031 - Richard Barrett on Leading Life, Overcoming Your Ego's Fears for Full Soul-Expression

00:00 John You're listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development. To change your experience of life and work with every episode.

00:17 Tony So tune in, grab your notebook, and let's go.

00:20 John Let's go. Welcome to another episode of The Present Professional. Today we have a special guest with us, Richard Barrett, a writer, a philosopher, a painter, and a soul having a human experience. And we're so excited to have him on after going through the seven levels of consciousness model and how we were excited about looking at all of that. We reached out to his organization, the Barrett Value Center, and we're able to connect with him. So we're really excited to share the human behind all of the insight that we've gone over in the last couple of episodes. And with that, I think I did an all right job introducing you, Richard.  Anything else that you'd want our audience to know? 

01:12 Richard No, no. Maybe you could put in my websites. People can go there and find my books.  I forgot to mention I would also. But anyhow, yeah, I'll put a couple of websites away. You can find more information.

01:29 John And we'll leave all of that in the show notes as well for you guys. And one part of the introduction conversation with Richard that I thought was really interesting and was really close to my heart and some of the things that I've been exploring in my life is this look between how the ego develops and how we spend a lot of our lives, the early lives developing that ego and developing the shield and what kind of that protection and defense mechanisms. And then we spend the other balance once we kind of see that unraveling it and how that relates to becoming a leader, not just within an organization, but really a leader of your life. So I wanted I want to turn that over to Richard to introduce that concept to you guys. 

02:24 Richard  Well, great. Look, please interrupt me because I'm like one of those that you have for ever ready batteries. Once I'm going, it's difficult to stop. So I want to leave spaces for your question. Right. So from what you've just said so far, people have an idea about the ego and the soul. And so let's get that sorted out. And there's nothing wrong with the ego. It's the fears of the ego which are the problem. And the fears of the ego really come in three dimensions. I don't have enough. I'm not loved enough. And I'm not enough. It's about self-esteem. And so during the first 20 odd years of our lives, we develop these fears. Now, where does the ego come from? Well, the ego was created by the soul pretty much in the first two years of your life to act as a buffer to this world of separation. The soul comes from a four dimensional energetic continuum where there is only love and connection and no separation. And then it finds itself living in this three dimensional material world and the separation is very painful. So the soul creates the ego as a psychic entity in order to block the sense of separation. And the ego says to the soul, says to the ego, go ahead. You know, you look after me in this three dimensional world. Well, the problem is the ego takes this job very seriously, isn't aware that it has this instruction and does the best job it can. And so for the first 20 years of your life, you go through the surviving stages of development. The next stage is the safe relationship stage of development and then the self-esteem stage of development. So these three stages of development, by the time we get to 20, they were pretty much complete with them. But we've also learned all sorts of fears about getting our needs met. Some people have an easy journey. They're born to self-actualized parents who will give them a sense of who they are and allow them to fully express themselves. Most people on the planet never have that experience. And so practically everybody that I know, well, everybody on the planet has these fear-based beliefs to some degree, which belong to the ego. And the rest of your life is about letting go of those beliefs so that you can live from soul consciousness. And so, as I said, many, many people never get to that fourth stage of development. Get stuck in the first three stages. And however, if you're brought up by self-actualized parents who really take care of you and nurture you and look after your soul, the soul really only wants to do three things. It wants to self-express, connect, and contribute. And so if you're able to do that and if your parents are able to teach you how to do that, you are plain sailing up to the fourth stage of development, through the fourth stage of development, into the fifth, sixth, and seventh stages. And that fourth stage is all about freedom. I'll stop there because that gives you an overview of the journey of the ego and the soul.

06:04 John Wow. Moving through those three stages and being born to self-actualized parents. I think that's an interesting combination. And through a lot of my readings and trainings in Eastern philosophy, through yoga and meditation, that is said to be the last life, being born into a yogic family. And I think that's, like you mentioned, something that's really rare. Get those two together.

06:40 Richard You can be born into a regular family, but if there's a lot of fear in the family and the parents haven't managed to overcome their fears, they will transmit those fears to the child. And then how does one become aware of the core fears that they're carrying from their childhood if it's so just ingrained in how they've been navigating the world for 20 years? Well, the answer to that question is pretty easy. Pain. Emotional pain. Upset. Conflict. Anything that lacks harmony in your life generally comes from a belief that you either don't have enough, you're not enough, or you're not loved enough. And so if you're having a difficult time with your relationships, if you're having a difficult time with your work, look at yourself. What are the beliefs that I have? What needs do I have that are not being met? You see, during the first three stages of development, over the age of 20, we have needs. During the first two years, the need is to be nurtured and cared for. In other words, to survive and the survival need. Now, and then from soon to about seven or eight, the need is to be belong and being a loving environment. And then from about eight or nine till early 20s, the need is to be recognized and to be seen, particularly by your parents and by your peers. So if none of those, if you don't get any of those needs met, you will spend the rest of your life trying to get those needs met. Now, a perfect example, which all of your listeners will know is Donald Trump. He has unmet needs from every stage of early development and hasn't really gone to the transformation stage and the fourth stage because he's still trying to get his needs met from his childhood.

08:50 Tony  Wow. You know, this is hidden home for me, Richard, because I have a 20-month-old son. And how do you know if you're self-actualized? I think I'm doing a pretty decent job of being aware, very aware. All right. Well, let's ask you a few questions, shall we? OK. What's your biggest fear? Wow. My biggest fear is that I won't have enough time to reach enough people, to help enough people to unlock their best lives and theirself.

09:23 Richard OK, so that's your focus on helping other people. Now, that's going to have an impact on your wife and your family because you're going to be torn between your sense of purpose and the needs of your family. And that is going to create, if you're not careful, you're going to leave your children wanting more of you, not getting enough of you and not getting their needs met. So it doesn't really matter. You see, the soul enters into life with the idea of self-expression, connection and contribution. It doesn't matter how big or little. That's the ego talking. Oh, I want to reach all these people in the world and I want to change this. God, that's the ego. The soul doesn't care. The soul doesn't absolutely bloody care how many people you reach. All it cares about is are you living? Self-expression, connection, contribution. So the soul doesn't measure. It's the ego that measures. For God's sake, you know, like, oh, yeah, we spoke to 10,000 people last week. Oh, yeah, you know, this, that's all ego speak. So the sphere that you have, and it's got to go with a good question, is coming. From a misplaced sense of ego. So it doesn't matter. You have to care for those who you love and care for them in every way possible. And you have to put their needs ahead of your needs. Wow. That's the secret. I did a coaching session with a fellow the other day who he and his wife were really not getting along. And so we talked about, well, you know, you say, well, you know, I told her I've got these needs, I've got this, I need this. I said, OK, how about if we make the relationship non-transactional and you just really focus on her needs and you'll get all your needs met automatically. Three days later, you call me and you say, it really worked. I said, yeah, what you put out into the world is what you get back when you focus on other people's needs, not your needs. It's magic. See, I learned about 50, 20 years ago and I have no needs. What does that mean? It means that when I'm living in soul awareness, my soul creates my environment in such a way that everything I could possibly need arrives before I know I need it. But you see, the ego can't stand that. The ego says, God, I've got to have this. I can't. You see, the ego is impatient because it has fear. The soul doesn't have fear. And the biggest fear people have is death. Well, for the soul, there is no death, it does not exist. It's just that I exist in, I'm having an experience in three-dimensional material reality and then I'll stop having that experience and I'll go back to four-dimensional energetic reality where there is total connection, total love and everything is fantastic. 

12:38 Tony  Wow. Richard, can I ask a quick follow-up question to that?

12:43 Richard No, you're not allowed any questions.

12:47 Tony How do you balance the ego when it comes to your social life? Because we're social beings and social creatures, but a lot of, most people that I come across are very ego-driven and when you disconnect from the ego and focus on the soul, it's almost like you're speaking two different languages and it's hard to communicate.

13:10 Richard Where would I be without my ego? I would be, you know, I love my ego. It's the fears in my ego that are the issue. I'm a character, I'm a personality. You can tell that. And that's wrapped up in my ego, but the ego has no, it's the fear of the ego that get in the way of my living, my soul destiny. So, so be who you are, but don't allow fear into your life. Subtle fear. That, you know, I'm not loved enough or things that we learn in childhood, which are actually, we learn them because we don't have a fully functioning brain. That's two years of your life. Your child is 20 months. It really only has one brain that's working. And that's the Ereptilian mind brain. And all I really need is looking after, feeding, keeping dry and love, basically. But then from two to now, then it begins to form the ego. And then from two to eight, the limbic mind brain, which is a relationship brain, forms and it needs to feel loved and belonging. And then from about eight or nine, it's a relationship brain. From about eight or nine to early twenties, the rational mind, rational brain, the neocortex, forms. Now you'll notice, certainly true for me, and I'm absolutely sure true for you, that during your teenage years, you do really stupid stuff, really stupid stuff, because you don't have a fully functional rational brain. And so during those childhood years, you don't have a rational brain, you're not fully developed. So everything happens to you, you interpret it through your emotions and they stay with you. So the things that you learn in the first two years of your life are deeply embedded. The next two, from two to eight, what you learn is embedded, but not deeply. And then the fear. And then from eight to twenty two, the fears you learn are not so deeply embedded. It's relatively easy to correct the fears around self-esteem. It is less easy to correct the fears around belonging and love, and it's very difficult to correct the fears that the baby learns in the womb and during the first two years of life.

15:52 John Wow. Taking a lot there, Tony.

15:56 Richard Yeah. And you know, so now who are you? Okay. I'm now I'm working in the world and I'm doing leadership development courses for people. Fine. Well, actually, that's fine. But actually what you're really doing, what you're trying to do unravel for them are these fears from the first three years of development, which are causing them pain and blocking them from being the best person they can be. And so leadership development, I mean, the misnomer is ridiculous. You're not teaching leaders, you're teaching people how to become whole. So they can lead themselves. And then through the example of leading themselves, they automatically become leaders of others. I was just talking yesterday to a young woman, late 30s, early 40s, promoted to a really high position in a big company in Europe. And there were lots of people, men and women with better qualifications. But she got the job because of who she is. And she'd been on my course, Living Your Soul Destiny, a year ago, and she got the job six months later. Not that she was already well-cooked, but you know, and so I was talking to her yesterday, I said, so what, you know, why do you spend your time? She said, really, I spend my time helping my people stay sane and to have balanced lives. That's where I spend most of my time. Not on the business and the production, but on helping my people get balanced lives. And that, and therefore she gets a lot out of people by helping them to be balanced and to reduce the fears that they have and the stress, because stress is all self-induced. Even though you might be under tight deadlines and everything, stress is actually just you letting fear dominate your life.

18:11 John Letting fear dominate your life. And this brings me back to the point that you made on meeting the needs of others and like focusing on the needs of others. And when you mentioned that to start that whole concept of leadership just came back to my mind of that. And then you mentioned what she's doing is also meeting her own needs, leading her own life. And then through that, being able to help others meet their needs. So it almost seems like that leadership is enabling other souls to self-express. Yes. And being a role model. A role model for the self-expression as well.

19:02 Richard Yes, exactly. A role model for self-expression, connection and contribution. So there's something for your 20-month-old, Tony. You want to get them into a school or a learning system where they are taught how to self-express, how to play and be helpful with other children. And that's connection and how to contribute to the classroom or to the school. Self-expression, connection, contribution. If you can teach your kids that at an early age, they'll be well on the way to self-actualization when they get to their early 20s. That's the best thing you can do for your children. It's the best thing you can do for humanity. We need those children who are brought up by that. We need them in order to change the course of the world. I agree. So definitely. That's the biggest contribution you can make to humanity is to bring your kids up. So there is no… Forget the rest. Okay, you have to earn a living, et cetera, et cetera. But the most important thing is to bring up self-actualized kids.

20:18 John Wow. And the coaching framework that I've put together through my organization, we came to these conclusions the first time I heard Richard say connection, contribution and self-expression, I was like, wow. All right. What did I say? It was synchronistic. He said everything is synchronistic.

20:43 Richard Yeah. Yeah. My wife, I would say, that was, I was been a clinical psychologist all our life. It was amazing when she met me 10 years ago of what I produced. And she said, you know, the most profound of all your teaching is self-expression, connection, contribution. So that's the most profound thing you put out there. 

21:08 John  Sometimes the simplest things to express are the most difficult things to embody.

21:13 Richard For men in particular, they do have difficulty expressing their emotions and feelings because as young boys, they get the message that that's not kosher to talk about your feelings. You need to be strong. You need to be tough. You don't want to be a little girl. Gosh, what's that saying? First of all, it's saying don't get into, don't be in touch with your feelings. And secondly, it's saying women are weaker. I mean, how that is stupid is there.

21:48 John I agree. And I would say that's reflective.

21:52 Richard Yeah. Yeah. We need the world to be run by women, not by men. God, we're so fed up with the male fear-driven ego. It's everywhere.

22:02 John/Tony Yeah. Yep. And I'd say it's reflected in asking for help as well. I'd say it's, I definitely work with more women than I do men from a coaching perspective, and I think that's just from the sheer numbers of women that are willing to say, you know, I'm, I'm open, I'm open to help in order to get what I want in order to live the life that I want. And with men, it's a little bit more of, I got to push through and do everything myself or it's, or it's not worth it or I'm a failure.

22:39 Richard  Yeah. And that became the childhood.

22:44 John When I think of the question that, that you asked Tony about fear, I'd say that my core ego fear is definitely wrapped up in the, the type three or the achiever is the fear of the fear of failure, right?

23:00 Richard Oh yeah. Well, okay. Let's talk about that. Cause that is a biggie. It work achievement. Oh my God. And if you, if people ask you a value, then you, and you say, um, achievement that, you know, oh my God, that is really going to undermine who you can become. And the Japanese have a really, and then failure. Oh gosh. The Japanese have a really good way of talking about failure. They say missing the target, which is so much healthier because you know, without the shot of a target, but if you're a failure, it's like, God, I'm a failure. But it's the end of the world. It's only a weather. Yeah. So, um, there's no such thing as failure. There's just, I didn't quite make it this time. I can try again next time. So, but the seat of language is really significant when a parent says you'll become a failure or you're a failure, you're conditioning the mind of that child to be a failure and, and the word is extremely strong word in the English language and we need to be emphasizing that word and say, no, you, you know, somebody said your child comes home as a, so as I said, I'm a failure. You're not a failure. It's just that you might not be very good in that particular thing, but look at what else you can do.

24:34 John Missing the target. I love that. I love that.

24:38 Richard There's missing the target. No, okay. We've got a bunch of arrows. We can have another shot. You know, we don't have to hit the target right away.

24:48 Tony You know, my son, my 20 month old, he's coming up on two and he, one thing I noticed in him in the last few months and even until now, Gallup calls it the arranger. It's a similar to what John just talked about a personality type, but what I noticed, what he does is he just likes to take stuff and move it to a different place to where he thinks it should go. He just rearranges the room, anywhere he goes, his grandmother's house on both sides of the family, our home. He just likes to rearrange stuff. And if you, if you weren't paying attention, you would say, Hey, stop, stop taking that and stop moving that and stop, stop, stop, but I don't tell them to stop. I just watch and I just watch his creative mind just do it. Just, it's just fascinating to just watch him go instead of stopping him.

25:34 Richard So he's doing that for probably one of two reasons. One is he's creating the space that makes him feel comfortable. And that is where he feels, aha, that feels better. He's doing it for feelings. And you might ask him, what feeling have you got as you moved that chair over there and what was going on for you? Do you feel different when that chair is there rather than over here? Because we never get kids to talk about their feelings. A huge mistake. Children should be brought up not only to talk about values, but also to talk about feelings.

26:25 John Talk about how they want to express themselves and all of those things, just coming back to again, right, the expression, contribution and connection. Yeah.

26:37 Richard I have a five-year-old daughter. I can't remember, she wasn't feeling so good when she went to bed and, and, uh, and she, every morning she got up and she said, you know, I was a bit grumpy because I was feeling sad to have that ability to express what was going on for her was grumpy because I was feeling sad, but I'm fine today. I'm feeling fine today. I had a good sleep. That's pretty much what she said. I said, congratulations to explain, to be able to explain your feelings and why you have your feelings is really an amazing gift for life. I mean, you know, today, I mean, Hey, you've got feelings today. Both of you, you have feelings. Okay. Where are they coming from? They come from beliefs. You might not understand what the beliefs are, but, uh, and you don't need to understand it because they pass. It always, you know, whatever you're feeling, you just, they go away. They come and they go on. We're not really in control of our minds. And so sometimes we have feelings that, um, we don't know why, but we don't have to dwell on them. We don't have to dwell on them. You know, we just have to say, Oh, hello, sadness. I'm not sure what you're, what you're doing in my mind at the moment, but then, yeah, I'm going to respect the fact that you are in my mind and that, and maybe, uh, maybe I have some needs, which are not being met, but I just let you be there and I'm not going to get upset about it.

28:25 John It really sounds like a, a mindful detached perspective. And to be able to observe the mind's fluctuations from, and not be attached to the feeling and the story, but yeah, observe it and get curious about the need behind that feeling.

28:44 Richard Yeah. The famous psychotherapist who invented something called psychosynthesis, Roberto Satioli, Satioli from the florist in Italy, he's now dead, but he, he said everything you identify with dominates you, everything you disidentify with, you can control. So whatever you have a sleepless night and you know why you're having sleepless night, you're identifying with something. And you can let go. You don't have to identify with it because the, you know, the place of peace is the place of, they say mindfulness or mindlessness. Like, uh, it's actually living a good life. It's easy. You just sort of tame the mind. 

29:35 John/Tony Tame the mind. What advice would you give to someone who's just starting their journey in taming their mind kind of before they reach that evolutionary phase? 

29:49 Richard That's the awareness stage. Okay. So when somebody is aware that their mind is controlling their beliefs, controlling their feelings, and they want to change that, that's awareness. Most people are not aware. So what advice would I give them? Well, I would ask, I would ask them to general a feeling. What are you feeling today? Write it down. And just, and then be really aware of what's going on in your mind. Uh, you don't have to explain it. Be aware of it and then talk about it. Oh, so must have was our relationships or anything. Oh, come home from work and say, you know, to your spouse. Yeah, I was really feeling really upset today. I mean, this happened to me this week. I had an art class and the teacher paid any attention to me. What's up? And I, as a consequence, I really messed up my painting. I came home, I was pissed. And I said, I said to my wife, you know what? What I'm feeling is that this person, I'm there three hours, there are eight of us. So I would normally have 20 minutes of his time. I've got three minutes. I feel this person is disrespecting me and not attending to my needs. And I'm, uh, and I've consequently, I'm feeling pissed and quite frankly, I don't want to go back to that sort of environment. So I wrote a note to the principal and said, this is what happened to me today. This is how I feel about it. And I won't be coming back and you can reimburse me. 

31:32 John So that's the acknowledgement to the awareness of how you were feeling. And then the request that you can make.

31:37 Richard Yeah, the request I didn't get, I didn't communicate anger. The principal had communicated the facts. This person was on his cell phone. I only got three minutes. I assume about 20 minutes at least. Um, I was crying out for help and I, um, I don't think this is good enough. So I will be leaving the class and I would like my money back. It wasn't an angry letter. It was just a, yeah, this is a situation.

32:12 John And that's so powerful because, you know, a lot of times we get trapped in trying to keep everyone else comfortable, trying to, by not making those requests for ourselves because it's going to be awkward or I shouldn't, I shouldn't be able to, I shouldn't stand up for myself like that. That's kind of getting back into those fear-based beliefs of, you know, my needs don't matter enough. I'm not, I'm not enough. Right.

32:41 Richard Yeah. Or I might just stab the situation, uh, I'll put up with it. Uh, no, this applies very much to coaching. You know, you, the danger in coaching that your potential danger is that you try to please the person you're coaching instead of giving them tough love. You know, it's like, okay, if you keep going like this, it's not going to work. So stop it. You'll know when to say that. You'll know when to say that you'll feel it because you get into soul speak coaching for me is all about soul speak. I just, I disappear and my soul shows up and I say what's going on for me. And if I have to give a tough message, I know, I know I have to give a tough

33:28 John/Tony message, but you cannot be a coach and want to be liked. And I think they don't go together. First, it feels like that that's true for leadership. Yeah. As well.

33:44 Richard Yeah. It's well, yeah, again, but what do we mean by leadership? I mean, I think we throw it, just need to throw that word away. I don't like it at all. It speaks of hierarchy. It speaks of I'm better than you are. It speaks of power. I really wanted to do away with that. Why?

34:06 John I'm curious how you would structure an organization based on this leading with soul consciousness.

34:14 Richard Well, I would, um, like this example of this lady, I would put into positions of leadership, people who care about their people. You know, it's number one, the number one requirement for a leader is that they care about the wellbeing of their people. That's the number one requirement for leadership because your ability to produce, to be efficient, to meet whatever goals have been set depends on your people. Wow. And if, if they're, if they have all their needs met and they are not stressed and they can come to you and talk about what's going on in their lives, outside of work and inside of, then, you know, that's the sort of person you want. You don't want a slave driver. In fact, I say, forget goals, goals are a waste of time. I mean, uh, set intentions. Our intention is to do this. Our goal is fixed. It's like, I've got to get 60 of these out of the door by next week. My intention is to do the best I can at that particular and so replace goals with intent. You might even do better than that when you set an intention. My last May, I decided to stop writing. Yeah. You know, I've written 14 books and start painting. That was the message I got from myself. And so my intention to be the best painter I could be the best painter for the world. Not the best painter in the world. 

36:05 John I would like to say that though I love the picture of that. And at the same time, we've built a capitalist society that works against that. We've, we've built structures. Yeah. Right. That the people, the market and investors are going to react to goals and that are going to react to targets and quarter close numbers and things like that, that are going to be, you know, driving a lot of the pressures that are on leadership, a lot are on organizations. So when you come into, you know, when you step into the real world of a leadership team and, you know, maybe folks are caught up in that fear or a team that is, you know, that has a mix of people that really are people first and really care about their people. And then, you know, some folks that are slave drivers are more, more concerned with the investors are more concerned with production, safety, maintenance. How do you balance that across the team and get people interested in moving towards what you believe? Okay.

37:15 Richard So, so you could say that we have these goals, but what is the higher intention behind them? Take it to a new level. Okay. So this is the goal that we've been given. But what intention could we make that would help us to achieve that? Hmm. Because you see, when intentions, you invite the universe to support you. That's what happens when you set an intention. It's, uh, I decided I set an intention to be a, a painter, the best painter I can be. Things just fall in my lap. It's like, I hadn't been painting six months. Six months, I got four commissions. It's never had, I mean, just which all challenged me to become a better painter. So it's, uh, I never set a goal to get commission. They just happen. Hmm. The universe will conspire. If you link to the soul and the soul's intention, the universe conspires to support the soul. Okay. So what's your, what's your, what are they all guys' intentions? What are you doing in life as an intention? What would be your intention?

38:47 John My intention in life, in your business, my intention in my business is to really bring the human essence back to business. And I think that this is a really strong way to do that. And it's how do we create soul conscious leaders? If, you know, if it's not just replacing folks, did you set a goal to bring the human essence to 50 people this year? No, no, of course not. It's stupid. Why limit yourself to 50 when you could be 5,000? That's right. It's the how, the how will reveal itself. Yeah, exactly. When we set the intention on what we want to do, what we want to create. 

39:36 Richard Yeah, that's exactly right. Because you're operating from the level of self-expression, which is the soul's intention, what is the soul wanting to do? The soul incarnated into life to do things, to self express, connecting. Now each soul has specific gifts. You have particular gift. Tony has a specific gift. I have specific gifts. And you may have gifts, you don't even know you've gone. Okay. Well, all the soul is what he wants to express. So 50 years ago, I last picked up a paintbrush and like all of a sudden, I'm like totally consumed. My soul is totally consumed by the desire to paint. Wow. Why? I have no idea.

40:20 John  No, you just followed what it was asking to express.

40:22 Richard Exactly. You've got to surrender. See, that's the surrender. The trick with the soul is surrender to the soul. If you think you know what you want to do, think again, stop thinking, just allow, follow, I tell people, follow the breadcrumbs. Where are the breadcrumbs leading you? And what's in your heart? What brings you joy? Okay. Follow that. That joy, that joy will lead you to what the soul wants to express. Exactly. Exactly. I was just talking with my wife and since I started painting, my wife started being pastile and I said to her, have you noticed that when you finished a piece of work and you really enjoy it, I'm looking at something my wife just did here, being next to me. And it's the same with me and my painting. When you walk by the room, you have to look, stop and look at it because it brings you joy. It's almost like you created something that's bringing you joy. And every time you look at it, it brings you joy. It's like, wow, wow. That's how I feel about my paintings. You know, it's like, wow, every one of them brings me joy, but then I'm onto the next one so I can let it go and let somebody else enjoy it too.

41:46 John And I think there's just such a strong distinction as well between joy and pleasure that it's, you know, I want to encourage people to sit with that and get curious about, is this just something that feels good or is it truly a feeling of joy, like to follow the right breadcrumbs in spirit of the soul rather than the ego?

42:11 Richard Secondly, you know, pleasure is sometimes particularly in the religious circles is frowned upon. You have to suffer. I'm sorry. You have to suffer. Rubbish. I agree. I agree.

42:30 John  And, you know, when we're thinking about folks that we went over at the awareness side of things and, you know, you recommended journaling and, you know, starting to step into listening to the way your soul wants to express itself, but then, you know, say you move on to that, to that next stage there, you're starting to see these things, you're starting to see a different path unfold in front of you. Like your soul is wanting something other than pleasure. And then the fear of not being secure, the fear of change, the fear of stepping into your soul's work. How do people overcome that and step into their soul's self-expression? Well, with difficulty, mostly requires a lot of self-expression. And I think that's the biggest challenge. And I think that's the biggest challenge.

43:23 Richard And I think that's the biggest challenge. With difficulty, mostly requires level four courage and the understanding that if it is truly a soul expression, it'll all, you won't have any means at all. I mean, I was at, up to the age of 45, I was a top class transportation engineer. I worked with the World Bank, traveled to countries all over the world, advising their governments on how to build up and transport systems. And then all of a sudden I was bored with my experience and said, I'm going to, I'm going to do what I've been doing for the last 20 years. And people said, oh, crazy. I'm going to leave the World Bank. If you stay there for 10 years, you'll get a six figure tax free pension. That is stupid. And you're going to do something and nobody's ever heard of you. You know, I don't have written one book. So I can't help it. That's what I have to do. And a very successful 20 years. And then all of a sudden, that's me. And myself says, huh, you can start writing now. Stop printing.

44:29 John Okay. The surrender. Yeah. It sounds like there's a really strong foundation of basic trust that you have. Exactly. The, the universe conspires in your favor.

44:45 Richard Yeah. So one of my e-learning courses that you can find on my website is about how to do this so that basically you're basically have to become aware of yourself. And then you have to befriend yourself. Then you have to connect with your soul. Then you have to trust yourself. Then you become one with yourself. Trusting is the hardest bit.

45:03 John It sounds like that. That's that final stage that once you have the trust, then you can fully step into the self expression just because then what do you have? What do you have to fear?

45:15 Richard Exactly. Let go of the fears of ego and trusting the soul. Made you bought a leg with other fears of ego.

45:21 John Now at that point in the process, what was the thing that helped you trust your soul to like to really step into that journey and how did you develop that trust?

45:32 Richard So basically many things, but one is just looking at my life and seeing what was happening and realizing that I was in a sense being guided, even though I didn't know I would be guided and that when I look back, I could see things that had happened to me, which I felt were disasters at the time, actually when I look back, were actually really positive things. I stopped doing that and I was very ready to doing that. And then I had to stop doing that. And when I was upset and then when I look back a few years later, I think, my God, that was the best thing that happened. I remember I formed the Barrow Values Center and I was CEO for 10 years and I realized all of a sudden that I had to stop being CEO. And it really upsetting. I thought, well, I've got to hand it over. And then it turned out to be the best thing I did. And so, because I then started writing and then I wrote another 10 or 12 books. And then the same thing happened again last May. Okay. So I was halfway through a book when I got the message, stop writing, start painting. I thought, okay, I know, I recognize these messages now. So I just follow up. And yeah, it's not sure where it's all going, but I'm definitely moving there in a rapid manner, whereas. Sounds like it was a process. I mean, one of the ideas I came up with was just two months ago was to have, you know how in a company you have the list of values and you're all on the wall. Well, I just came over there to have value and mission portraits. So if you are a company and you have a certain mission, let me paint a picture of what that means. So there's a company in Indonesia I've been working with and they asked me to do a portrait of their mission. Now their mission is this basic philosophy of all Indonesian, which is called which means working together for the good of the community. So they said to me, we want you to do a painting of do whatever you like. You can see that on my website. I delivered it a month ago and it's quite a large painting and it's 10 people all working in a rice paddy field all together in a sense of community, doing something for the community. And they loved it. Value and mission portraits for organizations is my new idea.

48:13 John Your soul's new idea.

48:14 Tony I was going to ask you when you get these messages or these moments in your life, when you make a transition, is it an instant message that happens at the moment that you move forward on or does it take a little while to fully unpack it, then you move into?

48:31 Richard The first one I was developing a transportation engineer and moved into being a transformation engineer took about a year or two to fully, I felt bored and then I didn't, then I realized what I was being asked to do. So it took a while. This last one, last May happened in two weeks. Like, yeah, but you, you'll know because you certainly, whatever you're working on no longer brings you joy. You'll probably find you're bored. And so that is the point where you say, okay, what's going on? Where am I being, what am I being offered to do now? Which will allow me to express so that I can find joy again. 

49:18 Tony Can you speak to the fear that occurs, like how you mentioned when you moved from a transportation engineer to a transformation engineer, that fear of what people had to say, a lot of people I know want to make a difference or make a change in their life, but they're afraid from what people around them are saying and it's causing them to freeze and not move.

49:34 Richard Well, they're already freezing because they, because they have the fear of their ego is that they want to be liked. So right there, you've got your problem freezing because they want to be liked and they're afraid of what other people would say when you say, fuck off. I've got to do this anyhow. I don't care. I don't care what you think. I don't care what other people think. You have to learn not to care because you are loved. You are loved by the universe.

50:04 John I love to think that, that the real ones, that the real connections that you want to keep and that will stay.

50:11 Richard That they'll either stay or they'll go, but new ones will show up. And when I look back over my life, if I look and I had, you know, I had friends who then became acquaintances and then new friends came and then they became acquaintances, you move through life as you shift and elevate your consciousness. Your old friends no longer seem to fit in. You don't know what to talk about anymore with them. And then you find new people who you resonate with because you're on the same level of consciousness. So letting go is all part of surrender. Not just letting go of what you've been doing, but letting go of so-called friends that are still friends and acquaintances, but they're not feeding your soul. But if you open, open yourself, you'll find other people who don't feed yourself

51:0 4John Surrender.
 
51:05 Richard So don't be afraid of what other people, you know, it's like, that's the fear of the ego just pleasantly shout and blocking you.

51:12 John That's what I'm hearing is the, you know, the key messages in this path to being able to hear, you know, what your soul wants and, you know, in order to step into that expression is like one, developing this basic trust and two, surrendering to the process, being patient.

51:33 Richard Exactly. Exactly. So if you want to, you know, I wrote during the pandemic when we locked down, I wrote 18 E learning courses. One of them is living your soul consciousness. And it explained, it's based on my book of what my soul told me. And what my soul told me, most of my books take a year to write. What my soul told me, I wrote in two months because it's exactly what my soul told me. Wow.  And it lays out the five steps for living in soul consciousness. And there's an E learning and the book which allow you to do that. 

52:11 John Beautiful. So we'll link to this material in the show notes, my friends, we have that way. You know, if you want to start exploring this in a little bit more depth, that you'll be able to, you know, start getting a little bit more acquainted with Richard's work and a little bit more acquainted with your original essence yourself. Thank you. Richard, if there was one thing that one core message that you wanted to share with everyone on our podcast right now, what would you want to leave them with?

52:45 Richard I would say that be aware of your fears and walk through them anyhow. It's what's holding you back. It's the only thing holding you back is your fear. And I'm not, I'm not loved enough and I'm not enough. And, uh, you just identify that and leave it behind you because it's just blocking yourself expression. It's like Tony said a few minutes ago, you know, you know, if you've got this idea of what are your friends going to say, well, that's the fear showing up. They just go ahead and do it.

53:27 John  Just go ahead and do it. My friends. Yeah. Richard, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. It was lovely and listeners. Thank you guys so much for staying with us and for listening week to week. And we'd love to get all of your feedback ratings and reviews, wherever you get your podcasts and you can interact with us at the present professional podcast.com. And we'll put links to all of Richard's work and different platforms in the show notes that you can check out as well. So I hope that you guys take everything that you've learned from this conversation and everything from Richard's work to get more acquainted with your soul and step into leading your life and through that leading others. So thank you guys. Until next time, my friends.