Tom: 0:01

Welcome to the Heart Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let's go. Let your heart guide your business journey. Well, lights, camera and action, buckle up, buddies, because we're about to embark on an awe inspiring adventure with Bob Martin. He's a barrier breaking Buddha at Elon University who went from mob trials in Miami to Taoism triumphs in North Carolina. This cordial coordinator is also a Septuagenarian superstar who wrote a Taoist Christian crossover On our Heart-Led journey today, we're exploring the terrain of transformation and tenacity that makes up his business. And folks, it's all here on the Heart-Led Business Show, where there's never a dull moment, only delightful dialogues and dynamic dispositions. So Bob, welcome to the show.

Bob Martin: 1:21

Thanks, it's a pleasure to be here.

Tom: 1:22

Awesome. The very first question that I always like to ask the guest is what's your definition of a heart-led business?

Bob Martin: 1:30

Okay. A heart-led business. My definition is a business that makes you happy. And I might have to delve into that for just a moment and ask the question, what makes you happy?

Tom: 1:42

Right.

Bob Martin: 1:42

And I find that there's a lot of people out there that have a lot of success in business, but they're not happy. And, you know, over, over in Berkeley, there's this wonderful center called the Greater Good Science Center, where they actually examine and study what makes us happy. And what they find is that having a meaningful life, something that is meaningful and purposeful, even if it's self defined, tends to make us happy. And so I would say that having a heart-led business is one where you sense that you are making a difference. You are serving others. You are creating the greater good. And that makes you happy. And I think everyone just wants to be happy.

Tom: 2:32

Yeah, definitely. At the end of the day, that's what we all want. And it's interesting I guess it's not that interesting, but it's a good reminder that when you have purpose with what you do, you automatically are happier. And I think we can see that in people that do what they love to do. It's just, it doesn't seem like work to them. And even on the opposite side, we see people that are miserable. They treat people awful. They probably have no purpose in life. And I personally, I feel sorry for them and wish them, wish them the best. But tell me, has it always been that way with your career? You've been in business, you're a trained lawyer, right? So has it always been that you're fulfilled in purpose and happy in that?

Bob Martin: 3:17

Not exactly, no. That was a later coming to, along the path. I think that there were times when I was happy and then I didn't keep my eye on what my internal sense of values, where that wanted me to go. You might say that I was lost. And in those years, I was not very happy. When I regained that I started down kind of on the same path of happiness that I might have had before, and if this makes any sense to you, but with a deeper understanding and more profound view of why I was happy. I think that you have to be lost a little bit sometimes. You have to be challenged and be reflective and concerned that you're not there yet, or I guess lost is the best word. I think lost is the best word. You have to be lost in order to be found.

Tom: 4:13

Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. I know when I sold my fitness business it was about six years ago. My identity was so tied up in I'm a fitness business owner that when I sold it, I was lost for a good six months, year, maybe even three years. Hard to tell. But tell me a little bit about kind of your, your, your backstory. You were a lawyer down in Miami, got involved, mobbed a little bit.

Bob Martin: 4:39

There's a couple of things that I'd like to tell you. One thing is that the way that I became a lawyer was a bit unusual. I actually grew up in amusement parks and carnivals selling my folks were popcorn cotton candy stand. Selling hot dogs on the boardwalk in Queens, New York, Rockaway's Playland. And never thought that I was going to be a lawyer. All I really wanted to do was sell enough hot dogs in the summer so I didn't have to work in the winter. But it was the 60s and we were living in a hippie dippie apartment and there was this fella who came into my life who recognized something in me. And although he didn't work, he went out and got a job and earned 350 bucks to buy me a postal money order to take the law school aptitude test. And he goes, you should be a lawyer. Go take the test.

Tom: 5:30

Wow.

Bob Martin: 5:31

Really couldn't say no to that. The oddest part of it all is though that even though he was a heroin addict and went straight the moment I got accepted to a law school, And entered into a community college to become a private investigator. We had these dreams that I was going to be Perry Mason and he was going to be Paul Drake and the like. And he stayed with me and by my side and motivated me for the three years it took to get through law school and the next year that it took to get a job. And when I finally got a job and I was sworn in, three days later, he met a chick who convinced him to go shoot up again and didn't recognize the tolerance had dropped and he passed away. And so that always gave me a certain sense that being a lawyer was something special. And you know, his getting me there and doing that needed to be honored. And so I had purpose and I had function and I entered into the state attorney's office with Janet Reno. And had a wonderful career there. And I had probably the most fun that I ever had lawyering in my life doing that serving victims, serving folks, doing the right thing. I rose and I became chief of economic crimes and consumer frauds, and we hit the mob for 72 million bucks.

Tom: 6:46

Wow.

Bob Martin: 6:47

And later, I left the practice, I left the office and hung out my shingle and within two weeks, I'll call him Johnny. Came to visit me and he said, you know, you hit us for a lot of money. And I said, yes, sir. And he is you know, you have to be pretty good to do that. And so we'd like to send you some clients.

Tom: 7:06

I bet that was an interesting conversation. You didn't, maybe you didn't know which way it was going to go.

Bob Martin: 7:11

It was. And let me tell you, this guy was right out of central casting. You know, he, he, he, he, he was in and there's an awful lot of stories that come out of that time. Now, this is during the cocaine cowboy days. So the Italians were talking to the Haitians, were talking to the Peruvians, were talking to the Colombians, and we're talking to the Cubans. All were different trade routes, trade, I say with air quotes, trade routes. And and I started hanging out with those guys, and going to a few many chrome and glass nightclubs, you know, of that. If you've ever seen Scarface, that is the times that we're talking about. And life was kind of spiraling downward, and at this point I was not very happy. You know, even though we had an agreement, I wouldn't do anything illegal or unethical. And I explained to them that that was in their best interest to have a lawyer that was trusted by the courts. So I was, I was just on the right side of the line. But it was not authentic. It wasn't what I wanted to do. And I sensed that, you know, a deep level. I've made a lot of money and paid my house off by the time I was 34.

Tom: 8:20

Wow.

Bob Martin: 8:21

And everything went along pretty well, but I wasn't happy. And my family life was falling apart. And I was working all the time. And then, you know, I was arrogant enough even to think that I came up with this brilliant idea of a real estate marketing concept and started plugging money into it and it was going to make me a billion dollars. And because I was going south, it was going south. And I finally used up all my reserves and might have had to refinance my house again. It was bad. And I went to see my therapist and I asked him, should I do it? Should I, should I refinance the house and keep trying to make this business work? Meanwhile, I got my law practice going and family and kids growing up and soccer games. And So my therapist reached behind him and he pulled out some coins and he started shaking the coins and dropping the coins and making mathematical calculations and I'm getting more and more pissed off because I'm paying him 65 bucks an hour and he's throwing coins and he writes a number down and opens a book up to that chapter and shows me the book and the title of the chapter is,"Retreat", and I cursed him out and I stomped out and I drove around Miami and I couldn't get the word out of my mind. And so I went to the office and I said, it's over. Closed. Can't go any further. We're done. I saved the house and I saved me. And I went back a couple of weeks later and I asked him what that was. And he said, well, I was throwing the I Ching. Beijing. What's that? He says it's a Taoist practice. What's Taoism? Turns out that my therapist was the English language editor for Master Watching Knee, who was a, did this, a 72nd generation master monk from the Shaolin Temple, you know, Kung Fu, the whole Shaolin Temple thing.

Tom: 10:13

Yeah.

Bob Martin: 10:13

And I asked him more about Taoism, and I'd really grown up in an atheist family and never had any kind of North Star or system of virtue, and he started to explain it to me, and all of a sudden, here was a blueprint for how to live life that didn't make me believe in anything that was supernatural, something that I could grasp and hold on to because I hadn't grown up with any kind of spiritual belief. But here was just simple rules of how to live your life. And it was like, I was so hungry for it. And so I studied under Ni and George for eight years and I practiced the I Ching and I practiced Tai Chi. And I practiced Qi Gong and I practiced all of the contemplated practices. And so, as luck would have it, right about the end of my study with them, my mob client's son got arrested. And now there was no saying no to him. And I wasn't going to do what he asked me to do. So I decided I'd move to North Carolina. When I came to North Carolina, the person that I had become at that point said that there was nothing more important than public service. And so from that point on, I I either worked for the district attorney or did represented indigent folks, people that couldn't afford a lawyer, doing a lot of pro-bono work, and closed my practice so here to kind of get to the, the purpose and the heart driven business. So, I'm representing a lot of folks and I'm seeing that they're in this kind of revolving door. I'm taking care of their legal stuff, but there's something missing there. So I closed my practice. And went back to school, got a master's in social work, acted as a therapist for a couple of years to get a handle on the practice, and then I opened up my legal practice again, and it just exploded, because I just had a new way of dealing with my clients, that it wasn't just their legal issues that I dealt with, but it all of the whys and hows and who they were as a human being. And I started to notice over time that, that revolving door that so many of them had been on, they were able to break out of. And

Tom: 12:35

Wow.

Bob Martin: 12:35

That was probably the most rewarding part time in my practice that I had. And yes, and then I was happy. I was very happy.

Tom: 12:43

Yeah. Wow. That in, you know, that's a common theme of people that I've been talking to on the show is when, when you put the people first, then the profits come and ultimately you, you become a lot, a lot happier as well. Versus if you're just chasing the dollars, then, you know, that, that again, that revolving door and it's not, not super happy. That's, that's a really like the, the fact that you went back to school to get a master's degree in social work and was a therapist for a while, for a while, and then incorporated that into your law practice that where, where, how did you get that idea? Like, where did that come from?

Bob Martin: 13:22

Huh. Let's see. I think it just came out of the frustration of having my clients come in and doing the lawyer thing, you know, you put your lawyer hat on and you say all the right things and, you know, give all the right advice and, and everything starts to become routine, but you see that you're not making a difference in the frustration starts to build. And I think that many folks, you know, who, it's a inflection point at that you have. Same thing with police officers. You know, because I worked with a lot of police officers and folks in law enforcement, you know, from the FBI to local sheriffs and the like. And I noticed that as they move through their career, there comes a point where either they come to a decision point, they comes to a case. Where if they say, if they're authentic, they might, they'll take, want to take a shortcut. They'll over exaggerate some of the facts that they're going to give a judge to get a search warrant. Or in a hearing, they'll say what's most beneficial to make the case. Or they won't. Or they'll go the extra yard and do the extra work that's necessary for them to make the case the right way. So either they'll take that shortcut or they won't and they'll work harder and the ones that take the shortcut are always the ones that are your run of the mill police officers and the like. The ones that become your detectives and your captains and the like, if it's not political, but those that get it, they get it because they decided to do it by the book, even if that was harder. And and it's the same kind of thing in the practice of law. A lot of people, If I can, I'm sorry, I'm going on.

Tom: 15:12

No, that's right in line.

Bob Martin: 15:13

A lot of folks, you know, will ask me and have asked me over the years, you know, how can you represent those people? How could you represent a child molester? How can you represent somebody who's abused their children? How can you represent a rapist and the like? And there are good answers to that. I mean, the answer to that question is that the police, if you see it this way, now, if you go into the practice because you want to make money you're going to wind up very cynical and you're going to wind up very unhappy. And there's a lot of really unhappy lawyers out there. But if you, if you see your function on this side of the courtroom, in this way that the prosecutors and the police, they prosecute crimes, they enforce the law, but on this side of the courtroom, we enforce the Constitution. We are the ones that ride, heard on the prosecutors and the police, basically saying, You may come after my guy, and if you want to get my guy, you're going to get him if you can, but you're going to do it by the book, and you're going to dot your I's and cross your T's. And if you don't, I'm going to hold you accountable. And that prevents them from being corrupted by their power. It's a check and balance on the police power of the state. We think of ourselves as guardians of freedom, trustees of justice. You know, every rat is entitled to, you know, a champion and we feel that way, you know, as a people, we feel that it's only fair that, you know, I mean, we'll only string them up after a fair trial.

Tom: 16:53

Right. I mean, that is a constitution. Constitutional right is to have a free trial.

Bob Martin: 16:59

Right. If it's a forced confession, or if it's a faulty search warrant, or if it's manufactured evidence, and there's a lot of that. There needs to be somebody that's looking, you know, looking to see, you know, is there, did you do it right? And that way they don't make mistakes and innocent people don't go to jail. So we often say we don't necessarily do it for the dirt bag. We do it for the freedom of everyone.

Tom: 17:23

Yeah. Now that, and that's the purpose too. Like that's part of the purpose of your purpose and people's purpose to keep them happy and driven with that. So let's shift gears a little bit into what you've done now with the Taoist Christian book that you've written, because that's very interesting, especially saying that you were previously atheist as well.

Bob Martin: 17:46

Yeah. So, you know, studying under Master Ni, you know, if, you know, labels are always labels, but, you know, I would, if I were to identify on a form, you know, I would say Taoist. When I came to North Carolina, there's not a lot of Taoists in North Carolina. So, Buddhism is pretty close, slightly different, but same values. So, you know, I started to look into, you know, Buddhist gatherings and the like. And Taoism is much more contemplative. You know, we contemplate things. And Buddhism is much more meditative. And so that's when I kind of got into meditation and became certified as a meditation teacher. And one of the things that I, if just, if I can go back to that question about heartfelt business and putting the customer first. Out of all of that, the social work piece of it and the Taoist and the meditation, everything, it led me to this understanding. When a criminal client came to me, he would come into my presence and he would leave my presence and whatever is going to happen to him is going to happen to him. He may be found not guilty. The charges might be dismissed. He may be put on probation or go to jail or prison. But whichever the consequences were, it became my founding principle that when he left my presence, he would feel that he was heard, that he was stood up for, that somebody stood for him, and that he would understand why what was happening to him was happening to him. And years of practicing like that, and this being a fairly small community that I live in, I run into these folks on the street. And invariably, they tell me that I was the first person that ever understood them, or they felt they were understood, and they appreciated my advocacy. They didn't say it in those words. And they were doing better in their lives. So, for me, that's balance. And of course, the other side of it is, is that I found balance in my own life. But going back to the book. So, I studied under Taoism under Master Ni for eight years, and I became very familiar. The seminal book of Taoism is called the Tao Te Ching. And'Ching' in Chinese means the classical book.'Tao' means the way, and'Te' means virtue. So, the Tao Te Ching means the classical book of the way of virtue. And it's 81 pithy you might call them meditations or poems or chapters. That pretty much lay out all of the wisdom of this philosophy. And as I came the woman that I married in Miami was not the woman for me to be with in my new me. And so we became divorced and I met a woman who is a bodhisattva, as we say in Buddhism, a saint. And she's also a Southern Baptist Bible literalist.

Tom: 20:45

Okay.

Bob Martin: 20:45

Who believes the inerrancy of the Bible and all of the Bible stories are correct. And the world is 4,000 years old. And Eve was created from Adam's rib, and Noah's Ark happened, and that. But our values were so similar and our work ethic was so alike that we fell in love and became married, but we couldn't talk about our cosmologies. It was, you know, if I were to say something, she goes, where does it say that in the Bible? Where does it say that in the Bible? So I wanted to answer that question. So I started taking pieces from the Tao Te Ching and looking for where it says that in the Bible, and I started to study the Bible, and I became aware that once you take it out of its historical context, and once you take it out of the dogma and exclusivity of religious organizations and institutions that turn so many people off, that the teachings that have survived and constitute the heart of the Bible, there's not a hair's breadth of difference between that and so many of the world's religions. Father Richard Rohr, a very progressive, contemplative, Franciscan monk. He often describes the essence of Jesus as a subterranean river that flows between the mantle and the surface of the earth, that every once in a while pops up and provides its wisdom here and there, wherever it's necessary. And I just love that, that concept.

Tom: 22:25

Wow.

Bob Martin: 22:26

So bit by bit, I started to reimagine the Tao Te Ching as a Christian prayer or as a Christian meditation. And so I would share parts of this with her and she liked it. And each time I did, we could get into these really great conversations and bond together so much more deeply. Eventually I did the entire 81 chapters and Kendall Hunt, large national publisher picked it up and has published it. And I called it, I am the way because these, the biblical reference that Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And the way of course, is the translation of the Tao. So you could say, Jesus said, I am the Tao. You could say, so there's an interesting coincidence there. So I said, I am the way finding the truth in the life. Through a biblical re-imagining of the Tao. And it's been published and I'm getting letters from people all over the country telling me that they had turned their back on the church and they missed their relationship with the divine. And this was a way to get back into that relationship without having to accept that it was the only way, or the exclusivity, or some of the dogma of the religious institutions, and that's very, very satisfying for me.

Tom: 23:53

Yeah. Wow. I bet. And what a good testament to that we are all very similar and everything is so similar. There aren't that many differences amongst people in general. Do you have aspirations to look at other religious books?

Bob Martin: 24:08

In 2015, I well, I did write another book once. It's funny because I wrote that in 2008. It's called Children of Abraham, and it's a novel. And it's interesting that my, it seems that my spirit is enticed, it is questioned, it is searching and playing with these spiritual concepts, it seems, that seems to be exciting for me and and after, after 9:11, I was seeing all these people going around killing in the name of God, and I was thinking, and I, caveat here. Any concept of what God is or whether God is conscious or whether it's self conscious or whether it's male or female or an old man with a beard or some amorphous pulsating ball of energy, way above my pay grade. I, you know, I'll find out if I find out if there's, if there is life after life, then I'll find out. And if there's not, then I won't. And it's all fine. Because to me, that's the important thing is to do the next right thing. But just to play with it, I was wondering that if God was conscious, and he was looking down, seeing us running around in all these religious wars, he might say, Nah, that really wasn't my intention for you guys.

Tom: 25:27

Right.

Bob Martin: 25:27

So what would happen if I could bring God down and he could actually tell the world what his true intentions were? Would anybody listen? You know, would my, would Johnny, my mob client who compartmentalized carrying The statute of the Blessed Mother during the Feast of San Gennaro and go out and kill somebody the next day and sees those things as totally separate. Would he be able to compartmentalize that? What about an addict? What about an arrogant lawyer? So, I wrote a book where these messages from God started appearing on the ticker in Times Square and on the little ticker on the bottom of your television, you know, you are all my people, God, you know, my intention is that you live together happily, God. So the head of every chapter, there's another message from God and all my characters are running around and the question is who redeems, who doesn't redeem. Who listens? How does it affect the world? So I had those inclinations to play with this stuff even then, but I'm sorry, I, what was the question? I'm sorry.

Tom: 26:37

No that's right. Do you have aspirations to write another book where the Taoist philosophy is compared to another religion?

Bob Martin: 26:44

So, in 2015, I retired, I closed my law practice except for I continue to go to court once a week representing parents of children who have been taken into the Department of Social Service custody because of abuse. And I try to work with those parents to get, they get, they have a year to get their stuff together to try to get their kids back. So I, so once a week I still, but other than that, I've retired from law and Elon University picked me up to teach and I teach now, I teach meditation, four credit. And I teach business law there and they have a wonderful spiritual center called the Newman Luman Center. It's, it's gorgeous and it's completely interfaith and there's a rabbi there's an imam. There's a protestant, pastor, there's a Catholic priest, there's an interfaith director. And it's just a wonderful, wonderful place. And I love being there and the energy is so great. And so I've talked to the Imam about collaborating on doing something like this with the Quran. You know, man re-imagining the Tao into, you know, the Quran. So we might have that in the future, but truthfully my next aspiration to write, I found there's a gentleman that lives just on the other side of town here, who when he was a young man just got out of prison and took a job tending for a 65 year old bigoted racist incontinent person, and they both resented each other until the older man decided he was gay. And they fell in love and they had a romantic relationship and the whole city here, which is deep South was very upset. And he decided he wanted to leave everything to this young man. And everybody, the executor tried to have him held incompetent. There was a big court battle. And so I want to write that story. I think that's just a great story.

Tom: 28:47

Oh, yeah.

Bob Martin: 28:48

I want to write that.

Tom: 28:49

That would be a movie.

Bob Martin: 28:52

That would be a movie.

Tom: 28:54

Well, that's great. What an interesting career and search for you know, happiness as kind of the theme throughout your life, you know, I forget who is kind of coined the frame of skill stacking and, you know, what you've done with everything in your life, it's really stacking those skills to create a really unique set of skills that differentiates yourself. So I really commend you for, for doing that and continuing to learn throughout.

Bob Martin: 29:22

Thank you.

Tom: 29:23

That's awesome. And being a heart-led business and realizing on both sides of you know, being the not so heart-led business to going back and forth and seeing that, the success comes from being that heart-led business and leading with purpose. And that, that's very cool. So how can people get ahold of you and learn a little bit more about what you do?

Bob Martin: 29:43

So you can visit my website which is awiseandahappylife.com and if you go there and you there's a lot of contact buttons. If you contact me and send me an email, I just finished writing a little 40 page primer on meditation. And what it is and what it's not, misconceptions and how to do it, and different ways of learning it. And basically just gives you an overall perspective on meditation. Enough information for you to make a decision if it's something that you want to engage in. And I would be happy to send that ebook to your listeners free of charge. Just contact me through my website and I'll send it right out to them.

Tom: 30:27

That sounds great. We'll link all that up into the show notes as well. Bob, thank you so much for coming onto the show and, and sharing your years of wisdom with us. I really do appreciate you.

Bob Martin: 30:38

Yeah. Yeah. There's I'll leave with just one thought. If you take care of your internal world, your external world will go just fine.

Tom: 30:47

That's a golden advice. That's, that's really great. Thank you, Bob.

Bob Martin: 30:51

Yep.

Tom: 30:52

And thank you too listeners for watching or listening to the show, depending on what platform you're on. I certainly appreciate it. And I know our guests like Bob also appreciate it. So if you could do us a favor and just check out all the work that Bob is doing, all that will be down in the show notes. And also, if you could give us a rating and review. That helps spread the word, whether you're on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or even on YouTube, giving that rating and review really does help spread the word and help other people who are thinking about starting a heart-led business, or maybe struggling in their purpose and helping them get the advice that they desperately need. So until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2: 31:34

You've been listening to the Heart Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.