Transcript
Luisa Hogan: What happens when the life you built, the one that defines you, disappears almost overnight? And I'm not talking gradually and not by choice, but all at once. And you're left asking the question that most people avoid.
Luisa Hogan: If you strip away all of the titles, who are you really? Welcome back to the Second Voice Podcast where we uncover the conversations that leaders don't have out loud. I'm your host, Louisa Hogan, and today we're exploring what happens when success collapses and the identity that you built around that goes with it. And my guest exploring that with me today is the lovely Ray Martin, also known as the Daily Explorer, and he is an entrepreneur and an award-winning business leader.
Luisa Hogan: And as a coach, mentor, facilitator, speaker, writer, and mindfulness teacher, He is a torchbearer for greater human consciousness. And I cannot wait to explore that, Ray. He's also a marathon runner and so am I. So I feel like I'm a kindred spirit and he's also a fundraiser. And he's on a mission to empower people to live authentically and to bring more joy and happiness in the world. Ray, thank you so much for joining me today. It's so lovely to have you here with us.
Ray: Thank you, Louise. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. And I didn't realize you were a marathon runner too. So that's good.
Luisa Hogan: Yes, yeah. I've run a couple of marathons, so i feel i feel connected to you from afar because you're in London, aren't you?
Ray: Yeah, that's all right. Just on the edge of London, yeah.
Luisa Hogan: and Excellent. Well, tell us a little bit about your story, Ray. know I've given a little bit of an intro, but there's obviously so much more to that.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Tell us your story. And I'm intrigued to know because I've given people a taster of what happens when you lose your identity. So let's explore that. How have you experienced that in your journey? What brought you to where you are today?
Ray: Yeah, brilliant. I feel like I'm and sitting in the privileged position of knowing what it's like to actually enact the fantasy that a lot of people have spoken to have. which is I wonder what would happen if I could just give all this up and just go awol and wander around the world for a while.
Luisa Hogan: yeah
Ray: you know What would that what that be like? And that was the invitation that life put in my lap.
Luisa Hogan: yeah
Ray: um I was um all my life when I was at school, I was just following what I call the off the shelf life story. You know, my parents have said, bra if you want to be happy as an adult, you've got to do several things.
Ray: You've got to find a good wife, get a good job and a career, get a house, get a mortgage, have kids. And all of that equals happiness. So that was the blueprint of life I was following.
Ray: I didn't question it or say, is that really truly going to deliver happiness or anything like that?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: I just got on with it until I reached my early 40s and became ceo of a company I founded, won a an award from the Daily Telegraph in England, the being business leader of the year. So I couldn't have got any higher up the ladder I'd built.
Ray: But I got to the top of that ladder and stood on the wall and gone, oh my God, I didn't realize it was going to be like this. Is this the wall that I really wanted to climb? I think I might have climbed the wrong one.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: And I was married and it just, life just felt out of sync with my soul somehow. I wasn't unhappy. It was more like a dull discontentment and it just never stopped gnawing away. And I think the woman I was married to could see that and it was very unsettling for her.
Ray: but Anyway, to cut a long story short, one day after about 10 years of building business together, she was my business partner and being married, she came back and said quite suddenly and abruptly, I'm leaving you and I'm leaving the company.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
Ray: And it was the beginning of a massive change that I had no idea was coming on that day. And my father got very ill and passed away at more or less the same time. So within three or four months, I was out of my home, out of my marriage, of the company that I'd built was being dismantled and my dad had gone.
Ray: and I felt like was standing in this bomb crater of destruction, literally so turning 360 degrees and just seeing all this rubble everywhere and thinking, how am i ever going to rebuild my life?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: I really thought life was over at that point and I could never be happy again. um I'm happy to, delighted to say I am happy again. But at that point it was dark, very, very dark.
Ray: And so a long journey ah began. i didn't anticipate it. Friends recommended I took a sabbatical for six months and just got my head clear and went to a different place. And I didn't have children, so I didn't have to think about that. And that was fortunate at the time.
Ray: And um so I did that, but didn't go according to plan. And, you know, one thing led to another. um And I ended up staying longer. And then that led me to start a fundraising organization in Asia where I was doing my sabbatical. And that then led me to start working with some organizations. ah And in the end, I lived out of my backpack for 14 years.
Luisa Hogan: Thank you.
Ray: I never imagined I ever would. And then so many people who I met during that period and they heard what I was doing, they he said, They said, can I give you you ah give you my email address, Ray? And I said, why is that?
Ray: He goes, well, if you ever wrote a book about this story, we'd really like to read it. And I laughed and I said, um'm but I'm not writer. I'm not doing this to heal myself and an answer to the question, what does living life true to myself look like?
Ray: That was the question I was trying to answer. because i got that inspiration from bronnie ware who's an australian nurse i mean you probably know her mean she's famous in australia i think she wrote the top five regrets of the dying and the number one regret was i wish i'd lived my life true to myself that's what people say on their deathbed and when i heard that and read that which i read at a time where i was really low looking for answers i thought gosh i need to go and find out what living life true to myself looks like
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: you know on a daily basis i had no idea so that quest began and then eventually got answered but little by little bit by bit not just one big answer pieces of the jigsaw fell into place over a long period of time yes 14 years yeah it took me all over the place 28 different countries a lot of it in asia but i lived in poland for three and a half years as well and spain for a bit and different other places yeah
Luisa Hogan: Wow. What a journey, 14 years. That's incredible.
Luisa Hogan: Wow. That's an amazing, amazing journey. And, you know, I mean, as you know, this is a podcast about self-talk, you know, at the time that you were going through all of that, at the start of that journey,
Ray: Yeah.
Ray: Hmm.
Luisa Hogan: you know, you obviously, I mean, you've briefly shared some of the internal struggles that you were having. Was any of that stuff that you couldn't say out loud at the time, you know, were you ashamed of talking about it out loud or was it so confusing internally that you couldn't articulate it What was going on in in that regard?
Ray: It was a mixture of all of that, actually. um But yeah, I did have a lot of guilt and shame about my failure as a husband.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
Ray: you know i'd I'd been sort of rejected out of the marriage I was in. And while I'm not saying I'm 100% responsible for that, I could see my part in it, definitely. And I sort of did have this feeling of failing and not being good enough and things like that, which is something I've come to learn since is quite common, especially highlighted by the work that Brene Brown does on vulnerability.
Luisa Hogan: Yes,
Luisa Hogan: yeah.
Ray: and um And so I was confronting those issues of feeling that guilt and shame and not really knowing how to put it into words or who to share that with. And also hoping that just by being in ah in an Asian country and in the more relaxed environment that that brings and that it would somehow affect my psychology. But it didn't. you know was I was just moving my my meat and bones to a place where I could experience my dysfunction and in a bit more of a relaxed state and bit more comfort for less money.
Ray: and But I was just still the same messed up person inside my head.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Yeah.
Ray: And when I said this to a fellow traveler one day after about five months, he said, have you have you ever considered doing a Vipassana meditation retreat? And I had no idea what that was when he mentioned it. i said, what is that? He said, well, you go into a monastery and sit with Buddhist monks for 10 days in silence and they teach you how to meditate and you get insight into yourself through your mind and your thinking and through observing your breath.
Ray: I didn't know what the hell he was talking about on one level, but the energy ah of him was so kind of compelling and I could just sense it was when I started to notice my intuition in play.
Ray: It was things like that. And that was one of the developments that came on early in the journey. I followed that and I did that Vipassana. It was a game changer.
Luisa Hogan: I feel like the universe brought you what you needed at the exact right time.
Ray: Yeah. It really did. It was so was like a lifeline.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: it was It was really, really a game changer. I left that monastery completely grounded, calm.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Yeah.
Ray: um If you had a a volume dial on the side of your head, when I went in, it was 10 out of 10. And when I walked out, it felt like it was now one out of 10.
Luisa Hogan: yeah ah You know, i
Ray: Knowing it never never goes fully quiet, of course. Oh,
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, of course not. And I so relate because I've been on my own little spiritual journey over the last few years and I've been doing Kriya yoga and meditation.
Ray: wow.
Luisa Hogan: And I know exactly what you mean, you know, accessing that calm and, um, that intuition that I wasn't accessing before. And for me, it's turning down the analyzer.
Luisa Hogan: That's what I call it. You know, it's like, I've got this little knob and it turns down the analyzer for me in that time. And it's so, so good because I'm always amazed at how, when you are as an entrepreneur or a leader or CEO, how your analyzer is always on and always on and always on.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: and And then for me, it was always so fear-based. I had a lot of fear around failure and perfectionism and how you can sort of train that out of yourself in in many ways, but you have to be able to access that quiet, right?
Ray: and
Ray: Yeah, yeah it's ah it's ah it's a real gift, actually, being able to do that because I started to get a new kind of thinking arising in me that didn't feel like it was coming from my logical brain, more like from my heart, actually, which is hard to sort of say in a conversation like this because so it was all just going on inside.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. yeah
Ray: But it just did had such a different energy feel to it.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Amazing.
Ray: And more wisdom, more wisdom in it as well. You know, felt like it belonged.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: It was my wisdom because I noticed in the early days of my trip, I couldn't make decisions. I was always asking other people, what should I do? Should I do this or that? And they'd say, I don't know. I thought I need to let go of this idea that other people can decide for me.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
Ray: I i need to trust my own wisdom somehow.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: I saw that as a need that I hadn't really fully developed.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: What strikes me too, and you know, there are people who would be listening who are very tied to their identity or their label or their title, right?
Ray: Yeah. Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: And I've been there, you know, I've been a CEO and then you become very tied to that title. And then some people go through situations where that title
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: no longer applies and then you're left like, who am I without the title? What advice can you give to people out there who might be facing that or who might be so attached to the title and so afraid of losing it?
Luisa Hogan: yeah What's some practical advice that you can give to somebody, you know, so that they don't have to go on a 14 year journey and, you know, and maybe start on a smaller journey to recognize that that title is maybe not all that necessarily.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: Yeah, that's a great question. I've got so much to say on this. I better keep it short because I know we've only got a limited time.
Luisa Hogan: Great.
Ray: But, um you know, that there's a coach in America called Tony Robbins. every Most people have heard him. He's world famous. And I love one of the things that he says in in his books and his work, which is you're not just the actor in your life, you're the director and the script writer, too.
Ray: You occupy all of those positions. And so if your character, in my case, it was Ray, the businessman in London, If your character is in a story and you you don't like how that character is showing up in the story, you can rewrite their parts of their personality. You can rewrite their dialogue.
Ray: You can change the scenes or you can kill off the series. you know You've got loads of options when you're in all three seats. And um that didn't really strike me as being fully true in my gut until I came to Australia just before I started this journey and got offered the chance to literally act in a play.
Ray: I had no experience. i got
Luisa Hogan: Thank you.
Ray: My friends in Cairns suggested I went to the theatre and I got invited to an audition for a play about a British Member of Parliament. And I thought I was going to be asked if I got the part to play him.
Ray: um But it turned out that the director thought I'd be really cool in another role, the commit central comedic character of the play called George. And i had no experience at all of acting, and but they offered me the lead role in the play. I said, are you kidding me? I mean I've got no experience. I'm a high risk. They said, no, we we think you'd be perfect and we'd help you rehearse and get ready for it.
Ray: So I went through that entire process of letting go of being Ray the businessman for three and a half months and just stayed in Australia to learn how to become this character, George. And then I was flying home to England after the very successful play you'd finished.
Ray: I suddenly felt this dread in my body again, going back to being Ray. And I thought, what's that about? What is that? Why i feeling so much dread? And then suddenly dawned on me on the airplane, I went, oh, my God, Ray, the businessman's a character I'm playing.
Ray: It's not real. It's someone I've learned how to become.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: And it never really dawned on me until I had actually was in a play and had to learn a character's voice, his walk, his clothes, everything.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: and um and And it's not fixed.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: That's the the main advice I've got for people. It's not fixed. It's only fixed by the amount of limiting beliefs we're holding. because it's completely um within your power to to create that any way you wish if you're the script writer, director and actor.
Ray: So I think that's it's a shift in thinking. It's a shift in perspective.
Luisa Hogan: yeah yeah
Ray: and And I would say to most people, don't make them hugely put once it's too dangerous. I'd say do some tiny experiments, as Anne-Marie LeCoumpf says in her book. Choose some tiny experiments to be out of character for a bit and see what that feels like until you get more confident with it
Luisa Hogan: yeah That's such great advice. And, you know, my husband always says, hold reins loosely.
Ray: Yeah, nice.
Luisa Hogan: And and when i when I first met him, i you know I'm a completely different person to when I first met him and he's seen my evolving journey. But, you know, I didn't understand what he meant by that.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: I'm like, what do you mean can't like hold reins tightly? I have to hold the reins tightly.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: But, you know, what I've learned is that hold the reins loosely is very much a way for you to allow your true self to emerge in real time because when you're holding on so tightly, right, like you you just don't allow anything else but the the persona that you are in, the character, as you say, that you are in to be there and you just don't open up your world to all of the possibilities and to allow yourself to grow out of that too.
Ray: Yeah.
Ray: Yeah.
Ray: Yeah, exactly. And if you look at some seasoned actors, you know, i can't think like someone like Cate Blanchett, I think is Australian.
Luisa Hogan: and Yeah.
Ray: You know, she has played so many different characters. You know, her range is incredible. She's not typecast herself to one sort of character like Hugh Grant in England has done, you know, as the foppish romantic in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Ray: i mean, i think he's but I think he's made some steps recently, but he was always the same character in all the stories he played.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Same, yeah. But we love that.
Ray: yeah Yeah, we do. We kind of do. I mean, it is is a software fraud perhaps not a good metaphor, but I thought to myself when I was hearing, thinking about this, I thought, oh, I don't want to be like Ross in Friends, you know, who's always thought of as Ross from Friends, no matter what he's done since.
Luisa Hogan: yes
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: It's so true. And look, you're giving me lots to think about too. I mean, just last week I was at a fundraising dinner and i was invited by a client. And when I got there, there were just so many people there from, I call it my past life, my past CEO life. I've had my own business for 10 years, but before that I was CEO and I ended up winding up an organization. I thought nobody would employ me again after I wound up that organization. Who wants a CEO that will wind up an organization, right?
Luisa Hogan: And then it led me on this journey for 10 years of having my own business. But I went to this event and there were clients there and people I worked with in that life. And it was so strange because it held up this mirror to me and I felt myself creeping into that persona that I was then.
Luisa Hogan: And then I held up this mirror and I'm like, wow, like this is not who you are anymore. And you don't need to step back into that because the person you are now is what feels right for you right now.
Luisa Hogan: But it's so tempting, you know, when you're faced with it to, you know, feel like you have to keep up the
Ray: Yes.
Luisa Hogan: that facade of, you know, the person that they used to know, it's it's like the strangest thing that we do that and we we hold onto that. But you have to learn to come out of that in a way, don't you?
Ray: Yeah, you do. You'll like this because you're a runner. It's like when you get a new pair of running shoes, you put your brand new shoes on for the first time.
Luisa Hogan: Yes.
Ray: You think, oh, God, I just want my old ones back on.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: They're much better. And, yeah they're sort of worn out and they've done the miles, but they just feel more comfortable and they feel more you, don't they?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ray: But the new ones take a couple of days before they become your your shoes, really.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. ah Right. I know like in reading about you and looking up, you know, your work, you, I've seen you talk about you becoming your own observer.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: What does that actually look like in practice? And particularly when you're in the middle of chaos or in the middle of high pressure or in the middle of something collapsed, collapsing, how can somebody be their own observer when they feel like they just need a control and hold on tightly, you know,
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: but What's your advice for that?
Ray: Yeah, I mean, it's something I learned. but My first experience of it was in the monastery with the monks doing the Vipassana retreat because there you're in the perfect conditions to sort to observe your own mind and what your thoughts do and how they drive your feeling and how that drives your behavior.
Ray: So a simple example might be if I'm having an argument with my partner at home, and she says something that I find annoys me and makes me, not makes me, but a feeling of anger is inside me.
Ray: doing that unmindfully would be, God, do you know, what you just said made me really angry, which is not true because the other person can't do that.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
Ray: And it's putting the blame and power of the or assigning blame to the other person.
Luisa Hogan: if
Ray: Whereas becoming your own observer, you could notice that feeling as it's physically arising in your body before you speak. And you could take half a second and you could so say something instead.
Ray: I notice as I'm listening to you that I've got this feeling of anger rising up in me. I just want to have a moment while I think about what that's about, if that's okay. Just pause for a second. I just want to.
Ray: And then you've then got a moment to really think.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: And yeah, I think it it reminds me of a situation I had a few years ago when something didn't go my way and just bringing up that feeling for me here or something like that.
Ray: And I'm sorry that I'm being angry, but this is what's happening where I am. And it creates a bit of space, a bit of compassion for the other person can understand you.
Luisa Hogan: yeah
Ray: It's not about them. It never is about the other person, even though we love to think it is, but it never is. um
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: So that's what I mean. Becoming your own observer gives you that third-person position to look at yourself from outside and go, almost I could say, I could i see Ray right now. He's feeling some anger.
Ray: I'm trying to work out what's going on inside him, if I was narrating it.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: And you know what I love about that too is the minute that you do that with compassion, it actually creates a moment where the other person can respond with compassion too because, you know, very often we spiral, you
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: either at work or with personal relationships, we spiral with that feeling and it escalates and somebody is only going to respond with resentment when you're responding with resentment. And as you say, it's never about the other person.
Ray: Hmm. Hmm.
Luisa Hogan: You hold on to those emotions and we replay those emotions over and over and over.
Ray: Mm. Mm.
Luisa Hogan: And it doesn't allow us to have the compassion and also recognize as the observer that that's my ego talking. And people hate hearing that because ego means I'm self-inflated.
Ray: Mm.
Luisa Hogan: i don't mean ego in that way. it's ah It's that inner part of you that is trying to protect you. and it tries to protect you by telling you that this is dangerous, this this is shameful, you hold on to guilt, you know, all of those things.
Luisa Hogan: And there's a wonderful book by Dr. Hawkins called Letting go which is so, so good.
Ray: Oh, yeah. Okay.
Luisa Hogan: And it ah talks about this sort of thing too, right?
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: But I love what you say.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: It's about, you know, becoming an observer and then responding with compassion, right? And people can apply that at work too.
Ray: Yeah, exactly. So it's a practice. It's not ah it's not a sort of ah an intellectual skill. It's something you have to actually practice because it takes a high level of awareness to pause because you've got to notice those feelings arising in your body before they get to your mouth and be able to interrupt that process, which is quite counterintuitive. And none of us really practice that.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: And then you get better at doing it
Luisa Hogan: And it's challenging too, because it's so instant, right?
Ray: It is, isn't it?
Luisa Hogan: It's so instant. It's like an instant reaction.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: So, and then you've got to be careful too, that you don't start feeling feelings of shame to instant reaction and recognizing that all of that is so natural and it's just a practice that you have to get better at.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: It's not a shameful thing that you're doing, right? It's just an absolutely normal thing.
Ray: Yeah, correct. Correct.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: Exactly. Exactly. yeah Yeah, that's it. So it was one of the, when I was writing the book about the journey I was talking about, my editors asked me to write the final chapter of what was all the knowledge and wisdom gained from those years.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
Ray: And I came up with these six rules for happiness. And rule number three was become your own observer. That's why it's in there. It was one of the six rules.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Amazing. And it's so true. And I love that. I think it's such good advice. And it's a lot of, um, there's such overlap with what you're talking about with the stuff that I do with my clients.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: And so, you know, observing and anchoring yourself and naming that emotion, emotions pass in 60 to 90 seconds.
Ray: Brilliant. in
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: People think that they go on for, well, I'm still angry from three weeks ago.
Ray: Yes.
Luisa Hogan: No, your emotion has actually passed, but you're holding onto that and you're replaying it. And that's why you still feel angry.
Ray: Yes.
Luisa Hogan: But if you allow yourself to observe and then it passes, right? So ah it's such good advice that you got there.
Ray: Mm.
Luisa Hogan: So you did touch on earlier when you were touching on, when you um when you were still that CEO winning awards, you were touching on how you were feeling the sense of unhappiness, but you maybe couldn't put your finger on it.
Luisa Hogan: what are the signals that people will ignore? Like, can you talk to me about that signal a little bit deeper? Because somebody listening now might be getting the little touches of that signal, but might not have put their finger on it yet.
Luisa Hogan: Can you tell me more about what that signal was inside of you?
Ray: Yeah. Yeah, I can. I mean, how do remember it? it It was a mixture of things that seem quite trivial, but things that seem really deep. They're all mixed in together. So, for example, one of the ways it showed up for me, I was like late 30s, early 40s.
Ray: I was putting on a lot of weight. I was losing my physical wellness. I'd become a comfort eater. I was overeating and I was aging.
Ray: much I've got a picture of me age 40 with my father in his garden and we more look more like twin brothers than father and son. and When I saw that picture, it it shocked the hell out of me. and I thought, why is this happening? because since Since I went on this journey and since I've changed the way I'm living life, to say let's say,
Ray: i I've never been healthier. you know I run marathons. i'm i'm sort of you know my I feel like I'm aging in reverse almost a little bit. um And I'll be 66 on my birthday this year.
Luisa Hogan: You don't look 66, right?
Ray: And if I look at pictures of when I was, say, 40, I look much older then, you know much more worn out.
Luisa Hogan: yeah
Luisa Hogan: wow
Ray: So that was one manifestation. And then in others, it just was a kind of was it was always felt like it was clamping my my mood of optimism because I knew I was kind of living a comfortable life and not pushing into some of the areas I really wanted to go to have more experiences.
Ray: I I'm not a person. This is different for everyone, but um' I don't value material wealth particularly. I don't like owning lots of stuff. And I did. I was married to someone who loved it. you know So we owned loads of stuff and had lots of high status material possessions, but they didn't really do much for me.
Ray: And so I was sort of, i feel like I was putting on a performance rather than really being me.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Yeah. There's, there were signs in other words.
Ray: Yeah, there there were signs, yeah, energy and all sorts of other things.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Yeah. yeah
Ray: Yeah, yeah, just generally there.
Luisa Hogan: And you touched on your book and your six rules for happiness.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: I imagine you can tell us about those six rules, but if there was one in particular that was the hardest to accept or live by, what was, what was the hardest one for you?
Ray: um Oh, that's a good question. I just never thought of them as hardest to easiest. They're all rich.
Luisa Hogan: We ask the hard hitting questions here in the second place.
Ray: But ah I'd say I'd say the first one, the the first rule for the six rules is to build a solid core of self-awareness.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: you know If you don't have that, you can't do anything else. You have to have like a solid platform. That gives you when you sit down in a quiet space to wisely reflect on what's going on, it gives you an update and information about where you're at regarding things like, am I living according to my values? What are my values? And am I living them every day in every choice I'm making?
Ray: Yes or no? How can I do that more? what's my vision you know where's the picture of what life i'm headed towards and am i step by step moving in that direction or am i moving away from it what's going on with that what's my purpose why am i doing all of this you know and is my why the right why and am i getting enough evidence that i'm on track with that um what beliefs do i hold about life that are really empowering me right now and what beliefs are holding me back you know what what beliefs am i operating to and can i shift any of them slightly even you know that would enable me to take more risks or do something a bit more courageous or something more in a line with my values um
Ray: How are my relationships with people? Am I building purposeful, powerful, sustainable relationships that are going to see me through my life? Because I don't know how about how it is for you, Louise, but I've... um I've never really had to apply for a job or anything ever in my life.
Ray: Everything that's ever come to me has come through friends or people that I know who've offered, who's come towards me and said, here's an opportunity. And that's that's happened because of the investments I've made in connecting with that person in our relationship and staying true to that and putting the energy into it.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: So i can see that's worked for me really well. So those are some of the that's a flavor of some of the rules.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: But they're all they're all challenging. There's no easy ones because it's easy to give up and it's easy to get bit despondent, especially in the current economic climate and with world chaos going on. It's easy to get into a mood where you think none of it's worth it, but it really is.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, that pervading fear. I just, I always, it always come back down to fear with me. If I'm ever stuck or feeling disheartened or unmotivated, it always comes back to when I really dig into it and have that awareness and, you know, dig in and think about it.
Ray: Yeah.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: It always comes back to fear for me every time.
Ray: Yes.
Luisa Hogan: And, you know, i think a lot of, especially being an entrepreneur in leadership is about letting go of fear and surrendering to what is around you and accepting that this is this is where you are, right?
Luisa Hogan: And people find that very, very difficult.
Ray: Yeah, right.
Luisa Hogan: People find that very, very difficult.
Ray: Yeah. Yeah, they do.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: They do.
Luisa Hogan: um For leaders who haven't had a breakdown or haven't had a huge upheaval like you've had, but maybe feeling disconnected or stuck or are hearing or seeing the signs in their life that you've mentioned,
Luisa Hogan: What's the honest starting point for them so that they don't have to go through everything falling apart first to start fixing it?
Ray: Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things I'd say to that. One is, you know, find someone to to work with and talk to, you know, someone who can be a great sounding board and a deeply understanding and compassionate listener for you.
Ray: That will help you just work out what you're what your own thinking and feeling is, because sometimes it's a bit mixed up, I find myself, often, until I actually have a conversation with somebody else.
Luisa Hogan: And. hmm.
Ray: I can't really put my finger on it.
Luisa Hogan: thank
Ray: But that aside, I'd say for me, the the best place to start is to say, If I woke up tomorrow and I was facing and heading in the direction of what my best life could look like, what would be in that picture that I'm walking towards? And just start using your imagination and your creativity to start looking at what that would look like and write things down, make notes, you know find pictures of things or just start to build the picture of what the life is that you're seeking to move towards. Once you've got a little bit of a picture and a sense of that,
Ray: Then that enables you to then say, well, what step I could take over the next four weeks that would be one tiny step that would take me in that direction. you But you can't really start even thinking that way until you've got a sense of the direction of it.
Ray: It doesn't have to be perfect.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: I mean, I knew when I left the UK to go on my own journey of discovery, that I knew I wanted to meet wise people. i knew I wanted to get involved in different communities and find out ah how life was in different places in the world to the one I'd been brought up in.
Ray: I knew these things, but I didn't know what they'd look like or where they'd be or anything like that. Life just unfolded in a way that sort of fitted with what I was asking.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Well, if it's aligned with where you're supposed to be, it does unfold, I find.
Ray: Yeah, it does. It really does. It really does.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, I've got this little mantra where, you know, roadblocks are not stop signs.
Ray: Yes.
Luisa Hogan: They're just pointing you in the right direction, right? So it's just a little sign to say, you know, it's time to go in a different way.
Ray: Yeah, yeah.
Ray: Yeah, great.
Luisa Hogan: So i I find that that's really helpful and such good advice because I think people get overwhelmed with, I have to have it all sorted out and know what all the steps are. But when you know just one step, just the first next one, it all starts to fall into place if you act on it.
Ray: Yep.
Luisa Hogan: And then the next thing comes up, right?
Ray: Exactly, exactly.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. So what are you doing now? You know, it's been the 14 years now, you know, what what are you doing? How do you work with people? You've written your book. You know, what's what's next for you?
Ray: Yeah, so now I'm at an interesting moment of change myself again. you know, I'm 65, know, according to the UK law, I'll be pensionable in about eight months time, which I can't believe it.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: so
Ray: I just can't quite believe it. But um my my work is in the leadership development and coaching space. So i I work with a few organizations as an associate coach, coaching individuals and sometimes members of teams, to have a more fulfilling, rewarding and you know better experience of themselves as a leader.
Ray: So it's helping to people to improve all the things we spoke about in the six rules, their self-awareness, their observer capability. But when someone's practicing all of those things, they show up much, much better as a leader of themselves and others. so that's That's my joy.
Ray: and I've always enjoyed that. I've always really loved it. I think I'd do it if I got paid for it or not. I'd still love doing it.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Yeah.
Ray: So I do that part-time. um I'm also involved in events where i get invited to speak about my experiences in the journey described in the book. And people often come to me and ask me to help them with their own journeys around that.
Ray: So i do some coaching in that space. um But i do I've got a lovely family. I'm a member of it. I met my partner three years ago after I came back from these 14 years.
Ray: And so I'm in a lovely relationship with my partner. She's got children and grandchildren. And so I now am a member of a big family that I get to do lots of things with I never, ever used to do.
Ray: And that's brought a lot of joy and a lot of happiness to me.
Luisa Hogan: Beautiful.
Ray: And it's nothing to do with work, but it fills lot of space and time in my life. So I like that.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. It's all purposeful. And I love what a contrast to the titles and the awards, but so much more purposeful and bringing you so much joy and doing good work and helping others.
Ray: Yeah, yeah.
Ray: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: And I just think that's the meaning of life, really, doing the thing that lights you up, following the light inside of you.
Ray: Correct. Yeah. Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: And if when you do that with love, you're only going to feel love in return, right?
Ray: Yeah, exactly.
Luisa Hogan: That's, that's the whole goal. That's you are living the dream in my world. In my world, you're living the dream.
Ray: Exactly.
Luisa Hogan: That's amazing. So where can people find you if they want to work with you, talk to you, buy your book, where where can they go?
Ray: Yeah.
Ray: um I've got a wet there's a website called lifewithoutatie.com book's called Life Without a Tie. So the website lifewithoutatie.com is the best start point. But I know in in Australia, I'm sure my book's on Amazon and lots of people buy it there.
Ray: um and And I'm on LinkedIn.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: You know, that's where a lot of people find me. Those are the best places, I'd say.
Luisa Hogan: Excellent. Well, I'll put that all in the show notes.
Ray: Thank you.
Luisa Hogan: So thank you for that. Ray, I'd love to talk to you more. I always say to like my favorite guests, we'll have to bring you back for a second chat. And I think we might need to do that with you because I love your story and I love your journey.
Ray: Please do.
Luisa Hogan: I think um you have such a wonderful message. I think more people in entrepreneurship and in leadership need to hear that because there's so much fear around the title and am I going to achieve?
Luisa Hogan: Am I going to be seen as the achiever? Am I going to be seen as a failure? And when it comes down to it, none of that actually matters. What matters is that internal happiness, right?
Ray: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Ray: Yeah. yeah That's my experience.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. So thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. And to everyone listening, I think the greatest takeaway for me is that sometimes losing everything isn't the end of who you are.
Ray: my pleasure.
Luisa Hogan: So if you are on that verge of that now, winding up a business, losing a title, deciding on what's next for you, remember that it may not be the end. It may actually be the first time you get to find out who you are inside and embrace that journey.
Luisa Hogan: So thank you so much again, Ray, everyone else. See you next time on the Second Voice Podcast. Take care.
