[00:00:00] Stephen: My Guest today is Ray Martin, who was the c e o of First Place Consulting, which became one of the top 100 UK consultancy firms. Uh, Ray actually went on to become the, uh, Daily Telegraph business Leader of the year in 2002, but a couple of years later decided to make a huge change and leave all of that behind and stick on a backpack and decide to head off around the world for six months. That six months soon became 14 years. And in this podcast today, he's gonna share what those 14 years and that experience felt like, why he did it. This is a lovely, lovely podcast. You're gonna enjoy this.

[00:00:37] So I suppose one of the things that I'm really interested in, Ray, is Oh God, I just loved the book. I loved the book, and I read it right through, from from when I opened it, I just kept with it.

[00:00:49] Ray: Tell me more, or what was it, what, what made you say you loved it? What was, what was it about it that

[00:00:53] Stephen: Well, I wa I wasn't sure now, uh, before, and you know, when some people say I wrote a book and, uh, they have sort of a downloadable PDF about something that, remember years ago, people used to do it all the time. They'd have a book and you go, that's not really a book, but yours is a real book. So when I started to read it, um, I just got so invested in your journey, because I could feel your anxieties when there was moments when you go, oh no, this, like, we, in the book, you talk about relationships, you also talk about closing the company and sort of just stepping out onto the unknown. It's like standing on a cliff and then doing a skydive off and not knowing what's next. I suppose at the very start of the book when you had all the safety of everything that was around you, and you could have quite easily plotted along with the experience that you had, like with all the successes and all that kind of stuff. And the company was doing very well in life in London. But you didn't, you did the opposite and you didn't go for just,

[00:01:42] I've, I've done that where I jumped off and I went off for two months traveling around South Africa and Australia. And uh, I actually found a card from my daughter as well. She gave it to me, I think it must have been around Father's Day or, or sometime like that, or my birthday of that year. And she said, um, I love your dad lots, but I hate you because you're heading off for two months and I won't have you around. And she was younger at the time, so I went for two months thinking I was dead brave. You went for 14 years. So I,

[00:02:07] Ray: I never planned to, but I did

[00:02:09] Stephen: but yeah, but it's, it's, it's all those different moments when you could have easily just went Listen, forget it. I've done two and a half years. I'm going home. Let's go back to the comfort and do it. But you didn't. Yeah, so tell me about the Ray before we even got to the point of you deciding that you were going to, so before you even got to 43 and the consultancy company was doing well.

[00:02:27] Ray: Well, I think I, I saw myself very much as a sort of the typical mainstream guy. You know, like I'd been raised as a child quite well by my loving parents and led to believe that success in life meant getting a good job and a house and Aoife and kids, and a mortgage and all of the things. And so I never, ever questioned that conventional wisdom. I just went along with that. until I've literally found myself married with a house and great wife. 

[00:02:56] And, and then sort of bit by bit realizing actually, I'm not sure this is the life I really, really want. Those thoughts used to trouble me because I could never admit them. You know, whenever I tried to voice them, even just to myself, I'd get this other voice going, come on, you're really lucky to have such a great life and a good income. You can't complain about this, it's not right, it's not fair. Just count yourself lucky And sort of, so I consoled myself and sort of said, yeah, it's not, I can't really speak out of, and it's, it's not really the life I kind of dream of, but it's better than a lot of people's. And um, and so I was sort of stuck in that place for quite a long time, but it was getting worse and worse and worse, you know, and I was finding it harder and harder to, to actually stay in that life, but not knowing either how to break out of it.

[00:03:48] And I, I never really did take full ownership for that, I don't think, to be honest, until the day that my ex-wife now, but my wife said, I'm leaving you and I'm leaving the company. And that, that made it impossible to ignore, you know, just made it impossible to really stay in that place any longer. 

[00:04:06] Stephen: Yeah. But you, you'd built up a really big, uh, very successful consulting firm. You had, uh, First Place Consulting.

[00:04:12] Ray: My, my motto in life was, if you're gonna do anything, do it to the absolute best of your ability. You know, really, I've been taught to apply myself, you know, really, really well. And so, I, I applied myself to the job of being a CEO of the business I was running, and I did it to the absolute best of my ability. And even though it wasn't in my heart, what I truly sort of thought my life was about, I still wanna do it the best I can.

[00:04:33] Stephen: I love this and, and what a painter sort of picture for the people listing. So you developed this really, um, successful, the top 100 consulting firms in the UK in First Place Consulting. You'd won this award at Daily Telegraph and ran about 2002. Was it that where you'd become Yep. Business Leader of the Year, which is in an incredible accolade. So you, you, you had all the successes. I, I presume there was, uh, you know, the money with that, the life in London and everything that people aspired to. And, and then suddenly at some stage, and you just explained the catalyst there that you decided that maybe I wasn't living the life or the dream that I wanted. 

[00:05:07] Ray: Well, it was, it was a bit like, um, when my business partner Charlotte, who I was married to as well, when she said, I, I, I'm exiting your life now, it was quite sudden. But she was such a huge part of my life. I mean, in terms of my personal life and my business life both. And it was devastating and it was really devastating. I mean, I thought, I can't continue on this path unexamined. I've got to really take a deep look and go, how did I arrive at this moment where my whole life's constructed around this relationship? And now that relationship's gone? And I describe it in the book as saying it's a bit like going on stage when you are the support actor in a big scene with the lead actor and you are halfway through the scene, you're acting, and they suddenly run off the stage. And you're just left on stage on your own with the audience, jaw dropping, mouth open, waiting for you to say something and there's nothing happening. 

[00:06:02] And so I, I knew I needed to change the life I had, and then a very unforeseen event happened. I think if you've read the book, you'll know I went to Australia and I've acted in a play, and I hadn't for foreseen that at all. But what that did was it suddenly made me aware. I had a massive insight afterwards that I'd been for three months being a character in this plan, developing this character. And when I was returning to England, I was gonna be another character. But this time it was me, Ray the businessman. And I never, I'd never seen myself as a character that I'd actually constructed, until that moment when I did the play. And then I realized that I could write that character out of my actual story, I could cease that storyline and start a new series.

[00:06:44] Stephen: One of the catalysts I found in the book too as well was also the death of your father, a short while later too, as well.

[00:06:50] Ray: Yeah, I mean, that was, you know, my dad was a sort of, I'd describe him, he was a very kind man, but very down to earth, simple. He grew up in post-war London, wasn't really educated, but always helped people and loved to travel. You know, his fantasy was to sort of do as much traveling as possible. He never lived long enough, probably to do as much as he would've liked. He died when he was 73. 

[00:07:13] But he always used to say to. Why are you working so hard? I mean, you know, why don't you take some time off and go traveling? You know, he always say, cuz me and Charlotte, we worked really, really, really hard to make our business successful seven days a week, you know. And it always, always sort of laughed it off, but it always went in that message. And then, so when this palm creator appeared with Charlotte leaving and my dad passing away and everything changing, I was out of my marriage, my home, and my business within three months. Um, I thought, yeah, there's something to that message. I perhaps this is a good time. 

[00:07:51] I mean, I dunno why I taught that Steven, but when he, I was at his funeral. I suddenly had thoughts coming into my mind. I wonder how many days my dad lived. I don't, I dunno what I was thinking that I was. So when I got home, I got my calculator out. He was 73 and it worked out he'd lived for 27,300 days or something. And I looked at that number on a piece of paper, 27,000 days his entire life from being a, a toddler to, to his death. I thought, that doesn't sound like a very long time. 27,000 days. I thought, I wonder how long my life's gonna be. And of course, I don't know. No one does, but the government and the financial institutions track the ages very, very closely because I have to make predictions about how much their pensions are gonna cost. So clearly they, they're working on models that are very accurate. They have to. 

[00:08:44] So I got some research data and it turned out. Like the mortality age of men in England was 80, which is 29,200 days. So I wrote down 29,200 days for newspaper. I thought, how many days have I had? I worked it out, took those off, and then I took a, a couple of years at the end of my life cuz I'd be in a home or something and not able to move. And I thought, oh my God, I'm 44 years old and right now in this moment I've got 12,500 days of my life left.

[00:09:15] Now, up until that moment where I saw that bigger, the question I've been asked myself is, oh, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life now my wife's gone and the business is changing? What am I gonna do with the rest of my life? And I couldn't get an answer to it. It was quite an abstract question. But then when I saw this number on a piece of paper, my question changed to what is most important that I do in the next 12,500 days. And I've got a totally different set of answers. And on, on that list of answers. Nowhere did it appear like further your career or do more of this businessy stuff. It just wasn't even in the list. 

[00:09:49] Stephen: And you touched on something as well, maybe it was in Australia, where that was triggered, you know, when you'd done the play. Uh, was this the, uh, introduction to what Bro war was talking about? The Five Regrets of the Dying?

[00:10:00] Ray: All of these things were sort of coming together like, almost like in a divine order. These things were just appearing in front of me and I need them. So when I read this book as I was searching for answers to my unanswerable questions, um, the top five regrets of the dying, it really spoke to me cuz she said she'd interviewed over a thousand people in the last weeks of their life and they'd all expressed the same five regrets and the most expressed one. The number one on the list was, I wished I'd lived my life true to myself, not the life that others expected of me.

[00:10:33] And when I heard that, I thought that that makes so much sense, but I have no bloody idea what living life true to myself looks like for me. I have no idea what that would be. So it certainly wasn't being a CEO of a business in London, I knew that, but now I was alone and coming out of the wreckage of the marriage that I'd lost and my, my dad being buried, et cetera, and I thought, I need to discover what that looks like.

[00:11:02] So the idea then of taken a six month sabbatical in traveling became exciting because it, it gave me the op possibility, at least a remote possibility, that I might discover something new on that journey that would start to help me get a vision of what that life would look like.

[00:11:17] Stephen: You've decided companies closed, marriage has ended, life needs to change even just for a little bit of time. So you said six months will do me what I need to, so, so, so tell me what you did next.

[00:11:27] Ray: Yeah, so I, I set up with a couple of, uh, associates. I set it up so that if the any business inquiries came to the company, someone would deal with that while I was away and, and, and just luck, not luckily, I, I'd sort of, I'd started seeing, uh, somebody in London just before all this happened, girl called Annie who's in the book, and I knew she was going to Thailand because when I met her she said, I'm gonna move to Thailand. I love it there. And so I never, ever imagined that anything would happen between us. But I said, well, I hope you have a nice life there. And I went off to Australia and do the play. And then I came back and she hadn't left to go. She was still in London. I said, what are you doing here? She said, oh, I had some trouble, you know, with the apartment renting it out, but now it's fixed and now I'm going. She said, by the way, you know, what the last few months have been thinking about you a lot. I was just wondering if you'd be interested in coming to Thailand with me. . And I was really shocked when she said that because I really, she'd originally said, I don't want to be in a relationship when I go to Thailand. I wanna be completely unencumbered. So I was quite surprised and shocked. And she said, I'm just a bit worried that we don't know each other that well. And so I'm a bit nervous to ask, but I thought I'd put it out there.

[00:12:34] And I said, well, why don't, my house is up for sale now. Um, it's gonna take three months to sell it. Why don't you move into the house with me for three months and we'll find out rapidly if we're gonna work together or not. And so she said, yeah, that's a good idea. She did. And so after three months when I sold the house, I went and joined her in Thailand. 

[00:12:53] Stephen: Oh, I love that because one of the things Bronny Ware also said is that, um, I, uh, I think it was every male patient said that they had regretted that they'd worked so hard. I wished I didn't, hadn't worked so hard to get at last stages of their life. And they, they had this regret and you had worked really hard up to this point, and now you are putting a pause into your life.

[00:13:12] Ray: I mean, I'd read, I dunno who wrote it, but I'd read a book about, someone had this theme of taking a part of your retirement early. So rather than waiting till the end of your working life, maybe take five or 10 years of it in the middle and then return to your working life. And I like kind of like that idea.

[00:13:27] What felt really great was when I collapsed the material life I had in London, because obviously when I sold my house, which was a three story house in West London full of stuff that had spent thousands of pounds on acquiring over the years, I got rid of it all. Literally either sold it or gave it away. So I, I wanted a min, I read this book by Joshua Fields Melbourne and Ryan Nicodemus called The Minimalists and they'd done this experiment in their home where they'd taken every single thing in their flat and put it into boxes. And then for one month, just taken out the boxes, what they actually needed to use, like their toothbrush or a soman or a cup. And they realized that they only used about 2% of everything they had in their apartment. 

[00:14:10] And I read another book called Stuffocation by James Wallman, and he was talking about the trends that were evolving in this era. Because a lot of millennials and younger people and me, they're not motivated, what, by what he calls material values based around materialism. Um, but younger people, they have an orientation around what he calls experientialism. Your value is based on what you've experienced and what you can experience and what you know from experience. And I was really compelled by that idea as well. You know, I thought I, that's, that feels right to me. I want to, I want to use my life to experience it a lot of things and then share those experiences with others for the purposes of learning, you know, enlightening people and serving people to find their real true path. And so that was exciting to me as well.

[00:15:01] Stephen: fantastic. There's also something very unique about you and your relationship with your dad because, um, to hear, uh, a dad from your generation say, you know, you need to travel a bit more, you need to take holidays. That whole generation where from a, a whole era of hard work and certainly taking your break are deciding to go find yourself in, you know, the far east or the wherever was an anathema to them and, and simply had to put your nose to grind. So it was, it was very refreshing to hear something like what your dad had said to you when so many of that generation would've been the opposite.

[00:15:31] Ray: Yeah. I think my dad was a very spirited person. I mean, he, he had his own connection to the source and spirit. I, I didn't really fully understand him. I could see he had that for sure. 

[00:15:43] Stephen: Brilliant. So how, like, I like, like we've touched on the idea of pause and then you went to Thailand and, uh, you did Avena. Uh,

[00:15:50] Ray: Yeah, initially I was just de uh, uh, kind of unwinding, you know, because it felt weird to be, every morning I got up, I had nowhere to go and no places to be, or no one to meet. So I just used to go to the coffee shop, go down the beach, just hang out, talk to travelers. I, I felt like I was on this sort of huge, long holiday that had no end.

[00:16:12] And, um, I felt really guilty actually, to be honest. I felt shame, felt guilty. That was a big part of me going, Ray, you're such a loser. You know, you should be back in England making money and doing what everyone else is in. You are, you're not paying any taxes or anything like this. You're escaping all that, you know, you're, you've, you're taking yourself out the game.

[00:16:30] But, you know, and I, and I sort of felt guilty and shameful a bit, and I was agitated and I was worried about my future and. It's all very nice today drinking coffee on the beach. Why? Where are you gonna live? You know, how you gonna get money in the future? And how you gonna secure your life and how you gonna blah, blah, blah.

[00:16:46] So I was just full of noise and anxiety in this lovely setting. On the surface it looked great, but I was turmoil on the inside. I couldn't get any peace. And after about six months, I was telling this story to a traveler and he said, you know, I think you should do a vipa retreat. I said, what Vipa? I didn't even know what that was. I didn't know what meditation was. I had no idea. And he said, well, yeah, you go into a Buddhist monastery for 10 days and you sit with the monks in silence and you meditate and they teach you every day about the, the Dharma, the Buddhist teachings, and that'll change things for you. I think it'll calm you down.

[00:17:23] So I thought, well, what have I got to lose? You know, I'd never, I'd never been quiet for even 10 minutes, like 10 days. I thought, I've got nothing to lose. So I decided to do that. And I think chapter four of the book I describe. My whole experience of that retreat and what I, what I took from it and how, how it was, you know, because it was a life changing event for me. I left that monastery feeling so calm and so grounded, and the noise in my head, it was like someone to turn the volume from a 10 down to like a two or a three. And it was just amazing. I, I felt, I felt really ready to continue the journey quietly then.

[00:17:58] Stephen: God, I've heard so many people do the past, their retreats and sometimes get to day eight and just go, I, I, I can't go on 

[00:18:05] Ray: Loads of people left, loads of people. There was a, I did it as Swan Mock in Thailand, which is an international, uh, dharma center for Travelers. And they got space for 120 people each month when they start the retreat because they have, um, accommodations included. And it's all by donation. It's a beautiful place and it's fantastic to go there.

[00:18:26] So to get our place, you have to turn up the day before and register, and if you don't, you have to wait for the next one. So 120 people started, but by the end there was only about half left. Some people leave after one day, some two. You know, every time you come to the meditation hall, you see empty cushions each day getting the number of empty cushions getting bigger and bigger. Oh, they've gone. They've gone.

[00:18:48] Stephen: I know one of the other things that you did after this was you created our, you might have even done it before this, but you created certain principles about your journey. Was it 10 core principles that you were gonna travel through or 

[00:18:59] Ray: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was through the meditation, I realized that I planned my journey of travel on the surface, like logistically, and I had my finances all managed under control and everything on the surface, I sort of thought about and worked out, but I hadn't sort of given any thought to how do I manage my own psychology? You know, how do I manage my inner stale in a time when I'm gonna be experiencing a lot of change and a lot of uncertainty and a lot of spheres around things? What do I draw on to make myself safe in that inner journey? Cuz there's always two things going on in our lives, isn't it? There's the events that are happening at the surface and then there's what, how we process it inwardly. And they're two quite different journeys and they require two totally different forms of management. But I hadn't given any thought to the second until I did the vapa. I thought, wow, I need to set some guiding principles for myself.

[00:19:59] And so I came up with 10. and I wrote those in the book because they were really useful to me. So that like the guiding principle of presence. I thought right from now on I'm going to as much as I can. I'm going to stay in the present moment when I'm alive, you know, when I'm awake and I'm gonna, if I notice I'm, my thoughts drifting off to the past of my life and beating myself up for being a crappy husband and all the failures I've done, which I was doing a lot. Um, or if I noticed my thoughts wandering into the future, like how am I gonna stop myself from being homeless when I'm 90 or some whatever it would be, you know, people, thoughts like that, um, I thought, if that happens, I'm gonna commit to bringing myself back to this moment that I'm in and fully being in the moment, giving my undivided attention to whoever I'm with, and just focusing on what's actually going on right in front of me. So that was a guide in principle.

[00:20:56] Stephen: Is there certain techniques that you use that allow you to bring yourself back to that present moment? Is 

[00:21:01] Ray: Yeah. The, I mean, you know, the best one for me was just to stop and take a couple of deep breaths. The breath is, for me, one of the most powerful anchors to the present moment, but another example was self-acceptance, because on this journey, one of the things that's really changed my life a lot is just learning to love myself as I am with all my flaws, with all the things I get wrong and not, and let go of the delusion that I was holding, that ultimately, or eventually I could become the perfect version of me if I just tried hard enough. You know, I was laboring under that delusion for years and years and years, and no one's ever gonna get there, no one's ever perfect. You know, it's just impossible.

[00:21:41] Um, you know, I, I dunno how it is for you, but I've got a bit of me that's really critical of myself. It's really harsh. I'm much harsher on myself than anyone else. And I thought, I don't wanna speak to myself like that. I thought if I lived in a flat with a guy or a girl who spoke to me in the way I speak to myself, I'd kick them out. I wouldn't wanna live with them.

[00:22:00] And then I had others, you know, like frugality and modesty, because I'd come from a very affluent life in London, but I'd always felt I'd been using money as a kind of statement that I'm important or I'm big, or I'm a, I'm a somebody. So I was tossing the money around as a statement, and I never felt good about that. I thought, no, I, money's a very valuable resource. I wanna, I wanna make the best use of it I can. So if I need a place to stay, I want something that's basic and clean, but not ostentatious, or not conspicuously, not, not excessive. And so I made sure I bought, I stayed in very modest rooms and Guest houses that were affordable. You know, I spending five or six pounds a night on a room, not a hundred pounds. And I was completely happy doing that. But, you know, so I had a principal around that. And if I found myself going, thinking, oh, I sh I wanna stay at this hotel, I think, do I really need to? Is that, is that, am I observing that principle of frugality and modesty? Am I, am I doing that? You know, and I'd go back to the principle. 

[00:23:02] So I had 10 of these. I mean, they're, I still, I still apply most of them even in my life today because they all really work for me. But I think whoever would read my book and see those principles would, would not have the same ones. You'd have your own based on your needs and your journey, but it would, it would give you a kind of sense of what you could have.

[00:23:21] Stephen: Yeah. Cause I think they're really, that they're really good sort of life principles. Certainly not to live your life by, you talk about minimalism and connection, like think about a contribution, which, which you certainly did when you started to run the marathons. And we talk about that in a second. But you also had a, you had the carrier stuff. Would you, so like when you think about it, you couldn't carry around 16 suitcases with all the stuff that you thought you 

[00:23:41] Ray: Yeah. 22 kilos of stuff for 15 years and that's it.

[00:23:45] Stephen: How did you be so, so tough on yourself and just decide, this is all I need and I I I can't even, because you couldn't even go into stores and buy, buy things like souvenirs and stuff like that and go, yeah, this is, this is beautiful. Cause it's from this part of the world. 

[00:23:59] Ray: Yeah, I, I, I couldn't because even if I had done, I'd have nowhere to store them. I mean, I could just have my bag and my bag would've got very heavy. So I, I kinda liked, I felt liberated, to be honest. I liked the lightness of just carrying exactly what I needed. Nothing more, nothing less. And with the enough, 22 kilos, it's not very much. It's about 10 or 11 kilos of clothes. Uh, three or four kilos of, laptop and blah, blah, blah. And then some couple of pairs of shoes and other bits and pieces came to about 22 kilos in total.

[00:24:31] But weirdly enough, I did, at one point in my journey, I, I walked the Camino, which is a pilgrimage that a lot of people were aware of, and that took me six weeks, but 22 kilos were doing way too much. So I left my 22 kilos of stuff in, in France and took a small bag with six kilos of six. I lived for six weeks on six kilos of the Camino. So I realized that even in my 22 kilos, there were still things I was hardly using. 

[00:24:57] Stephen: How did you find that? Cause for anybody who doesn't know what the Camino is, it's an 800 kilometer walk pretty much from the south of France or just the tip of France that touches into Spain all the way to the, uh, the west coast of Spain.

[00:25:09] Ray: Yeah. I think if anyone's interested in that, then they'll find, I think one of the chapters I wrote about my experience and, and I, I also wrote the 10 Impacts that Walk in the Camino had had on me, and the 10 things it had brought back to my memory of how, how it affected life. And, and I, I loved it. I loved the fact that I started alone, but every day I connected with fellow human beings also on a similar pilgrimage. You know, everyone walks, the Camino generally has a question they're trying to answer or an issue they're trying to resolve, or a burden they're trying to lighten. Everyone comes with something like that. There's this fantastic communal spirit to it because every night when you need to bed down for the night, you stay on one of these municipal hostels. And some of them have got sort a hundred or 200 bunk beds, and they're all travelers and the places are all manned by volunteers. So the whole thing's like a, a beautiful kind of gene, you, you feel bathed in the generosity of people.

[00:26:07] I remember the first night I got to my al bearish, my hostel and I was traveling light with six kilos, so I didn't even have a sleeping bag or blankets or anything, just decided to wing it and see if I could create blankets when I got to the place. And uh, I got to want the first place and there was only a rough blanket, like an army blanket, very scratchy, you know, not very comfortable on the skin. And the guy next to me saw I was having some discomfort and he just said, Do you wanna borrow the silk liner to my sleeping bag? You know, I'm okay. My sleeping bag's fine. You can borrow my silk line. It'd be more comfortable for you. And I, and it just struck me how, how kind and generous everybody was, you know, in on that, in that context. 

[00:26:49] Stephen: There's a magic in it. There's, there's a serendipity there. There's all of these different things that just synchronicity all these things happen. I remember on a particular Sunday morning, I was walking out of gran, um, um, and just minding my own business. I think I headphones in, listen to some jazz music or something on a Sunday, and as the sun was shining and there was a guy walking beside me. And for no reason, he just stopped with his, with his r Ack. And he just looked at me and he had big headphones on and he had a head scarf or whatever on, and he just looked at me and he just goes and he pulled his headphone off and he goes, well, what's your name? And I went, uh, I'm Steven. And I went, well, what's yours? And he goes, eh, my name's uh, Carlo. And I went, oh, okay. And we just got talking and he was from Bologna in Italy. And I'm told my story in Ireland. And from that moment on, we spent the next four and a half weeks walking beside each other, all the way into Santiago City.

[00:27:39] Now, consequently, that friends that I met, that Carlo that I met on that Sunday morning, I'm now dear friends with him now. I traveled to Bologna quite regularly. We go climbing in hills around, uh, you know, around. And, uh, consequently runs a school in, in outside Lan, uh, castle, uh, which is a, like a vocational school. It's a Don Bosco school. And I've gone over there and I've, um, delivered workshops I have for the staff and for the, uh, the students. And just to be able to do something like that from the magic of the Camino, it's quite incredible, isn't it? 

[00:28:11] Ray: Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. 

[00:28:12] Stephen: So you did the Camino, you did also many other things. You went up into the Himalayas, uh, too as well at one

[00:28:17] Ray: Yeah, I'd been always wanted to go to the Himalayas and especially to the Everest region, you know, it'd been a dream of mine. And so when I was traveling with Annie, we both, um, tracked the Anna Perna circuit, which is one of the most famous tracks in the world, probably. Um, it was beautiful, you know, just really beaut, obviously cold minus 15 or 20 degrees most nights, but you got all the equipment you need to, to deal with that. And, uh, and then that was in 2008, I did that.

[00:28:48] And then, and then after I ran the New York marathon and I wanted to go back to Nepal to take some of the money I'd raised to an orphanage that I was supporting. Um, and I wasn't with Annie any longer at that point. So I went back and coincided my trip to Nepal so I could trip to the Everest base camp. In the right season because, you know, the weather makes tracking fit into smaller windows in the year. You can't do it all year round. And so I went April, may, did the Everest Base Camp track, and then went on to the orphanage to give the money over that I raised.

[00:29:22] Stephen: Brenda, I wanna go back to that because I find that really interesting. So you'd left the world of work behind the world of, um, you know, working for profits that look good lifestyle. And then one of the things that you decided to give was to be able to contribution, was to give back. That was one of your guiding principles. And you, and you did that, and you did it in the form of taking on challenges that you hadn't done before. And marathons were that.

[00:29:44] Ray: Yeah. It, it came about gradually. I don't, you know, I've gotta say I'm not a, I never saw myself as a philanthropist as such, but I remember thinking often when I was a businessman, uh, and doing that full-time, I was thinking so, , you know, one day I'd like to take some time out and go and help others, you know, or, or use what I've learned and some of the money that's been made to support causes that really need help or something. And I just had the thought and then let it go. And I never really did anything about it.

[00:30:15] But then in this journey, just as a tourist and as a traveler, I was seeing, I was encountering places and people that were touching my heart. And, uh, one of them was the Elephant Nature Park that I'd been to in Chanda in Thailand, where an amazing woman called Lech celler had created a wild but safe home for elephants that stepped on landmines or were being beaten by their owners and stuff like that. And give, they gave them a life like they were much more used to in the wild. 

[00:30:47] Another was an orphanage in Nepal, which a fellow traveler had said to me, if you go to Nepal, would you go and do something for these kids at the orphanage? I volunteered there and they're amazing. There were 60 kids, all beautiful Nepali kids. So I went there and did organize a picnic. It cost $20 to organize a picnic for these 60 kids. Spent the whole day with him and they laughed and danced and joked and they loved it. And I thought, so every time I was encountering these places, and I'm realizing they had Bircher no money, I thought, what could I do? You know, how could I help them? I never answered the question, but I just remember thinking a lot as I was traveling. I really want, I've got time, I've got expertise. I could do something to help. Just don't know what. 

[00:31:27] And then as I was having those thoughts, it was, it was around about 2008, I met a guy called Matt Campbell, just randomly with his wife. They were living out in Asia. And I said, tell me about your life. And he said, well, I, I'd do this. And he was a marathon runner. He'd run six marathons. He was 10 years younger than me, but, and I said, I said, tell me what's it like running a marathon? Him, when he described it, I thought I could feel the excitement in my body as he was talking about it. I thought, oh, that would be great. I said, Matt, do you think I could run a marathon? I've been trying to think of something I could do to raise money for these things that I'm seeing. He looked at me and he said, well, you look sort of quite fit. Um, yeah, probably. He said, but you know, it takes, you have to train for it properly. He said, why'd you wanna do it? And I said, well, to raise money for these things. He said, okay, well, because of that then if you stay in Chiang Mai for six months, I'll, I'll train you how to run a marathon.

[00:32:18] And he became my coach. And that's what I did. And I agreed and accepted, shook hands and said a year later I was, came back and started training with him and started the fundraising foundation at the same time. And for the first marathon, which I did, was I did in New York in. And so I applied, I put myself in the ballot. I thinking, I'll be lucky if I get a place in the ballot. First time I got a place, literally, I mean, I couldn't believe it. I knew that the universe was looking after me then because I got a place. So I went to New York, ran, ran the marathon. And that gave rise to a great story in the book because my brother flew me there on British Airways. And, um, raise $15,000 for the elephant nature part for the orphanage in the power for a cancer charity that I was supporting.

[00:33:03] Stephen: I was fantastic. Yeah, no, yeah, no, because you've actually raised over 50,000,

[00:33:07] Ray: Yeah, that's right. And I ran five marathons. Not all of them were fundraisers, but some of them were. 

[00:33:12] Stephen: Oh, which is absolutely incredible. I can't even imagine the thought of, uh, running a marathon, Ray

[00:33:17] Ray: Well a lot of people say that, but the honest truth is if you do the training correctly, running, running the marathons actually quite easy. It's the training, that's the hard part because it requires a commitment to five months and a schedule and a discipline. But if you, if you complete that, you def you run about 800 miles in your training, so. So running 26 miles is easy.

[00:33:38] Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. When you think of it, when you put it that way. Great. The other thing, um, I also, uh, recognize that you've done in the book, and something I'd looked at for a number of years was, and you don't need to go in too much detail, what the process involves, but the Hoffman process. And your journey pretty much was a, a journey of self-discovery for yourself. Like when your introduction to meditation, you know, the new ways of living, new worlds, uh, new countries to, and cultures to experience. What was the Hoffman process like and what's involved?

[00:34:04] Ray: Yeah. As I, as I was described in the book, you know, I, I kept hearing about this thing for years and years. People had mentioned it to me over the years, and I thought, every time I'd heard, I thought, yeah, that's, I don't, I don't interested in that. But I could see from how I was behaving in my relationships with my partners like Annie, and especially when I was married to, I could see that I had one or two patterns, deeply embedded patterns that were quite destructive, and I couldn't see a way of changing them or releasing myself from them.

[00:34:36] And Annie had given me a book while we were traveling called Undefended Love. And I read that book and it was like embarrassing because Ah, the women who wrote it, two psychiatrists were, were describing how men particularly are very armed up, very protected, impenetrable, emotionally, couldn't receive or take on any feedback of or criticism. And I thought, oh my God, that's me. That's me. That's so me. I really wanted to find a way to pearse and remove that armor for myself so I could be emotionally vulnerable and have access to be able to give and receive love wish I couldn't fully. 

[00:35:15] And so I went on a two day workshop with those two women who wrote that book and at the end of it I was, felt already could feel the change. And I said to them, I've gotta go back to Thailand now. It was just, I went to the Amer workshop in America. And I said, how am I gonna support myself to continue the work on this journey? And cuz you, I won't be anywhere near you too. I won't be able to see you or anything. They said, well, , let's think about that. I came back a couple days later and said, we think you should do this thing called the Hoffman Process. This is really good work for you to do. And then as I was thinking about that, I had to go through London and I met a, an old friend who was a bit of a womanizer, if I could describe him. Crudely and n you know, not someone I was totally inspired by. And I met him that particular time, he, he stood up and greeted me and gave me a hug and he'd never done that in the four years I'd known him. It was really unusual. And when I asked him how he was, he answered in terms of, spoke from his emotion and said how he felt, and then he never did that either.

[00:36:17] And I said, are you, what's happened to you? Because I saw you like a year or two ago and you, you seem quite different. He said, oh, I dunno, Ray, uh, I'm not sure anything much has changed, but I, I did this thing called the Hoffman Process six months ago and it's really shaken me up. And I thought, wow, I could really feel and see the difference in him. And I thought, wow, if I could. Just even have some of that. I want it. So I signed up and did the process literally the, the next two weeks later. And it, it, it had a huge impact on me. I've, I've detailed that I've, I I shared my very personal vision in the book, what came out of the process for me.

[00:36:56] Stephen: That's, that's incredible. And I love the way that you've, you, you fr from taking the journey, you almost went there with an intention on, you know, for setting out and all these different people fell into your lives and all these little signals felt and told you you're on the right journey, Ray.

[00:37:10] Ray: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was always waiting for what I call in the book confirmation signals. I learned this when I was a pilot, you know, I mean, I've got a fly. I used to fly airplanes when I was a businessman. And when you are flying an airplane, you're using navigational aids in the cockpit and you're tuning your instrument to a beacon. So if I wanna fly to Dublin, Dublin has a thing on the ground, usually right by the airport, called a beacon, a v o r beacon. And it's, and it emits a certain radio frequency in every direction, omnidirectional. And so in, in London, you, you, you select the Dublin beacon on your instrument, whatever frequency that is, and then the needle in the cockpit starts pointing towards it, and you just fly down the needle and you get to Dublin Beacon.

[00:37:53] However, if by chance you chose by mistake, the beacon in Southampton in England, instead of the one in Dublin, cuz there's one digit difference, you'd be flying accurately down the needle, but to the wrong place. So there has to be a secondary confirmation signal that you've chosen the right beacon. So Dublin, every beacon has a Morse code. Audible morse code signal when you press the button and you get this, and every signal for each beacon's unique. So if you, you know what the signal is you're listening for, and when you hear it, you go, okay, it's com it's confirmed, I've got the right one. And so I use that principle in life.

[00:38:34] Stephen: Fantastic cuz there's a really lovely bit in the book, and it's as an Irishman here talking to you. What were you thinking when you decided that Cam Bear and Baileys would actually go together?

[00:38:45] Ray: No idea. I mean, that's, I I don't think I'll ever sort of stop telling that story. I mean, I, I'm not, I'm not a foodie. I'm totally not a foodie. I mean, I'll probably make the worst combinations in sandwiches and things you can imagine. But I remember when I went to the Caribbean to meet this lovely, exotic French lady who I bumped into all my travels and she'd invited me for a sort of romantic exploration, let's say in the Caribbean. We, we'd been out for dinner early that evening and I was getting quite hungry as a, as the evening wore on, and I said, I'm gonna go to the kitchen and make myself a snack. And I had brought some camembert cheese and I had a bit of my Bailey's Irish cream left on my trip. And I said, she said, what are you gonna have? I said, I'm just gonna have some camembert on biscuits and no, I'm gonna finish off my Bailey's. And she just, her, her jaw dropped and she went stony silent. And I said, what's up with you? Because it is as if I'd sort of strangled her cat or something, you know, I don't, she was really shocked. She said, camembert and Bailey's? Camembert and Bailey's? You are moron. You are ignorant moron. What the hell are you thinking? You know, you know, lovely French Jackson. And uh, I realized that uh, she was a foodie and she had this massive. Fantasy before I'd arrived about us two cooking together and tasting together. And this was, this was evidence that I was not qualified for that role. And I was shattering that fantasy, you know, there and then.

[00:40:19] Stephen: But it was probably a good way for the universe to tell us sometimes that maybe the path that we thought we sh we were on is probably not the path we should be on, and maybe we need to e exit stage left.

[00:40:28] Ray: Exactly. And I built up this fantasy of seeing her for a year, and I, I was there just like a week and then it was over and I was gone. . It was a very short-lived,

[00:40:37] Stephen: so, so incredibly. How many, how many countries did you visit? 

[00:40:40] Ray: uh, in total 28. Yeah. But some were only for a few days. I mean, I did, you know, some, I lived in. Like, I lived in Thailand, I lived in Poland, in Warsaw for three years. I lived in Spain for a few months. 

[00:40:53] Stephen: And what ones you were the most indelible for? What ones left? The biggest imprint on you?

[00:40:57] Ray: Well, as India's one of them. I mean, you know, India's this cock. You could, I could talk forever about, I'm sure other people who've been there will say it's sort of, it's the most chaotic and charming country on on earth. I think, you know, it's got so many dimensions to it. It's packed. It's full of very lovely heart shining people with lots of poverty. But there's a richness in the, in the experience of being there that you don't get in any other country, a lot of joy and Happiness below the superficial poverty that you experience everywhere. That's one of the countries that ma made a really powerful impression on me. India made me think a lot about what we really need in life, where Joy Happiness really comes from. It's not from stuff.

[00:41:43] Um, and then obviously the Himalayas and Nepal. I went to Australia, spent a lot of time traveling around Australia. It's pretty spectacular. New Zealand, New Zealand, I call it the Heavens Garden on Earth. New Zealand is just aesthetically beautiful. 

[00:41:59] Stephen: I also find a really interesting bit of your book too, as well, when you talk about arriving into, uh, Western Australia, the Perth, and you went on the, is it Nora Highway? Is it that brings you to Adelaide?

[00:42:08] Ray: Oh yeah. Yeah. We, me and Annie, we'd, we'd heard a lot of people talking about crossing the Nullabor. The Nullabor is this sort of 2000 kilometer, you know, Australia is really a country, it's massive, but everyone lives around the edges in the middle of Australia is very unpopulated cuz it's dry, hared, desert, most of it. But, you know, I thought I'd seen Crocodile Dundee and things like this. And I thought the idea of driving 2000 kilometers across the Nullabor, uh, and dry sandy desert of Australia really appealed to me for some reason. And Annie too. 

[00:42:40] And there were certain points, like there's the Great Bite, which is the coastline on South Australia, and you could stop there and you could sort of stand at the edge of the cliffs and in the ocean you can see like these massive schools of dolphins surfacing and breaching the water and this beautiful, you know, just unbelievably beautiful nature experience doing things like that. 

[00:43:02] Stephen: one of the things that's like you, you, you came across on your journey is you came up with six rules of Happiness. Uh, I dunno if you remember what they are, like.

[00:43:10] Ray: Yeah, I did. I didn't, to be honest, I, when I was writing the book and I was working with my editors who were helping me all the way through, they suggested that I should dedicate the last chapter of the book to some reflection backwards on the whole journey. And so as I was reflecting back on the journey, I thought what would my rules for ha Happiness be if I were to articulate them? And I came up with these six rules as a, as an afterthought, as a, as a way of reflecting.

[00:43:40] So they, for me, they, they just embraced everything I'd learned from the 14 year journey. And they were things like, building a strong foundation inside yourself. A core strength in mentally is one of my six rules because I'd learned from running marathons that, you know, when you're training for a marathon, you have to do train on your core first because it affects the rest of your training and how you perform. And core mental strength is knowing about what are your values? You know, what are your, what's your purpose for being on earth? You know, what's your vision? Uh, when are you in your element? as Ken Robinson calls it, when your strengths, what you are really good at, and what you're passionate about, what you really care about, where these two things intersect.

[00:44:24] And then the second one was things like, um, take full ownership for what happens. You know, I'd been through a lot of blame and stuff like that when I got told I wasn't gonna be married any longer, um, but I realized I'd played a massive part in that event happening, you know, like I hadn't owned it, but I had now the opportunity through the journey to take ownership for everything. And I think you can be much happier when you do that because your Happiness is not dependent on the behavior or, or decisions of other people. 

[00:44:55] Stephen: Brilliant. Yeah. And you have become your own observer. Create powerful, purposeful, and sustainable relationships. Pay attention to your health, which is really important. Not just your physical, but all your mental and and emotional health too. And empower and support others. I love that. So just coming to the point of where you actually got back onto terra firma, not back on the terra firma, but back to, so was the stage where you went for six months, you ended up doing 14 years of travel. So what was the catalyst that brought you back to home again and how has that been?

[00:45:23] Ray: Yeah. Well, spoiler alert, this is the last chapter of the book. Uh, I had towards the end of my journey fallen into a relationship with a Polish woman called Dorota. And I'd moved to Warsaw in Poland so we could live together in an apartment and have a sort of, a, kind of more of a regular life there. And eventually that relationship came to an end in the middle of, or in the early part of 2019, March, April, 2019. And, uh, I was then living in a tiny little one bedroom apartment on my own in Warsaw, sitting there thinking, how did I end up here? You know, like after this, I'm about using Jenny. Here I am alone, sad. My, my partner, my former partner, uh, stoned me, refused to talk to me beyond the end of our relationship, so I was not able to connect with her. Thinking, what do I do now? I've got nowhere to return to. I've got no home in England. I sold my house in London. I've got no property, no possessions, you know, where do I go? I don't wanna stay in Warsaw, I felt like a fish out water. 

[00:46:27] And so I used to just sit with my meditation and, and, and wait for guidance, you know, in, in my, in my inner wisdom. And I just kept hearing the voice. You know, Ray, I think you should go back to England and finish writing the book. And that was kept hearing that message consistently. Just go back to England and finish writing the book. Worry about anything else after that. But the next thing, get the book written. That's what's important. 

[00:46:55] And uh, by chance, and this story's in the book, I'd run the brighten half marathon with a guy I'd been coaching who decided to take on a physical challenge. And doesn't sound that remarkable, but because. This chap has born with motor neurons disease and has disabilities. For him to say he wanted to run a half marathon was like, wow. So I said, I'd like to run that with you to support you all the way around if you're gonna do that. And he did. He signed up to run the brighten half marathon. So I flew over from Spain where I was living, and I ran this event with him. 

[00:47:29] But then I saw Brighton because I had to go there to run this race. And I thought, oh, Brighton looks quite nice. And so I reached out to a friend of mine in Findhorn, Scotland. I said do you, do you know anyone in Brighton who might have a spare room in a house? She said, actually, I do. A friend of mine's just moved there. Let me get in touch. And I met her and I moved into the house and, uh, I just chose Brighton randomly. It just seemed like an inspired choice, but that was a confirmation signal that she knew someone and that person said, yeah, I'd be happy to have you here. And it was effortless.

[00:48:00] Stephen: I love the way you're getting all these signals from left, right, and center. So what is, what, what, what is working life like now for you, Ray?

[00:48:06] Ray: Uh, at the moment, my work, my working life is too comprises of two things. Uh, one is I work as a leadership coach, so I'm constantly, uh, engaged with people that are running parts of businesses or managing teams and leading and who want to be exceptional leaders. And I, I work as an associate for a couple of organizations that are at the leading edge of that kind of work, and I'm very fortunate to be in those organizations. I meet some really interesting clients and I get to do a lot of coaching one-to-one, which is my favorite thing. And, uh, participate in some workshops where we do coaching in groups. So I'm, I'm doing that on a regular basis, and I have done for the last three or four years, in fact.

[00:48:47] Stephen: I think you've got the, the most amazing journey cuz most of us think, like, you know, what we think of work is that we, it's birth, school, work, death. We work long hours in, in, in work till the time we get a chance possibly to retire and then we sort of fade away into the background or whatever. You've turned that on its head, and I love the way you went for six months and stayed for 14 years and you've come back and you've got this brilliant story, which is wonderful in the book. I'd ask anybody, uh, to pick up a copy of the book, Life Without a Tie and read it, but also, um, the story that you've got to share now with business leaders that life doesn't need to be the way we thought it should be, and that there is another path. And you're not telling everybody that 14 years away is what they need to do, but that that pause in life is, is, is one of the things that's most important to us.

[00:49:27] Ray: Yeah. I'm not advocating at all the life of a traveler. That's absolutely not my message. I've got, I've got one friend who's the CEO of a, of a water utility in England. That's what she always dreamed about. That's her passion. She's living her life true to herself, and she's the CEO of a public company.

[00:49:45] So the form of your life is gonna be different. My, my message is, stop living the life that others expect of you and start living the life you wanna live. Now, if that happens to be as a corporate executive, fantastic. If that's truly what you truly. . But if you're doing it for other reasons, then perhaps it's time to reconsider. Because we need a world in which people are energetically living in alignment with what's honest and true. 

[00:50:14] Stephen: It is such a breath of fresh air to be able to talk to, uh, somebody who has done exactly what we all fear doing. And what we all work ourselves towards is creating a successful life. That successful company, you know, all the, uh, surroundings that come from that. But to be able to, to jump off a cliff and suddenly hand all that back or, or step away from that and suddenly go into the unknown by putting a 22 kilo backpack and then heading off and not know what's gonna happen next. And thinking in your mind, this is gonna be for six months, then I'll come home and I'll restart again or reignite what I've been doing. But not return back for 14 years is quite incredible. 

[00:50:54] The book, Life Without a Tie is a must-read. It's a fantastic adventure. Uh, you'll feel really, really nervous in some of the parts because Ray's been very honest about how he felt and where his adventure brought him and, and what he did. 

[00:51:06] I think more of us need to think about specifically in the world of leadership, how can we sometimes just take those pauses and how long should they be for and, and, and what do we gain from them? Because I think there's a lot to be able to gain from just stopping sometimes. I, and I don't think we do enough of those moments of pause, reflection and stopping.

[00:51:24] I hope you enjoyed the podcast as much as I did having the conversation with Ray. That was wonderful.