Life Without a Tie: Ray Martin on Freedom, Wisdom, and the 6 Rules for Happiness

What does it take to build a life you don’t need a vacation from?

In this episode of MindForce, Nate Scheer sits down with Ray Martin to explore the philosophy behind Life Without a Tie. Their conversation goes far beyond careers and retirement. They dig into freedom, purpose, wisdom, and the everyday choices that shape a meaningful life.

Ray shares the experiences that changed his definition of success, the lessons that took decades to learn, and the six rules for happiness that continue to guide his life through both triumph and hardship.

Along the way, they discuss:

• What “Life Without a Tie” truly means

• Why success looks different as you grow older

• How wisdom develops through both failure and achievement

• The six rules for happiness and how they apply during life’s hardest moments

• The difference between chasing happiness and building a meaningful life

• Where someone should begin if they want more freedom, purpose, and fulfillment

Whether you’re questioning your career, searching for greater purpose, or simply trying to live with more intention, this conversation offers practical wisdom that stays with you long after the episode ends.

MindForce is sponsored by the three L’s: Love, Life, and Learning.

If this episode encouraged you, share it with someone who is searching for a more meaningful life. Your support through subscriptions, ratings, and reviews helps us continue bringing these conversations to more people.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

As always, it's great to have you back. I'm your host, Nate Shear, and this is Mind Force, the podcast sponsored by the three ELs Love, Life, and Learning. Today's conversation is about what happens when you stop living by default and start living with intention. We're exploring Ray's Life Without a Tie Journey, the wisdom gained through experience, success, setbacks, and reflection, and the six rules for happiness that have emerged along the way. This episode isn't about chasing happiness, it's about understanding what creates a meaningful life in the first place. Ray, welcome to the show. Thanks a lot, Nate. I'm really happy to be here as hot as it is. I'm just glad we're in the same area because I had one uh earlier this week and I was sweating, and I was like, this person probably thinks I'm crazy, but I'm glad we're in the same time zone. Uh we're out in the United Kingdom and it is blistering 90 degrees in Fahrenheit and high 30s and Celsius, so it's pretty rough. The buildings are made of concrete and not a lot of airflow. So well, uh Ray, for people meeting you for the first time, who are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

I am uh a man in my 60s, a UK resident, and uh I've had a long career in the field of you know people development. Um I wasn't emerging into that in the beginning, I was in sales and all sorts of things where you know the kind of work I was doing enabled sort of had you led you to figure out how you could be at your best performance all the time. And so I became fascinated by psychology and creating connection and rapport and all the things that would enable me to build really good relationships at work, and that naturally evolved into how can I be a good leader when I lead others? Because I started my own company as a CEO in the in the mid-90s, and after 10 years became the business leader of the year in the Daily Telegraph for running that company, so I was an award-winning accomplished CEO. But the truth about that entire journey of building that company was that I discovered I'd essentially put my ladder against the wrong wall because I climbed to the very top only to find it wasn't really me. I didn't really enjoy that role or that life particularly, and I felt, if I'm honest, a bit stuck in it, but there was no way out. So I kept on going for a while.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

That's so interesting. So many times in the show, over a hundred episodes now, and I've heard so many times people got the car, the house, the wife, the, you know, fill in the blank, and it wasn't fulfilling. They need to find some way to give back, make connection, help others. I think one core I've seen in the show is we're social creatures. Like we were designed to help and work beside each other. And so if you're not finding ways to help each other, um, you know, you gotta find some ways you just feel better. I mean, you hold the door for someone, you help somebody cross the street, you just you just feel better. If you help out a soup kitchen, you're not feeling better afterwards. I don't I don't know. I guess you've got other problems.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I agree. I mean, I I work as a leadership coach these days, and I'm constantly, you know, having conversations with people about how to integrate their values into their life, you know, and make choices that are based on their values. And that starts obviously with a with a with with work to identify what their values are and what's important to them. And uh behind that, even are our driving forces, which I think Tony Robbins describes in detail in his books. And those are things like all humans have the need for recognition, service, belonging, variety, and certainty at different stages and times of their life. And we either get those needs met consciously and skillfully, or we try and get those needs met unskillfully and unconsciously if we're not really aware of what they are, and it can be disastrous, you know. So uh this is an interesting area to look into.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Absolutely. Well, speaking of that, Ray, what chapter of life are you in right now?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

I'm probably what I would think of the final, the final lap, you know. I'm 66 at my next birthday. I've I'd looked up the statistics in the UK government data, what is the mortality for the average British man? It's 80. And so on that basis, from the end of this year, I'll I'll have 5,000 days of my life left. And so I'm pretty aware of that. And that is the truth. If I die on the exactly on the average, I mean I don't know obviously what day that is going to be. But assume my dad died when he was 73, so he didn't make it to the average. Um, and I a lot of people I know are friends and uh people uh or colleagues are passing away before that age, so yeah, it's hard to do that. You never know. So very focused on what do I want to experience and contribute in the last five thousand days of my life? That's where I'm at right now. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

And then to get a little bit of a foundation, Ray, what inspired the Life Without a Tie journey?

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Well, what happened was I was as I was saying a few minutes ago, I I was in the CEO role in a company that I founded, and the business partner I had in that company was actually my wife, the woman I was married to. And I was doing it really because of the relationship we had and wanting to be of service to her and support her vision for that business. Um and then one day after a few years, she came back from a meeting and suddenly announced that she was leaving the company and me. I didn't see that coming, and it was really a massive, massive shock. Um and I was in the the pain of dealing with that when my father at the same time got very ill and he passed away shortly afterwards. So within you know, within a three or four month period, let's say, I don't know, three or four or five months, I was out of my home, I was out of my marriage, I was losing the company I'd built. My dad had passed away, and I was completely uncertain what the future was. And it was a pretty awfully shocking period, and I was quite depressed for a while, uh, needed a lot of help as well, couldn't very unmotivated to do anything, lost all my courage and confidence. Uh that's really what started it, because friends rallied round and said, you know, to help. And one of them said, Why don't you take a six-month sabbatical? And I at the when when I first heard that suggestion, I laughed. I said, That's that's a crazy idea. Who would waste their life backpacking around the world, you know? What's the point of that? But and a couple more things happened, and I came to the conclusion that actually that was quite a good idea because I didn't have children. I was in my mid-40s, but no kids, and so I wasn't encumbered by those responsibilities. And um I and I had had a successful business, so I had a fair amount of money saved up that I could live off for a while, and I thought, yeah, that's a good idea. So I arranged my life to take a six-month sabbatical and go to I decided to go to Asia and do some backpacking because I wanted to be in a part of the world where people just didn't think the same as me. Because I wanted to get new insight into my life and get reflections on my life, and I thought if I just surround myself with people in the same kind of strata as me, they're just gonna tell me what I already know, it won't be helpful at all. So I decided to go to the eastern part of the world and hear the philosophies and traditions of those places, and uh that's what that's the intention. I fully intended to return after six months and start again because I sold my house in London before I left, and rather than buy an apartment or something before I went, I decided to wait six months till I returned so I'd have a better idea of where I might want to be located. Um, it didn't work out like that. I never came back after six months. I I don't know if I've got time to tell you what happened, but then one thing led to another, and I I kept on uncovering things I really were moved by or wanted to learn or do. I ended up living out my backpack for 14 years, Nate.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

So wow. I never came back. I never came back.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

That's wild to me. It's just so crazy. Another like theme I've seen throughout the episodes as well, not only the connection one, but a lot of times we'll deal with things that we don't really like for a really long time until something big changes. So you have a rock bottom, you have a traumatic event, we've had like car crashes, we've had things, but it's interesting to me, we'll deal with like just slight discomfort, like a job that we pretty much hate for a really long time, yeah. Until like something big, and it's kind of wild. So I hope like when we make the episodes and people listen and whatnot, if you're like, you know, not like a slight, you know, inconvenience, don't just quit your job. But if you're really not in it, I think we need to, you know, move on and try some different stuff. So that's a really good foundation. Thanks for laying that down, Ray. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. So before we get too much farther, Ray, I want to see if you have a question for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yeah. I mean, what what uh what's your sort of inner journey of life been like? I'm quite curious to know what stage you're in. You asked me what stage are you in, Ray? What stage are you in in yours?

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah, that's good. Uh so I'm at 17 years active duty Air Force. Uh so I'm coming up on like either retirement or maybe command and you know, having been able to lead some people. So I've always wanted to lead other people, and so that's a goal of mine. Um, if they won't let me, they think I'm a little too weird and crazy. That's fine. But I want to keep pushing on and see if I could uh take that command leadership position and do that. And that'll probably be kind of the end for me, um, because that'll be probably between 22 and 25 years of service. Uh so I'd like to give the chance back to the family to settle down and stop moving. Uh, everyone's happy right now. We kind of have the going rate that if everyone's still happy, we take the next assignment, and then if everyone's still happy, we take the next move. And and so far everyone's loving the United Kingdom. We're down to our last year out here. So everyone's a little sad to leave this one, but they want us to move on and go somewhere else. So we're gonna be finding out here probably in about a month where we're going. Uh yeah, working full time. I'm trying to work on my certified emergency manager certification. Uh so I have this thing where I'm terrified of my mind breaking down. I don't mind if my body breaks down for some reason that feels natural, like I know I'm gonna have a walker or whatever, but my being lost in your own mind kind of terrifies me. And so I keep trying to learn and do tangible things. So I've done scuba diving and skydiving and different things where I have to like work on a skill for a set period of time. And right now I'm trying to get this board certification. So that's kind of what I'm working on right now. Um, enjoying my time at the special operations wing out here at Milton Hall helping the medical team. But yeah, really enjoying it and uh looking forward to what this next uh next year looks like. Amazing. Sounds like a really colorful life. Oh, yeah. So I've done air traffic control, contracting, now I'm a hospital administrator, so my jobs are kind of all over the place. I couldn't really figure out what I wanted to be for a long time, but I love hospital administration because I love helping people. Right. But I pass out at blood and needles, so I get to do medical admin. So I run logistics, pharmacy, uh, insurance, systems, phones, internet, all the stuff that runs the backside of a hospital. So I keep everything going and I try to not look at the blood when it shows up.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Oh, yeah. Gosh.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Took me a while to find the job, eight years into the service before I found it, but found finally found it. But we'll start with your first pillar, Ray, which is life without a tie. We started to touch on this a little bit, but what does life without a tie mean beyond that literal image?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah, it it's the title of a book that I was asked to write that chronicled the 14 years that I was living without ties. And those ties were ironically, the tie of the businessman, which I gave up because I got rid of all my suits, shirts, and ties that I wore every day, my uniform. That just got completely discarded. But the big ties that were let go of were the four ties that define everybody's life, and this would probably be interesting to the listeners, I hope. The tie of your career, the tie of your home, your physical home, the tie of your spouse or your partner, and the tie of your family and friends. Those are the four ties which affect every single decision that we make or enable us to really define who we are, because you know, how many times do people say, Oh, I I'm thinking about taking this job, but it's not in the area that I'm living, and it would disrupt my family, or I would I wouldn't be able to see my friends, or whatever it would be. So those were the for me, I had a really rare, I think, opportunity to have all those ties cut at the same time and decided to see well what if life was an experiment, what would life without a tie actually be like? Because I think I meet a lot of people who are in executive jobs or in fixed careers, etc. And when I talk to them about what's happened, a lot of them say, Oh, I'd love to do what you did, I'd love to do what you did. But I say to them, you know, your fantasy about what that's like is probably not really close to the reality of what it actually was like. But so I've written the story in a book with all the you know, with all the comings and goes and the goods and not so good aspects of that life, and I've spent I've laid it out. And so that's what life without a tie is is. It's what what happened, what did I learn? What was the wisdom and insight that I gained from living that way, and comparing that to living with ties, which I now do, because in my life now I've got some ties, and I'm very happy about that. I'm tied into a beautiful partnership with my partner Carolyn. I've you've got another I've got a home here in the UK now, and so I I I I'm happy to be tied. It's not about extremes of not or tied or not, you know. It's just that for a while it just served me to to actually allow myself the I guess the privilege, it seems like, of doing the things that most interested me without having to reference anybody or anything or ask permission or take a break from any system that I was part of. It was brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

That's interesting. I wonder why that happens. I feel like that has happened to me quite a few times. Like, I'll tell a story about scuba or uh skydiving or something I mentioned, or uh, I was enlisted in the Air Force and I crossed over to get my commission to be an officer, and I'll bump into a lot of people and they're like, I wish I could do that. And I always think like you can. So what what do you say to the people like that do that? Like, you can go and do these things.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Well, I I I I don't necessarily jump to that moment. It's tempting, but I say, well, why would you want to? You know, if you were it why would you want to? What would what are you hoping what changes would that bring for you? You know, what are you hoping to do? Yeah, because the truth is you can change your life without going anywhere. Because what I discovered when I did my life with Outside Journey, that what essentially changed, what really changed was how I was thinking on the inside. Because I was stimulated by and challenged to think by things on the outside that I was encountering. But the real change was as Michael Singer so beautifully says, there's you there's the outside and we live in the on the inside. Your thinking and your feeling is in the inside. You live inside. You know, because you couldn't think or feel if you weren't inside your body. You you could you just wouldn't be alive, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Do you ever reflect back and wonder if you wouldn't have lost your partner and your dad and all those things, and like you said, had those broken ties, would you still be a CEO?

SPEAKER_01 16:16

I it's hard to answer those questions hypothetically because life events flow towards you and you choose your response to them in real time, and then because you've chosen a certain response, your life goes over there instead of over there, and you can't know what it was like. Like if you go to a restaurant and order one meal off the menu a year later, someone says, What if you'd ordered a different meal off that menu? You would you you'd say, But I don't know if that would have changed my life. Maybe I'd gone to the toilet five minutes earlier than I might have done or something. I don't know. I a bit it's just it's very hard to know, but I don't think so. I think I think what that what that gave me was a chance to reflect and review being in that situation and make a conscious choice that that was no longer something I really wanted to do.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

So I think that leads to a follow-up question from earlier. I'm curious for you to push out to the listeners that are in a a job or something, they're discomfort, they're not miserable, but they're just not quite happy. I guess, like you said, you try to get to the why, but what other advice do you have for them to try to? I guess you need to identify those core values first.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yeah, I I think that, you know, when I'm talking to people these days, I think the the place to start is to say, if you were to draw a picture of what your perfect life would look like, not to tell anyone else, just for yourself, if you just drew a picture of it, you know, what would be it, what would it be like? What would you be thinking, feeling, seeing, knowing, saying, you know, if you described it as a picture and then held that alongside the life you're actually in, where are the gaps? You know, what what are the what are the changes that would need to be made to transit you from the life you're in to this life of the picture? And for a lot of people, there's nothing major that's needed. It's a it's maybe a one courageous decision to leave one job to take another, or or maybe a relationship needs to be rejuvenated or reinvigorated or ended. You know, for some for a lot of people, it's ending or stopping doing things. It's not actually about doing more. It's it's letting go of. For a lot of people, it's letting go of stuff they don't that doesn't serve them anymore, and they don't need to do it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Is there anything that you see like earlier I'd mentioned the cars and the house and the money and whatnot? Are there like everyone's completely different? So maybe there isn't. But have you seen like trends of things that show up in these pictures? Or like, oh, that's interesting. It seems like a similar thing shows up in a lot of these pictures.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

It depends on who I'm talking to. So like I spent last week, you know, coaching partners in a senior, you know, a global accountancy firm. And th many of those people have have a very legitimate value of status. That's something they want, that's something that's important to them. So they work hard to create the income to create that status. So they're driven by that, and that's great. But it's not for mine, but for some people that's what's true for them. Um for other people, they're driven by service. They don't they're not really concerned about what they have or what the what the house they live in is as long as it's okay. It doesn't have to be you know in a very posh neighbourhood or anything. They they're what they're into is just making sure that everyone who they serve gets what they need, whether it's you know charity or uh a medical service or for people that are homeless or whatever it might be, those people are dedicated to the care of people you know that that get reached by those services. So it's hard. So I I but as a general trend, I would say, especially among generations, I'm in my 60s, but what I'm seeing in the younger generations is definitely, definitely, categorically a move away from values based around materialism, which were the predominant values of society when I was growing up. Like I was told as a kid in the 60s and 70s, if you want to be successful, you've got to get a big house, a car, you know, have all these trappings, because that was the measure of someone who was successful, what they had, what they owned, what the how much stuff they could accumulate, and the better the quality of the stuff, the better they were. But this these days, I I think that's of literally no interest whatsoever. James Wallman in his book called Stuffocation talks about this and he's researched it heavily. He says younger generations are much more interested in values based around experiences they want to have, and he calls that experientialism. So we're moving from materialism to experientialism, you know, through the different generations of society.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

That's pretty awesome to hear. I feel that a lot. Me and my wife have kind of gone over that when we come up on Christmas and we get toys and there's like hard plastic everywhere and whatnot. And then we've kind of resorted the last couple of years to going on a trip, like we went to Paris and whatnot, and that just seems to make way more sense. Like they remember going to Paris and seeing the Eiffel Tower and the Olympic rings and things that are memorable. The toy, like we get to next year, they don't even know where that thing's at. I'd probably have thrown it away.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

So another book that really was informative to me, and you might know these guys, there's a couple of American guys called uh Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Milburn. They wrote a book called The Minimalists, and it was based on an experiment they conducted because they had a hunch that we owned way too much stuff, you know, and so they decided for a month to put the entire contents of their apartment into boxes and then just take out what they actually needed to use a toothbrush or a cup or a kettle or whatever. Well, it ended up after a month using about three or four percent of the things in the boxes, and they realized that the head weighed too much, and so they started this whole movement called minimalism, and there's a Netflix documentary about it, and there's loads of guides and practical books how. To do it. But I live, I live very minimally. I own almost nothing these days. I mean, I have what I need, and I'm really happy about that. But I I have no desire to like load my space up with stuff I don't use.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

That is that's a good one. Yeah. We move a lot and so we purge stuff out. And it's like that same thing. You look at all these things. Like, why do we we end up having like two can openers? I'm like, what are we doing? Like, why do we have two can openers? You only need one can opener.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah, but I'd say for some people, I mean I can't judge anyone, everyone's got to make their own choices. But you know, I see people who spend like they but spend 500 pounds on a pair of trainers. And I think and they're unhappy about life or something, and they could have spent half that and gone on a really good workshop or course on how to improve, and it would be a much better investment, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

So yeah, a trip or giving it away. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

And and so this is the the the the uh the sort of disease of consumerism that's been engineered into society. Obviously, capitalist society requires a lot of consumerism to sustain itself. So, you know, we're we're persuaded to buy things we don't really need, but we definitely want.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yeah, that's definitely true. I think that's a good segue into our next one. We talked about kind of measures of success and how it's changed over time. So the next pillar we have is the six rules for happiness. So can you outline these six rules?

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah, I don't know how much time I've got, but I have to whiz through them because they they take a while. But I mean, there are six things I learned from living without a tie for 14 years that are really important if you want to be happy. The first one is you have to be willing to commit to a life of self-reflection and self-awareness. If you're not willing to do that, you haven't got a hope of having a really extraordinary life. Because to get the best out of life and yourself, you really be need to be willing to know more about what are your values, what's your vision, what are your beliefs that are empowering you, and what are the beliefs that are holding you back constantly that are below the surface. Uh, when are you in your element where your passions and your natural talents converge and you could just do something all day long because you're getting so much energy because you're doing something you love and something you're good at. So there's a lot in the self-foundation of self-awareness. That's the first rule. Create a foundation of self-awareness. If and if you don't want to, forget the rest. The second rule, which is part of that, is taking full ownership for your life. Because if your life's not going how you want it, you can stand and wait and hope, or you can stand and blame someone else, you can make excuses, you can say, I don't know how to do it. You can do anything you like, but when you're doing all of those things, you're not holding yourself accountable, you're way down the accountability ladder, as I call it. And to move into an accountable, empowered place, you've got to start owning what's happening, acknowledging reality, finding solutions and making stuff happen. You know, you've got to have a different mindset, and that's around that's what full ownership means. There's no one else who's going to step in and save you. It's got to be you that's doing it, driving it. Um, third one is when you're doing that, one of the things that really helps a lot is to become your own observer. We're very much tied up in believing that our thinking is reality, is the truth, is right. And we do many of us don't realise that what we think is often not at all serving our well-being or our greatness. But we're so automatically thinking the same thoughts repetitively and reacting the same way that we don't step back but separate ourselves and go, ah, that's interesting what you just said to me, Nate, because as I'm listening, I notice that I am starting to feel a bit agitated as I'm listening to that. What we tend to do is go, God, no, that's really pissed me off, Nate. You really made me feel lousy, you know, because I think that you're doing it to me, you know, but you're not. It's my own thinking about what you're saying that's causing the discomfort in me. It's I'm hearing you, then I'm uh causing myself some discomfort by my own thinking about what you've said. So becoming your own observer gives you a chance to see that separation and realize you're not your thoughts. There you are thinking those thoughts, so you can't be the thoughts, you're separate to those. That's number three. It's a big topic that one. I took me five years to get my head around that. So that's okay. I don't think I'm gonna do it in five minutes. The number four is create powerful, purposeful, and sustainable relationships with people, because that's really served me my entire life. And what that means is if you and me ended up working for the same company in the same team or something, on on day one, we'd sit alongside each other and we could just decide to say hello, be kind of distant but polite, and just get on with our work. But I could say to you, no, should we have a conversation about how we could really help each other grow here? Because we're both starting at the same time. And if we if I tell you what my best vision is for myself, and you tell me what your best vision is for yourself, we can create a pact of support. We can give each other feedback, we can be challenging for each other, we can push each other to take opportunities and risks that we might not otherwise do, and we can support each other and help each other realize our dreams more quickly. We could have a relationship in which that's the key feature of it. You know, it's it's an intentional relationship. So I think if you're building relationships like that in your life and really serving the other person that you're relating to or team that you're with, then great things happen for them and for yourself. You know, it's a great way of being. So that's number four. Uh rule number five is really come up, I think, in the last 10 or 15 years. It's proactively managing your well-being because these days the world is so toxic and complex and difficult and corrupt and all sorts of things that we are prone to things like you know, heart attacks, stress, burnout, um, illnesses. Um I can't, you know, go go can go on about this forever, but we have to own and take care of our own mental health, physical health, emotional health, and spiritual health and have routines and practices that enable us to regenerate ourselves when we're in a low resource state to be at our best. We we need good rest, we need good food, we need all sorts of things. So we have to manage our well-being proactively. Now, if you're doing all those five, rule number six is possible, but rule number six won't work if you're not doing those five. And the rule number six is when you're when you're living um when you're when you've integrated those five beliefs or practices into your life, find and empower other people to do the same. Because if you're doing that, then you are deeply, deeply integrating the practice for yourself by sharing and teaching others how to live that way. And it's power and it's a it's a virtuous circle because it's lifting all boats at the same time, you know. So uh that's the rule. I know anyone I know who's doing that, who's actually actively it doesn't have to be in work, you know, you could be living that way and then you're empowering your kids to live that way. It it's it doesn't matter who it is, but as long as you're consciously aware of helping others do that, you will be living well.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yeah, that's wild too. I've seen so many people, like being military, you try to go for promotions and things like that, not quite like the civilian world. But it's always interesting to me because the people that want to get promoted and kind of step on others, it's kind of reverse, you know, counter uh intuitive to them. Because if they were to take care of the team, the team would take care of them, and then they would look good and then they'd get promoted. So it's kind of always kind of funny to me. I'm like, if you just took care of the people, like most of the time that'll pay off because the results come, the percentages, like you look like a more effective team, things look better, but the ones that kind of backstab or stand on others or whatnot kind of are like, why is it not working? It's like, well, you probably need to take care of the people. Like you said, build those strong connections. And then not that it always comes comes around. Sometimes it takes a while, or maybe it never does, but like you still feel good about it.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Yeah, it definitely does. I've got quite a few stories where it's ha where it's benefited me in my own life. So I can tell it to you maybe another time.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

So for the listeners out there, Ray, that hear the six rules for happiness are like, okay, cool, yeah, that sounds great. Like, how do these rules hold up when life gets difficult, things are unexpected, or or even painful in some cases?

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Well, they don't sometimes. I mean, I I don't live every day of my life living all of those, you know, religiously. I I forget or I miss something, or I kind of, you know, have periods where I'm not so well resourced, or and it's harder to do that. Um, so you just, you know, be self-accepting, self-love, compassion as as as as lots of Christ uh Christine Neff, I think it is Christian Neff. I think she talks about self-compassion and being kind to yourself when you slip. That's we all do. We all do. You know, but there's the aspiration, and then reality can be sometimes you fall off the wagon for a day or two, which I do, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Yeah, you gotta try. What rule do you think people struggle with the most?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

I'd say probably the first one, the foundation of self-awareness. That's the hardest. Self-awareness. Because it's a lifetime commitment. It's like getting married. You know, it's not just for one day, it's forever. You know, there's no there's no end. You don't unless you're doing it all the time, you're losing it.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

You gotta keep looking at yourself in the mirror and hopefully you're taking that self-reflection. I think a lot of people, if they had more self-reflection, we'd be in a lot better spot. Like you said earlier, like you feel offended or you feel some type of way, and the person just said something as they passed you in the hallway, didn't mean anything, and you're like thinking they think you're the worst when they didn't even mean anything. So sometimes you definitely got to pause and what did that actually mean? Or maybe it didn't mean anything at all.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Yeah, exactly. Or even ask the person, you know, I I I noticed as you passed, your face made this gesture. Is there something I've done that's bothered you or something? Just actually finding out the reality.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah. Which is interesting because you ask people, like, did you talk to them? No. Yeah, right. Never directly. Yeah, yeah. Well, Ray, your final pillar is wisdom. What's something you're absolutely certain of at that or you were absolutely certain of at 30 that you see completely differently today?

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Yeah, I I I think I was absolutely certain at 30 that you know the main goal of life was to be successful at everything, you know, and have the have the medals and badges and uh trappings of it to prove to everybody that you are worthy. As Bronny Ware so beautifully says in her book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, it's a fantastic book. She she works in a hospice and only speaks to people in the last days of their life, and she says to them all, what do you most regret? The number one regret that everyone has, no exceptions. I wished I'd lived my life true to myself and not the life that others expected of me. And so I was living the life that others expected of me to prove I could be successful in the world and get the measure of that. And now I realise that that's for myself, for my own well-being and inner peace, that is so irrelevant and unimportant. It's just now I'm if I go to bed at night, put my head on the pillow, and I think, was I kind today? Did I love the people I'm around as well as I could? And if I can ask that, yes, I feel like the richest man in England. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah, that's that's really inspiring. It's interesting because earlier this week I had another one where we were talking about wearing masks. Right. And it's I don't understand like how it got so deeply rooted within us. Like we had an example, you walk into a house, you're at a party or something, and maybe you don't drink, and they're like, hey, would you want to drink? And you're just gonna say, Yeah. You you don't believe it. You know it's not true, and you're like, Yeah, I'll take one. And it's like, even as you're saying it, you know it's not true because that's not like what you do. And we're so like inundated or so whatever programmed, I guess. You're just like, Yeah, I'll take one. And you're having it, you're like, I didn't even want this, but we're so automatic where we'll just kind of go with it. It's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yeah, because we need the approval or whatever it is of some somebody, you know, for some reason. I it's a weird one you picked that because I don't drink alcohol. And so I'm constantly saying to people, I'm sorry, I don't drink. You know, I still go to the pub, but I'll have a southern drink.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

I'm in the same way. Like, I don't like I'm not completely against it. I'm not like, you know, adamant, but like I just don't find it. If it's an event, it's social, it's a fun thing, like we're celebrating. And like, but I want to choose. Like that, I think that's where it's difficult for me. Being in the military, we have events and whatnot. And it's almost like you have to, or it's automatic. Like if I choose, I want to do it. That's fine. But I just don't want the the forcing. And I wish it was more acceptable. Because like you said, you oh no, I'm good. And it's like, are you are you are you fine? Are you driving? Are you is there something wrong with you? I'm like, no, no, I just don't. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

How often do you get to wear your dress uniform? You know, the formal gob?

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Uh, not very often. Uh not in the position I'm in now. I'm in a very small section. I used to have a section of like a hundred, and so you go to all the events for your members, and so it was a lot more uh often. Right now, it's probably only every few months. But yeah, the promotion ceremonies and whatnot, it's immediately like to the bar and you have to grab a drink. And it's like, do we? Uh it's a very interesting thing. Well, Ray, I'm curious. Can wisdom be accelerated or does all wisdom come from experience? Gosh.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

God, that's a question for the philosophers. I don't know if I'm qualified to answer. I can only speak personally. I I've gained so much wisdom through being curious and having a desire to learn and stay curious. Ken, what's his name? Uh oh, a guy. 15 Commitments of conscious leaders is the book. Jim Dethmer wrote it. He he his model for coaching leaders is he draws a horizontal line across a clean sheet of paper and he says, Are you above the line most of the time or below the line? Of course, people say, What is the line, Jim? And uh he says, Well, above the line, your commitment and your motivation is to be open, to learn, and be curious. Below the line, your commitment is to be close, defensive, and be right. So it's a stance in life. You know, it's like a bit like when you're flying an airplane, you maybe relate to this, and you're using visual references to the horizon. When that horizon's rising, you're you know you're diving. You know, when that horizon's falling below, you know you're climbing. You know, you it gives you it gives you an attitude indicator where you are and how you're motivated.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Yeah. Huh. That's interesting. When people ask for your advice, Ray, what topic do they most uh they bring up the most often?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Oh well, usually it's like um either how can I deal with some issue that I face as a leader or a challenge as a leader in the team I'm working with, or how can I be happier with some personal situation they have. It's I can't say there's one common one, but you know, they normally relate to at the end of the day, it all comes down to some relationship issue in a way. But obviously they're half of that dynamic, so that's the half that we look at.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

I'm curious. I love to hear stories, Ray. I think that's the way we pass information the best. You can hear things or read things in a textbook, but when you hear a story, I feel like it really connects. Do you have any stories uh maybe related to the six rules of happiness you saw somebody put step one, made it through six, and you just saw this dramatic change without you know highlighting someone that doesn't want to be highlighted? But do you have any stories to kind of show the example?

SPEAKER_01 38:36

I love telling stories. I I got one like go back to the rule number four, which was the uh rule where you build purposeful, powerful, and sustainable relationships. So when I quit being a CEO, I sold the company and and had to make quite I had to let a few people go, even the best people we had. The company wasn't gonna exist in the form it was in. And so one of them, a lady called Claire, I had huge admiration for. She joined a company as a very young trainee and she'd made brilliant progress. She was one of our star performers, and I saw she was young, but she had great potential. And so I went and had a chat with her. I said, Look, I I'd really like to help you find the next leg of your journey without this company. Um, would you like me to go out there and ask around? And because I'd like to help you find a home after this closes. And she said, Yeah, that'd be great. So I went to a rival company where I knew the owners quite well, even though we were rivals, I knew them. And I just confidentially said, Yeah, I've got this great person. She won't have a role in our business beyond a certain point. But I strongly recommend you would want to hire her because she's got amazing potential and they're in the same business. And they were really grateful that I told them, and then they reproached her and they offered her a job and she joined. Well, five years later, or so many years later, they're thrilled to bits. She's really doing great things for them, etc. So much so that they found an exit and sold their business to a much larger organisation. She's helped them do it. And so I didn't know any of this at the time. I went off to Asia, lived my 14 years out of my backpack. And a year 13, I'm living in Warsaw in Poland, because I've met someone from Poland and I've moved there. And now I can start working in the UK again for projects here and there because I can fly over and fly back and it's easy. So I called Claire just to say hello, or you know, to say how because she's a personal friend, you know. Um, she she loyally served for six years, and she's been now been married, she's had her kids are a bit older, she's had two kids, they've grown up, blah, blah, blah. And so I'm just having a personal catch-up with her in a phone call. And I said to her, Rare at the very end, I said, Oh, by the way, what are you doing professionally? She said, Oh, well, I'm having a bit of time off, but me and the the founder of this company we've just sold, we're thinking about launching a new business. Uh, and um, it's about coaching emerging leaders, and these are the reasons we're doing it. And she spoke about it, and I was so excited by what I was hearing. I said to her, Claire, do you know what? I think I'd really like to be a part of that. You know, I work freelance as a coach. Can I would you put me on the team of coaches? Do you need any coaches? Are you going to hire them? She said, Yeah, that would be possible. Yeah, I definitely think I would want to do that. She said, But you were my boss for seven years, and now I'd be your boss. How'd you feel about that? I said, Look, I've no pride about that at all. I trust you implicitly, and I'd really like to support serve you and support you to make this business successful, and I'd really like to do that. So from 2018, I've joined that team and I've been on many projects with them, still am, and I've just been involved ever since. And that just came from having a brilliant relationship where I didn't even speak to her for 13 years.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Oh that's wild. Yeah. You never know. You just do like the little things, and then you know, it comes back around. I think a lot of people struggle with that. They want like, especially nowadays with Google and fast food and Amazon delivery and all these things. We want it like now, but sometimes you just gotta build up kind of some currency between people, and not that you're like cashing it in. That sounds very transactional, but you like take care of people, and then you know, maybe 14 years later, like it comes back around, but you don't know, but you have to keep doing the right thing. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Yeah, absolutely. Agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

That's awesome. Well, Ray, we talked about life without a tie, the six rules for happiness, and some wisdom. So let's see if we can bring it all together. If someone listening right now wanted to build a life marked by freedom, wisdom, and genuine happiness, where should they start?

SPEAKER_01 42:51

In turn in terms of their own journey, that is to def is to kind of start to create the vision of them for themselves and articulate that. And then that what that will reveal are some stepping stones that they can make as small steps to start moving towards that vision in that direction. It doesn't matter whether you just do tiny little steps, as long as you're traveling towards that vision. Um, you know, I my I I wrote a lot about this in Life Without a Tie, the book, which is of on Amazon. If anyone wants to read that, that would help them definitely see how I applied it to myself. And there's lots of tips and guidance in there that would help. Awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna do that. I'm also if anyone if if anyone's listening and they want me to help them personally, they can just come reach out and contact me.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

I'd be happy to. So absolutely. I'm gonna put that book in the cart. Well, Ray, thank you for sharing your experiences, perspectives, and lessons learned along the way. Before we wrap up, where can listeners connect with you and learn more about your work?

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Um, best place I'd say is LinkedIn, because as I'm active there every day. And if they're not on LinkedIn, then lifewithout a tie.com is a website dedicated to the book. And that just awesome.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Its own dedicated website. Well, check uh Ray Martin out on LinkedIn or catch the book. To anyone listening, remember that meaningful life isn't built all at once. It's built one decision, one lesson, and one day at a time. I love you all. See ya.