, wow. Oh my
• 19:58
  God. Everything keeps happening. into me what the heck. And I
• 20:02
  think God tapped me on the shoulders and said, you want to
• 20:04
  become a life coach. You got to go through some you guys. Now's
• 20:09
  the time, you're at that lowest point, you got to figure out
• 20:12
  what's going on in your life, figure out what you're doing and
• 20:15
  where it's coming out of it. And I read this book that the school
• 20:19
  had sent us a list of books to read, they said, read a few of
• 20:21
  them. And one of them was the Four Agreements by Don Miguel
• 20:25
  Ruiz. You know, that book.
• 20:27
  Alan Carroll: I love that book. I love it. The book is God's
• 20:32
  word.
• 20:33
  Unknown: It's like the Bible to me.
• 20:35
  Alan Carroll: Very, very beautiful.
• 20:36
  Unknown: And when I read, don't take anything personally, I
• 20:39
  finally started to understand that this is who I was, as a
• 20:44
  people pleaser, I took things personally, I was a control
• 20:48
  freak. I needed recognition for everything I was doing, I needed
• 20:52
  to be validated. And worst of all, when those things weren't
• 20:55
  happening, I had a very short temper. And I would blow up like
• 21:01
  a like a, like an explosion coming a nuclear
• 21:05
  Alan Carroll: explosion. Yeah, reactive, you are radio, you are
• 21:08
  radio reactive.
• 21:09
  Unknown: Exactly. You leave fall out all over the place.
• 21:14
  Alan Carroll: Right, right. I that we should just underline
• 21:19
  and go back and visit that one about you don't want to take
• 21:22
  anything personally. Yeah, my observation after being around
• 21:26
  for a number of years is everybody takes everything
• 21:28
  personally. Yeah. And if you take it personally, you lose
• 21:33
  your power to control the situation. Because it's
• 21:38
  personal. But as long as you know, it's personal, then you
• 21:42
  know, you're in trouble.
• 21:43
  Unknown: Right, exactly. And that's really where things
• 21:46
  started to change for me. Because I understood now that my
• 21:51
  emotions, because I took everything personally, were
• 21:54
  controlling me. Right, right. I needed to learn how to control
• 21:58
  my emotions, so that I would be in charge of myself, instead of
• 22:04
  my emotions and everybody else around me. You bet. Yeah. And
• 22:08
  that's what happened. When I went through coach training. It
• 22:10
  opened the door for me. I walked in that first weekend saying,
• 22:15
  Okay, I'm open, I'm ready. I'm raw, I got to figure out what's
• 22:19
  going on. And they said, You don't have to be who you think
• 22:22
  you have to be. You could be whoever you want to be. And I
• 22:27
  was like, Oh, wow. Really, I don't have to be that people
• 22:30
  pleaser. And I started to unravel these things of the
• 22:34
  people pleaser that I figured out, that's, that's who I was.
• 22:38
  Now, it's like anybody with an addiction. They don't want to
• 22:41
  admit that, that that person. Like, I'm not a people pleaser,
• 22:45
  but really, I was. And it was coming to terms with that and
• 22:50
  admitting it and saying, I gotta change. And that was where my
• 22:54
  journey started. And after a few years, I started I was coaching
• 22:58
  first as a divorce recovery coach, I wonder
• 23:01
  Alan Carroll: if your credibility there, right.
• 23:05
  Unknown: And I was starting to enjoy life again. And one day, I
• 23:09
  was doing something that I'm not very good at, because I'm ADHD,
• 23:12
  I was meditating. Imagine an ADHD guy sitting still for 10
• 23:17
  minutes. What is this gonna be over? Even it was guided
• 23:23
  meditation. I couldn't, it was hard. But one day, I had this
• 23:27
  download of information that I was loving everything that was
• 23:29
  going on in my life. And I wanted to share it with others.
• 23:34
  And then when I finished meditating, I work for two
• 23:37
  hours. And what came out of that was the acronym life, live
• 23:43
  incredibly full every day. And what that was, is me saying I
• 23:48
  want to show people how they can be happy and have a meaningful
• 23:52
  life. So some people can be happy without meaning. And some
• 23:57
  people will be doing meaningful things and not be happy. And
• 24:00
  live incredibly full every day means that you're, you're
• 24:02
  encompassing both of those things on a daily basis.
• 24:06
  Beautiful,
• 24:07
  Alan Carroll: beautiful. We have a few minutes so why don't we go
• 24:11
  into the the the life distinction. And when we talk
• 24:17
  about it, think about people listening and what they can do
• 24:22
  actions they can take our states of mind you'd like to have that
• 24:27
  is the motivator for the the outside action. Right?
• 24:32
  Unknown: Right. So when my kids were going to school, they would
• 24:36
  come home and they would tell me about the firemen that came into
• 24:39
  school to teach them about fire safety. And they said Daddy,
• 24:44
  they taught me three words to happen and when the when a fire
• 24:47
  happens. Alan, you remember
• 24:49
  Alan Carroll: those words are something with roll down, down
• 24:54
  and roll or something.
• 24:55
  Unknown: What is topping Well,
• 24:57
  Alan Carroll: stop, drop and roll.
• 24:58
  Unknown: Right so When I realized that what I needed to
• 25:03
  do in my life was to come up with a system that was similar
• 25:06
  to that for my my overreactions. So I changed it to stop, think
• 25:13
  and respond. For example, most of my conversations were
• 25:18
  confrontations. Because I had my I had my defenses up, and I was
• 25:24
  ready to battle anybody that wanted to come after me, because
• 25:28
  I was taking everything personally. Now that not
• 25:30
  Alan Carroll: only that, I bet you were right. You were I'm
• 25:33
  right. And I'm taking it personally. Exactly. I'm always
• 25:36
  right, that I understand. So my by the way, I never I never
• 25:40
  wrong. My wife's been walking my entire
• 25:42
  Unknown: life as my ex wife, so you gotta laugh. I used to say,
• 25:51
  everything was my fault. Even world hunger as far as my wife
• 25:54
  was concerned, my ex wife. But a good joke, you know, joking
• 25:59
  aside, I realized that I needed to recognize when I was going to
• 26:04
  go into that mode of fight.
• 26:06
  Alan Carroll: Yep.
• 26:08
  Unknown: And I needed to change it. Becoming aware of self aware
• 26:12
  instead of self conscious. Yep. So what I would do is, someone
• 26:17
  would attack me, or I would think that was getting attacked.
• 26:20
  And I'd say, Wait a minute. Stop. Yep. And then I'd say
• 26:25
  think, am I taking this personally? Is it about me? Or
• 26:31
  maybe something's going on in their life? That they're
• 26:34
  projecting onto me? Yep. Or maybe something else? Who knows?
• 26:38
  Yep. And how about if I respond instead of react? Yep. So that I
• 26:44
  have conversations instead of confrontations. And I started to
• 26:48
  go.
• 26:49
  Alan Carroll: Stop. That's a good thing people can remember.
• 26:52
  Yeah, I have conversations rather than confrontations. So
• 26:56
  you say say I think that's worth well repeating. So,
• 27:00
  Unknown: for me, I would always find myself in a confrontational
• 27:05
  mode. Because my defenses were up. I was mad. I was taking it
• 27:09
  personally. So I was ready to confront. So I was always having
• 27:15
  confrontations. So I needed to learn to change from
• 27:18
  confrontations to conversations, where it really good, that's
• 27:23
  really justifying whatever was going on, I would advocate Well,
• 27:27
  I would have a conversation and understand that it's not black
• 27:31
  and white.
• 27:32
  Alan Carroll: Yep. Yep, yep. Yeah. But I when my world I look
• 27:37
  at the the confrontation comes out of your conditioning. And
• 27:41
  conditioning is the egos the web of thoughts that's created the
• 27:45
  experiences the programming, the teachers, the parents. And as
• 27:50
  you begin to practice meditation, one way, you begin
• 27:54
  to aerate that, that constipated ball of egoic thoughts. And the
• 28:02
  air begins to flow through a little bit more, there's more
• 28:05
  space around those thoughts. And you realize that I've been a
• 28:09
  storm door for 40 years. And it's better to be a screen door
• 28:13
  to allow the energy to flow back. Oh, I love that. And so
• 28:17
  the screen door, what's the difference between the two, the
• 28:21
  screen door has holes in it? Well, what's a hole? A hole is a
• 28:25
  moment of stillness, right. And meditation is achieving, you
• 28:32
  know, deeper levels of stillness. In my business, the
• 28:36
  Martin, I'm in the speaking business, where we tell the we
• 28:41
  train them to be able to consciously erase the sounds
• 28:48
  that you would have spoken. And then look at what that empty
• 28:54
  space is, by that empty space is I took something out, I took
• 28:59
  something out, and I put nothing in. Nothing is just empty space.
• 29:04
  Wow. And so and that's available to everybody. I call it like
• 29:08
  full spacious speaking. And in order to do it. Yeah, got to be
• 29:12
  here in the moment in order to do it. Yes,
• 29:14
  Unknown: you have to be mindful of where you are, at that
• 29:16
  moment. Be mindful and present. And
• 29:18
  Alan Carroll: that's when you wake up. Yeah, that's right. And
• 29:21
  then you can choose, am I going to attack this person? And why
• 29:24
  will I want to attack this person? Or am I going to be
• 29:27
  compassionate and loving? Right?
• 29:29
  Unknown: Absolutely. And for everybody out there, it doesn't
• 29:31
  happen overnight. I didn't go for being a reactor to responder
• 29:36
  overnight. I wish I could have but it takes but number one is
• 29:40
  not sustainable. Number two, you need to practice it. You need to
• 29:44
  retrain your brain to understand the things that you were doing
• 29:50
  before or not working. Even though you think you're right.
• 29:53
  You're not all the time, and that it's okay to admit and be
• 29:58
  vulnerable and work. recognize those weaknesses that you have,
• 30:03
  and ask for help and be open to hearing other people's feedback.
• 30:09
  So for me, it was making that shift slowly. And I created a
• 30:14
  system where I would score myself is how I'm doing
• 30:20
  wonderful,
• 30:21
  Alan Carroll: you know, wonderful. And it came from
• 30:23
  Unknown: a game I used to play when I was a kid with my
• 30:25
  friends, it was called 531. Basketball, you'd be at the, at
• 30:30
  the at the foul line and you took a shot, you hit it, you got
• 30:33
  five points, then wherever you got the rebound, you took the
• 30:37
  shot, that was three points. And then when you took a layup, you
• 30:40
  got another point. And if you got all nine points, and you get
• 30:44
  a, you get the extra point for a perfect time. So I took it and I
• 30:48
  reversed it. I said, if you stop, give yourself a point. If
• 30:53
  you think about the way you're going to react, give yourself
• 30:58
  three points. And then if you respond instead of react, give
• 31:01
  yourself five points. So now, imagine you had a competition
• 31:05
  yesterday. And today you're thinking about it and saying I
• 31:08
  can't believe I, I worked this thing and I didn't do it. Okay,
• 31:14
  well, Alan, you have a chance to do something about it. So if you
• 31:18
  stopped just now and you thought about, give yourself a point to
• 31:22
  think about it, what could I have done differently? And made
• 31:27
  it a conversation instead of a confrontation? And then number
• 31:30
  five, if you could go back to that person and say, You know
• 31:35
  what? I'm sorry for the way I reacted. Please forgive me with
• 31:41
  no excuses with nothing back in return. And just saying I
• 31:46
  apologize. Please accept my apology. I'll try to be bad do
• 31:49
  better next time.
• 31:51
  Alan Carroll: So that is that's a you that's a whole university
• 31:56
  course right there.
• 31:57
  Unknown: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 32:00
  Alan Carroll: That's a big,
• 32:01
  Unknown: the late Randy posh wrote the last the last lecture.
• 32:06
  Yep. Because he knew he was gonna die. And he talked about
• 32:08
  the apology. It's giving an apology without asking for
• 32:12
  anything back without giving excuses. You know, I'm sorry,
• 32:16
  but you started you got me going? No, I'm sorry for what I
• 32:20
  did. This is what I did wrong. And I'll try to do better next
• 32:23
  time. And
• 32:25
  Alan Carroll: asking for forgiveness and ask for
• 32:27
  forgiveness is a the forgiving yourself and forgiving other
• 32:32
  people for the sins that they have done that you illusion in
• 32:36
  your own conditioning think they had fun. It's hard to forgive
• 32:39
  that because I have to give up my righteous wrath. Exactly. Our
• 32:44
  it's undeserved and unjustified. However I will you both are not
• 32:48
  entitled to my forgiveness because he really don't deserve
• 32:51
  so the mind rationalizes like he was saying that justifies me not
• 32:55
  not forgiving. But I look at if you don't forgive, then you're
• 32:59
  swimming through life wood, wood grievances in cannon balls and
• 33:03
  complaints about the world. And it just weighs you down, rather
• 33:08
  than when you are released. Yeah,
• 33:10
  Unknown: and resentment, resentment, a big part of it.
• 33:12
  Yep. And forgiveness is more about you than the other person.
• 33:17
  You bet. So yeah, 100% I agree with that.
• 33:20
  Alan Carroll: I go so far as to say the reality that I
• 33:24
  experienced outwards is a projection of my own mind. And
• 33:28
  if I see things out there which are negative, then I damn well
• 33:32
  better take a look what's going on inside myself. Because if
• 33:35
  it's negative, I don't love it. Don't love it out there that I
• 33:39
  don't love it inside but inside is what projected it out there.
• 33:42
  So I better go inside and find out where where that unlovable
• 33:45
  little thought is came from so I can I can love it and heal it.
• 33:50
  Unknown: That's right. One of my one of my mentors. Her name is
• 33:53
  Genevieve Davis writes these books on magic. And her number
• 33:58
  one book is the first book she wrote is called Becoming magic
• 34:00
  and the magic is within you. She says the world is as you see it.
• 34:05
  So if you want to see it as negative and downtrodden and
• 34:09
  full of problems, that's what you'll see. Whoever the
• 34:12
  President does, whoever, whatever is going on in the
• 34:14
  world. It has nothing to do with any of that. But if you see the
• 34:17
  world as a wonderful place and put on those rose colored
• 34:21
  glasses that I recommend that you do put on those road calls,
• 34:24
  but rose colored glasses and go out there and look for the
• 34:28
  opportunity. Look for the beauty look for the happiness. It'll
• 34:33
  find you.
• 34:35
  Alan Carroll: Absolutely. It's a we are speaking very wise, from
• 34:43
  ancient old it of wisdom that is like of course this is the way
• 34:49
  it works. It's in the Talmud as well. Yep, it is the religious
• 34:53
  books, the the Christian, the Christian books, the Buddhist
• 34:56
  books, and they all sort of point to this This empty space,
• 35:03
  they call it God, a space that contains nothing but it also
• 35:07
  contains everything everything. And our identity is just a just
• 35:12
  an object like a Christmas tree ball on the on the tree, right?
• 35:16
  hanging in space that you think it's all you are. But as you air
• 35:20
  rake that ego stuff and you relax and forgive, all of a
• 35:25
  sudden you shift from the storm door to the screen door, and you
• 35:29
  no longer resist. Right, exactly.
• 35:32
  Unknown: I love that. I love that analogy. Fantastic. So
• 35:36
  yeah, so I created that way of giving people a chance to
• 35:40
  forgive themselves as they're going through this process.
• 35:43
  Because you're never going to be 100% you can get to it. There's
• 35:47
  no such thing as perfection. And it's okay to go back and tell
• 35:51
  somebody, I made a mistake. You reacted when I should have
• 35:55
  responded. You're building a relationship with that person.
• 35:58
  When you do that you're rebuilding a relationship even
• 36:02
  many times. Wow.
• 36:04
  Alan Carroll: Well, Martin, I want to thank you we are we have
• 36:09
  we've had a wonderful conversation, thank you a
• 36:11
  valuable conversations we have that take some of the the golden
• 36:18
  nuggets and diamonds of spirituality. And I like the way
• 36:23
  you shine your light on on it and illuminate it in your
• 36:27
  speaking. And the speaking comes from experience, not just from a
• 36:31
  book that you read. So you're able to take your experiences
• 36:34
  and articulate them in a in an energetic, energetic,
• 36:39
  enthusiastic, a way it's very it's very much of a life coach
• 36:43
  kind of a thing and the Suzy plastic champion to support
• 36:48
  people in progressing and healing themselves and so that
• 36:51
  they experience life is a cup half full right now than a cup
• 36:56
  half empty.
• 36:57
  Unknown: Exactly right. I look at it as the cup is always full.
• 37:00
  I love
• 37:00
  Alan Carroll: it. I love it. The cup is always full, always full.
• 37:04
  And it's always always empty it because they both they both
• 37:08
  dichotomy. So can you do both, then then you're happy whether
• 37:12
  it's empty and happy whether it's full a makes no difference,
• 37:15
  Unknown: which is another one of of, of Don Miguel Ruiz is four
• 37:19
  agreements don't make any assumptions. Don't have any
• 37:22
  expectations.
• 37:24
  Alan Carroll: So you really hitting some good ones here.
• 37:28
  Thank you. Just the some people asked me, oh, I can't meditate.
• 37:34
  You know, I can't keep my eyes closed. And I in my body. And
• 37:38
  then. And I'd say, well, one of the rules that I would
• 37:44
  incorporate is enter into whatever meditation you do and
• 37:49
  say to yourself, I'm going to meditate for 20 minutes, and I
• 37:52
  have no expectations.
• 37:55
  Unknown: Exactly. That was when it changed for me, because I
• 37:59
  thought I had to be that thinking, not anything, it's
• 38:03
  whatever works for you. Right? Don't have any expectations of
• 38:06
  what you think it should be.
• 38:09
  Alan Carroll: And let me also let folks know that you have
• 38:13
  your authored books and you have those cards that look pretty
• 38:16
  cool. How do you how do you get a hold of the cards? And how do
• 38:19
  you get a hold of your books. So
• 38:21
  Unknown: I made it very simple. You can go to connect with more
• 38:25
  n.com. Go there, you'll see a link to get the book, you'll see
• 38:30
  a link to get the cards. They'll also be a link for free gifts.
• 38:34
  Like imagine a coloring book for adults or for kids. I have one
• 38:39
  for each on the seven steps to an abundant mindset. A Monday
• 38:43
  warrior mindset coloring
• 38:45
  Alan Carroll: book that's good. Get the body involved in it, you
• 38:48
  know, colors slash at Vegas, all right, and
• 38:52
  Unknown: it's okay to color outside the lines. We're not
• 38:54
  kids anymore. We don't have to listen to the teacher it says
• 38:56
  stay in the lines. Don't do what you want. Nobody. There's no
• 39:00
  rules. And there's also a link if you want to find out more
• 39:03
  about me or make an appointment to meet with me. They're all
• 39:06
  there.
• 39:06
  Alan Carroll: So it's a copy of the book cover. Here you go. All
• 39:11
  right, worrier to warrior. That's nice little double words
• 39:14
  there. It's good
• 39:16
  Unknown: on Amazon, I'm very proud of that.
• 39:18
  Alan Carroll: Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Well and
• 39:21
  the cards show us the deck of cards again. That's not that's
• 39:25
  on Amazon to actually
• 39:27
  Unknown: you go to the connect with buying.com I haven't put it
• 39:30
  up on Amazon yet but you can get it on connect with martin.com
• 39:33
  Wonderful.
• 39:34
  Alan Carroll: Well, Martin salaam I want to thank you very
• 39:36
  much for being a wonderful guests on the mindful you
• 39:40
  podcast. And it was just it's I feel I beat the so much sweet
• 39:46
  candy my pimples on my face because you have such beautiful
• 39:49
  words and beautiful distinctions and concepts. It's like It's
• 39:53
  like being in a candy store. So thank you for feeding my sugar
• 39:56
  addiction today.
• 39:57
  Unknown: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm so glad I was able to
• 40:00
  Have you ever gotten too fat
• 40:03
  Alan Carroll: all right thank you very much Martin i Bye