From Classroom to Creativity: Redefining Learning with Douglas Robbins

Mark Taylor 00:00:23

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor, and welcome to the Education on Fire podcast, the place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world. Listen to teachers, parents, and mentors, share how they are supporting children to live their best, authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. Hello, welcome back to the Education on Fire podcast. Great to be back with you as always. And today I'm delighted to be chatting to Douglas Robbins. Now we have a wonderful conversation about education in terms of how his education affected him and his thinking, how it took him to be an author, a podcaster, and how he's now sort of gone full circle and talks and explains education and learning to his children as well. So I really hope you enjoy this wonderful conversation with Douglas Robbins. Hi, Douglas. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Fire podcast. Always great to chat to a fellow podcaster, but also great to chat to people who want to sort of have these conversations about how the world could be improved, what we should be thinking. It sort of just sort of maybe sort of upsetting that status quo a little bit, just in terms of let's ask these questions and see how things can move on. So, yeah, thank you so much for being here, first of all.

Douglas Robbins 00:01:35

Thank you, Mark. Really a pleasure to be with you.

Mark Taylor 00:01:38

So, first of all, why don't you give people an idea of where you are, but also that little bit of history, because I know being an author and then, like I said, these conversations that you're starting to have and push more and more on your podcast.

Douglas Robbins 00:01:50

Yeah, so I'm an author. I have six books written, mostly literary fiction, loss and death, grief, childhood trauma, divorce and relationships, career, anything that touches us, anything that's part of our experience. And I write about these in ways that people can relate to and connect to and go, oh, yeah, that's me. I see myself in this character. My most recent book is Baseball Dreams and Bikers, which is made up of three short stories that revolve around the theme of dreams. We all have big dreams, but as we go through life and age, sometimes life happens. They get. They get lost along the way or forgotten regrets and confusion set in. So choices are made. And the book is really about how we can refine them again, rekindle with them again. I'm also a podcaster. I have a show called the Douglas Robbins show, which really just again, similar. It amplifies these subjects, touches based on mental health, the human condition. I've had people who have overcome, you know, traumatic brain injuries, just things that are maybe swept under society's rug or really not looked at that closely, but really the deeper parts of who we.

Mark Taylor 00:03:00

Are, and I think that essence, and it's kind of the feeling I've got from sort of reading some of your stuff and listening to you, is the sense that, you know, where we're not one dimensional, there's many parts to us, you know, whether it's the physical, whether it's the emotional, the spiritual, whatever it happens to be. And it's actually educating the whole of person, which is really the key, I think, to great education, especially moving forward.

Douglas Robbins 00:03:25

Yeah. And you know, something I, I feel so deeply about, and I've really been observing since I was a child going through school, is what are we learning exactly? What, what are we teaching our kids and what is it we're trying to have as a result when they come out of school? But you know, something I realized very sincerely is the emotional intellect. We often speak about iq, what you can regurgitate, what you remember, what you can, you know, put back down on a page. But that isn't really what governs our lives. It's really how we see ourselves, our self image, the emotions that are sort of speaking to us daily, the beliefs that we have. That's really what affects how we navigate lives and if we're successful or not.

Mark Taylor 00:04:12

Really, I think that's really true. And I think one of the things I wanted to sort of start with as we sort of sort of delve into all this is kind of the essence of what we believe, schooling as opposed to education generally is because I guess if we sort of go back 100, 200 years, you know, it's very fixed. You know, you, we need to make sure that pupils have these skills to in order them to be this type of person in society. And it's kind of not changed much. Like you say, it's really that regurgitation of knowledge and just sort of being quite a fixed way of being. So I suppose my first direct question would be, do you think that's maybe the first place that education should change is the fact that it should be not just about those things, but how you sort of implement that. And I guess the side part of that is, is that really what governments sort of the education system actually wants? Because then that starts to make things a little bit sort of more of a gray area.

Douglas Robbins 00:05:07

You know, to me, there's such an opportunity in education, in schooling, because it is a huge portion of our lives. Right. You start when you're four or five years old, you go at Least generally speaking, to the end of high school. Most people, you know, beyond. So you're talking 20 plus years or thereabouts, give or take. And there's a lot of opportunity, obviously, in bringing up certain subjects and in advising people on how to handle this or that. So you start thinking about like, well, what is the point of education? Well, it's supposed to help you get a good job. It's supposed to teach you how to, you know, navigate as an adult. But it doesn't do these things. It doesn't teach you how to handle things. There's a reason so many people are adult babies, right? They've learned one aspect of themselves. Math or science or history, whatever that might be, that's the intellect. But as you were saying earlier, there's so many other aspects of ourselves that you're. It's almost like you have four tires on a car and you keep pumping up the one tire. Right now you have a tire that's overinflated, and the other tires can't match because they're not. They haven't developed. So you have someone now coming out of school who isn't developed, who isn't aware of why he or she acts in certain ways. They don't know how to handle money, bills, debt. So it's like, okay, go. But I don't know how to go. I'm still stuck in the past. I'm still stuck in childhood trauma. I'm still stuck in undeveloped me. And now, okay, yes, I can regurgitate World War II history, but I don't know how to navigate life now. And so to me, that's the big shortcoming, I think education. You know, obviously parenting is a big part of how children develop, but education is such an amazing opportunity to develop. For instance, I was just having this conversation with my daughter yesterday, who's 15, she's full on teenagers, and she swings emotionally, right? And sometimes she can be very curt and kind of rude. And I say, look, you know, these are just emotions you're having. All the thoughts in your head are not true. In fact, your brain is often lying to you about things that are going to happen that don't actually happen the way the brain tells you. Because the brain is designed to protect you, right? It's survival. So it creates all these narratives of this happened one time, therefore it's always going to happen. I said, you know, you have to be aware of these things, and so you can't trust everything it says. And I said, you're not in the present moment when you're just kind of running with these automatic autopilot software that's running in your head. And I said, you have to be aware that that's happening. You know, it's the old line, the old allegory of the grandfather and the child. And the child says, you know, these two wolves are battling within me. One is fear, one is love. And the grandfather, and he says, and which is going to win? The grandfather says, whichever you feed. And I think that's true, like in life. But there are so many opportunities in school to teach about emotions. How do you handle emotions? What do you do when something bad is happening at home? Well, often we lash out at others in other places. And I said, that's often where we have regret because we've said things. The emotion tells you it's okay to lash out at someone, to abuse someone because you feel bad, you feel like you have all this yucky stuff on you. What do you do? You lash out at someone else, and then two days later you go, oh, my God, what have I got? What have I done? And so these are opportunities for education to teach awareness of these subjects. Because like I said, it is the emotion that really dictates our lives. So again, you come out, you know, with, with. To me, the point of education is to have a rounded person, educated person, but a person who knows now how to be skilled and be an adult, to handle bills, to handle debt, to not get trapped in that consumer. There's so much pressure to buy this, buy that, because if you wear those jeans, you'll be special. If you have that car, you'll be special, you'll be fulfilled. Well, this is a lie, right? This is a big lie that we've all been fed for many, many years. That's part of our culture. We have a consumer culture. But, and I'm not saying education can stop all that, but, you know, that is part of parenting and just sort of growth and pursuing these answers ourselves. But ultimately, education is supposed to create a functioning adult, one who can navigate bills, employment, relationships, parenting. So it's a big ask. But I think the opportunities are certainly there and people have this knowledge to embark or to instill upon children. And I think children want to understand why do I feel this way. So many kids are in a very dark place when they're 14, 15 years old because these emotions are just welling up these hormones, and they don't know how to handle them.

Mark Taylor 00:10:48

And I think you sort of put, sort of highlighted a really important point there in terms of everyone who's sort of a stakeholder within any child because you would hope, like you say, as you were explaining, you're able to have those conversations with your daughter, which means that she's suddenly aware, even if she didn't get that in school. But of course we know that not everyone's home lives and parents are actually having those conversations. And I guess even if we wanted that to be in school, not every school is going to be doing that. So it is sort of a little bit of how everyone's doing it as well. And it's all about these conversations. Hence the reason I love the sort of doing it here on the podcast. But I think you're right, I think it's, it's changing slightly, certainly here in the UK with the, the idea of mindfulness and sort of well being. But a lot of that then is put in place because the actual structure of what they're doing is making people unwell in advert and commons. You know, you need to do this thing because we're making life difficult for you because of the way the system is. And maybe it's that shift that's going to make the biggest difference. Because if we change the way we're learning, if we, if we're starting with who you are and then we're using the things that we can teach you and share with you to help you grow into this rounded human, then you're not going need them in that same kind of way again. And maybe as difficult as that might be, there's this gradual transition that's helping that and the fact that we're sort of all trying to do it together.

Douglas Robbins 00:12:09

Yeah. You know, and I think the will has to be there. So not to be negative or cynical, but education is in some ways designed to be nationalistic and rah rah, rah for our country and rah rah, rah for our school. And that's fine to whatever extent, but it's also designed to teach us sort of to be more homogenized and not so much unique individuals. And that's a failing and maybe that's changing slightly. But you know, big corporations need good workers, need good employees. So that's something that would really need to change that approach because we all are very different. Some are better at math, some are better at science, some are better at engineering. And so there are different intelligences. We don't have the same, you know, mindset or skill set or genetic makeup, if you will. But how amazing it would be to have a well rounded individual who is here to express him or herself and have the skill set to do so.

Mark Taylor 00:13:31

I think that's really true. And the thing that struck me as you were talking there is the fact that even understanding that you're in this sort of mass education world and it's being perceived in a particular way, I think the way that society is sort of, you have the ability to find your tribe now and you'd hope that you have friends at school and you'd hope that there's something within that kind of community that you latch onto and. But the reality is, is that, you know, we're here, you know, on a podcast, talking about something which is important to us and the people that listen. A part of my tribe and your tribe, in terms of the way that we're. We're having these conversations and wherever you can find those people that are related to you. I think that sense of belonging and understanding, because you're feeding sorts of things which are important to you, your understanding of who you are, that sort of individualism of kind of, yeah, I want to shout for what I'm about because actually I'm then going to attract other people that are doing that. And the more you kind of feel that it's not just about the person in your class or the person who lives down the road, which is what it used to be. You know, the Internet is a big place now and you can, you know, be safe, be aware again, have the conversations which are important to give you the best chance. But actually, so much of the people that I spend time with and people that fuel me in terms of what I'm doing are these sorts of conversations, you know, with thousands of miles apart. But yet we sort of had this sort of shared interest which enables us to actually communicate, to be part of a bigger conversation which actually is feeding me at this moment, which like to say, especially as a teenager, when you're really looking for that and not understanding why maybe you're not getting that on a daily basis, is suddenly going to think, oh, right, there's something here which I can sort of step into in a positive way.

Douglas Robbins 00:15:08

Yeah, absolutely. And I think maybe the fear had been, or the ideology of. Or if you're an individual, you're being selfish, you're not, whatever, doing whatever for the group. But the opposite is actually true. The more you get enhanced or the more you're brought up as you. The more you get to access, the more you do care, the more you are part of things in a grander way because you are interested in the environment or interested in whatever Instead of what school or the homogeneity, homogeneity is teaching, follow this, get a 401k, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a very two dimensional existence. So when we do prop up the individual with love, support community. Community is so huge. And that's often the challenge is finding, finding your tribe, finding that the people that you can grow with and be, you know, like, like a flower. A flower must be in the right soil and environment to grow. And that's something we all really need.

Mark Taylor 00:16:16

Yeah. And the other part of, of that analogy that I've heard sometimes is the fact that it's not bothered about the other flowers around it either. It's. It's literally full bloom, showing it in its entire beauty. And I love that as well. Don't have to shrink because you're not the same as the flower next to you or anything like that. It's all about.

Douglas Robbins 00:16:32

Exactly. And you don't have to take something away from the other flower. There's. What is the term? I actually had this gentleman on the show a few months ago and it's actually a term in Australia about cutting down the tall poppies. And that is you have kind of the group thinking of maybe a group isn't doing that great. And you know, people often try to pull you down to your, to their level where they're hurting, where they've maybe failed or come short. Well, the tall poppy is the one that's standing tall. And so that's the expression. It's like you've been tall, poppied or something along those lines. Is the group took you down because they don't want you to stand above them.

Mark Taylor 00:17:23

So I'm curious, from your sort of personal standpoint, what is it that sort of lit your fire in terms of wanting to have these conversations or thinking in this way? I mean, I know personally for me it was the fact that I was in a school system, I was learning all these things. I wasn't necessarily engaged. It was just something you have to do. And of course, as you mentioned, you're there for a number of hours, let alone the weeks and months and years that you're doing it. But when I came across music, when I came across something that spoke to me in a different way, I suddenly realized there was more to everything around me then I was being told or that I was understanding and it was something I wanted to kind of walk into. What was that for you?

Douglas Robbins 00:18:05

That's a large question, my friend. So when I was young, I didn't Believe school. And what I mean is I didn't believe schools. I didn't trust what they were telling me was the only truth. At a young age, I sort of understood that, no, there's more to this. There's more than meets the eye. I remember, you know, when. When we were learning about Columbus. Columbus found the New World. It's like, well, no, we didn't really find it. There were people here. And so all these. These ideas just didn't sit well with me. For whatever reason, I couldn't intellectually understand why they didn't. But maybe on a deeper, like, spiritual level, I said, that's not right. First of all, we're all not the same. We all don't want the same things, because what is school? Well, you have to have A's. You have to get good grades. Good grades, Good grades. Well, everyone can't be number one. Everyone can't be whatever. So I didn't trust. And like I said, there was sort of a nationalistic thing. Rah, rah, rah. Stuff that I didn't buy, like, as a kid. Not that I don't love my country and the ideals of America, but it just felt like they were trying to inculcate me into sort of a religion, in a sense. Believe this. So even as a young person, I was seeking something greater. I would go to the woods. There was a track of land near my house between sort of the road I was on, on a highway maybe, you know, a half a mile away. And I would just kind of go there and ponder things and felt like, you know, this is interesting because, like, I don't have to be anything here. I'm accepted as I am. There's no judgment. There's no demands. And I sort of held on to this deeply of this is where I belong. And I started thinking as I grew up. There's a great. I'm a big prog rock fan. And Jethro Tell has a song skating away on the thin ice of the new day. And one of the lines is, born to humanity, sold to society. And it's always stuck with me because that's what it is. We were born to this broader scope, this broader spectrum, and were asked to reduce, reduced, reduce for sort of the man made or human made. But to get back to your question, when I was in high school, I actually started playing in a band. You know, drums. And then I sort of became lyricist. And there was a class I was in that the teacher asked us to write a poem. And I wrote this poem. It was kind of a snarky poem. And I didn't get a lot of praise from my father in general growing up. And he read the poem. He thought it was funny and insightful. You know, I got a big round of applause in the class, and I realized there was a power in words and ideas that I had never known elsewhere. Because, you know, when you're a kid, especially growing up as I did, and things are different now, kids opinions matter now. Parents ask their kids what they think. My parents didn't ask me. It was like, this is what we are. This is what we're doing. Shut up. And, you know, kids should be seen and not heard kind of thing. And so I found a piece of myself in those words.

Mark Taylor 00:21:49

Yeah, and that's. That's the same for me. Like I said, from a musical standpoint, it was almost. It was. It was a connection. Like, say, I wasn't able to put it into words. I wasn't able to articulate it in that way. But there was something about the performing and sharing the music which I identified with. And I think that something which again, within the school system is interesting because it can't be that we're all the same, because, like you've just said, you know, that's what spoke to you. It was music that spoke to me. And also that there's something for someone else which is something I can't comprehend. But if it does speak to them, and I understand it's talking to them in the same way as what I know it can be for me, even if it's in a different context, then you have to kind of have faith in that and allow them to explore that.

Douglas Robbins 00:22:31

You know, it's. It's such a curious thing, Mark, because so many people want you to think the same as them. You should have this opinion. Well, this is how I do. Whatever. Why don't you do it this way? And this is the way I think. Whatever. Why don't you think this way? And it's such a strange thing, because if you kind of blow that idea up or you expand out into this vast macro point of view, you say, well, that means everybody would be identical. Everyone would be exactly the same. But really what they're saying is, I don't feel safe with you thinking differently than me. I want you, you know, for me to feel safe, I want you to think the same. And obviously, that's not how it works. That's not how we work. And if you're not, you know, obviously you're not hurting someone or not, you know, Have a destructive point of view. The richness of life is people having different ideas about things. That's how you move things forward. That's how you know there's interest in things. That's how you share ideas and go see different things. Because this guy plays cello and I don't play the cello and I don't have the same skill set as everyone and everyone doesn't have my skill set. How boring would it be? We'd be automatons. We'd be just exactly the same with the same cookie cutter stamp of yes, we all do it exactly the same. How boring.

Mark Taylor 00:23:59

And I think what really strikes me about those things is the fact that you can see it from a schooling point of view. We want you to kind of be the same because, you know, collectively as a society we need to keep control. We need to make sure that everyone's got this level of whatever it happens to be. And at the same time they're like, we need really creative people because we've got big problems in the world that we're trying to solve, but we're going to try and make sure that these people solve it by making them be, be the same. So you have to go down the, you know, the, the STEM education route because we need scientists and maths and. Well, that's incredibly true. But actually if we had a way of allowing you to be more of who you are, those that were into those subjects would go that way. Those that were into whatever their interests were would go their way. But they'd have a creativity and an understanding that this is going to happen naturally because we'll find solutions. We will have the autonomy to think outside of the box and not start from a place which is limited, but have that sort of large creativ. And I think it's such an interesting concept that that's what we need and it's what we're being told is important to us, but yet we're not actually get having that sort of fertile foundation in order to let that happen.

Douglas Robbins 00:25:08

No, because too many people are blaming everyone else for their problems, for their hurt, for whatever it might be. And you know, and this is sort of what I was saying to, about my daughter, like having this conversation is, you know, we all have hurt, we all have, you know, damage and wounds and it's our responsibility to heal them. It's not the responsibility of the world to stop doing X. You know, people are always going to have opinions and judgments and you know, like that's never going to stop. Yes, they could be More mindful and more, you know, courteous and caring instead of damaging and hurtful. But at the same time, it's our responsibility to handle our burden. But, you know, it's funny and this, like I said, if this was addressed a little bit more in school, you might have people coming out of school who are a little stronger, their fortitude is a little stronger, their foundations are a little stronger, their mindsets are a little stronger. Instead of blame, blame, blame. But, you know, it's curious to get back to the creativity, individuality, because you have, for instance, the movie industry is really struggling right now. And it's struggling right now because all they do is regurgitate. They keep just having sequel after sequel. Oh, why aren't people going to the theaters now? Obviously, streaming services are competition to them. But, you know, the movie executives are like, well, we should get rid of, you know, actors and writers and just have AI write out. Right, whatever. And John Cleese famously recently said, well, why don't you just get rid of executives because they don't create anything. And. And so it's like, well, we have money, we want to make money, but you have to take risk. To have something new, you have to take risk. And you can't just have the same thing because there's a law of diminishing return. Well, if you keep putting out the same darn movie, it's, you know, sequel eight. People start looking elsewhere. They want something else that's stimulating. And that's really the thing here. People want connection, they want stimulation, they want to see themselves in whatever. And I think that's really, you know, something I've said before, like, what are people seeking on the Internet, social media, et cetera? They're seeking themselves. They're seeking to find a mirror to themselves. What do they care about? Is there someone looking back at them that cares about them? And generally speaking, no. It's just a hodgepodge of chaos, sort of, you know, social media, and a lot of it is negative and misinformation and all sorts of crazy things. But we're really just looking to connect. It's never going to change. We're always looking to connect.

Mark Taylor 00:27:54

And that fits into what we were saying a little while ago, isn't it? Is the fact that that's even more reason for you to be you and come out into the world in your way, because then you'll find those people that are doing it. And I like this all the movie business sort of analogy, because the reality is that if you think, think 100 years ago. It was all new and it was groundbreaking. You know what we're going to introduce, talking into. Into movies. We're going to introduce color. We're going to introduce. Oh, okay. But it was just such a new thing. And then you sort of think, oh, that's the old style. Now we're just going to like, say we've. We've mastered it now, so we're going to keep doing the same thing. And it's amazing how sort of short our memories are for. For all of those things. And. And like I say, you just need that. Those creative people around to sort of make that, make that difference. And having sort of talked sort of a lot about sort of the education system per se, I'm curious, is there either a teacher that you remember or an education experience that kind of struck a chord with you and sort of put you either on the path to the sorts of things you're teaching about or just even that connection of understanding? Yeah, there's more to it, to the world, to the learning experience than you first thought.

Douglas Robbins 00:29:05

Well, I wish I had some great anecdote about some teacher took me under his or her wing, and it was magical and she set me on the right path. I had a writing instructor in college who kind of appreciated what I was writing, but truth be told, no, I never had. I went to a large school. There was probably 35 kids in a class. It was just a warehouse production line. So I did not have that. But I will say this. So I had studied martial arts for many years, and there was one gentleman that did take me under his wing. And so he started teaching me about philosophy and Zen and understanding these deeper principles, you know, And I would go to his house several hours every morning, wake up at the crack of dawn and go there. And so he was instrumental in the direction that I started pursuing. So I wish I did have some great. Believe me, I wish I had that or I wish my parents had been more aware of my needs. And, you know, they're only as good as their own, you know, state of mind and awareness. And all parents are going to have shortcomings because kids will need more than any parent can. Can deliver. But no, there was. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Mark Taylor 00:30:40

I was just gonna say, I think the positive side of some of these things sometimes is of these conversations, because like you say, you often think, oh, there should be somebody, but actually just knowing that it doesn't feel right to you, or you think there's more, but you're not seeing it just opens that world to question Even more. And also, like you said, about taking that personal responsibility, whether it's, like I say, healing yourself or thinking about something related to your world, if it's not your school that's giving it to you, there might be something outside of school. Which is why I think having experiences like say of different clubs, whether it's sport, whether it's music, whatever it happens to be, eventually you'll find somebody, whether you're looking for them or not. If you're just. Your eyes are open, that's when you'll suddenly come across something which is important, which I think you inherently then just know.

Douglas Robbins 00:31:26

You know, look, there's. There's no doubt. We all need people to say, hey, great job, I believe in you. It makes a huge difference in our lives because that's when we're forming our identity, our personality, our belief system is when we are that age. So it makes a world of difference to have teachers, parents, whomever, coaches, saying, you're great, you're worthwhile, keep fighting for whatever. But at the same time, it also teaches you resilience and fortitude and saying, well, okay, I still want X, I still believe in X. And you know, life is about challenges. It is about strengthening those muscles, strengthening those belief muscles. And really, I mean, at the end of the day, are you honoring yourself? Are you honoring what you love? Are you honoring what you care about? It is easy or easier in the short term to fall into the group think and not step out because you feel safer. But that is again, an illusion, a lie of the mind because you're still, by staying in that, you're not going to ever get what you want or really are here for on this earth?

Mark Taylor 00:32:45

Yeah, absolutely. Is there a piece of advice you've ever been given or indeed some advice you might give your younger self now looking back, that you think would be valuable?

Douglas Robbins 00:32:55

Yeah. Hold on. Hold on tightly and don't listen to the naysayers. Don't be a naysayer yourself because it is very easy. As I was mentioning earlier about the book Baseball Dreams of Bikers, about the dreams that we have because we have to hold on to the dreams. The world will keep picking at us to give them up. You're not good enough. Why are you writing this? Nobody needs that. Well, you need it. And at first and foremost, you have to do it for yourself before you spread it to the world, before you spread your love, your purpose, your whatever, your gifts might be. So, yeah, listen, I would say to my younger self, pay attention and hold on.

Mark Taylor 00:33:45

And I think the Thing I love about stories and books and that world is the fact that you start to see the bigger picture. I think the hardest thing for children often is the fact that they've only ever known school. Yes, it might change year by year. And you know, you go from this grade to that grade or this year group to that year group, but you can't even imagine that there's life beyond school. You know, I remember the first time I had like a. We were old enough to have an afternoon where we could leave school at lunchtime and then not have to go back afterwards. You feel like such a different person, but it's many years before you get there. So I think, like you said, you know, the sorts of subjects you're talking about in your books and understanding, there's an arc to these things, whether it's good, bad or indifferent. And understanding the context of that is such a powerful thing.

Douglas Robbins 00:34:31

You tasted freedom that day and you didn't know it before and you probably couldn't, you know, put your finger on it. But that broader part of you is like, oh, this feels good. I like this power. I like this sort of authority that I have in my life. And yeah, that's, that's, you know, I was, I wrote something before coming on your show and is everything we do in our lives is taking pieces back, getting re. Reclaiming pieces. Because we're always trying to be whole again. We're always trying to be whole. And if you do the opposite of stop believing, well, you're never going to be whole again. And you're always just going to be stuck in that. That pattern of victimhood. And so being whole, it's scary, it's daring, but at the end of the day, it is the most gratifying because that's what you're here to be.

Mark Taylor 00:35:35

I really love that. And I think one of the things that I often think about in those lines is the fact that, that you're always being told so often that you need to learn this, be this, do this. And the majority of what you actually need is to realize that a lot of that stuff that's been attached to you, whether it feels like Velcro or some kind of magnet, is actually getting rid of all that extra stuff which isn't serving you because it probably isn't who you are or actually what you don't need. And actually it's shedding all of that and finding essentially who you are rather than like say all those layers and layers of things that have been given to you and sort of put on.

Douglas Robbins 00:36:10

You, you know, it's, it's such a challenge because we're all these things, as you said, are put on us and then we spend the next 50 years getting it off of us. And you know, we in our society, I know, you know, Great Britain as much, but, you know, America is a consumer based capitalist society. Sell, sell, sell. Bye, bye, bye. As I mentioned earlier, you know, the, the idea, well, if you own X, you're going to be happy, you're going to be free, and maybe for a moment or two you will. But then you go back to the same state that you were in. And so instead of. And I have an idea that like when you own something, it owns you as well. And so it's really not. Is that really going to give you the deepest satisfactions? Is that going to give you the most joy when you're just with a buddy, laughing, goofing off? Do you need that Lamborghini? Do you need that fancy car? Do you need those jeans? You don't need anything. And that's the deeper, broader part of you is connection, laughter, joy, self expression. And yes, the other stuff is nice. I like stuff too, but it's not my identity. It might give me a joy to go ride a four wheeler or ride my motorcycle. Absolutely. But at the end of the day, those things can also burden you. They can hamper you, they can stop you. Because now I've owned all these things, I probably have debt now, now I have to find a way to pay all these things and you get stuck, you get trapped in this sort of cycle. And if you let go of a lot of these things, you find more joy because now you're connecting to the humanity, not the society.

Mark Taylor 00:38:14

Yeah. Such an important thing. Is there a resource you'd like to share? And this can be personal or professional, but it can be anything from a podcast to film, book, song, video and anything but you think it's sort of interesting for people to understand, but also sort of how that relates to you.

Douglas Robbins 00:38:31

Yeah, a few things. I love the Ed Mylet show. He, he does a lot of great stuff with mindset, overcoming, you know, emotions. Yeah. As the big guys on David Goggins and Tony Robbins and the like. As far as a, a book writing, if any, if any, listeners or writers out there, a book that I found so captivating was Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. It was like a bible of like evocative prose that jumped off the page. It just grabbed me by the lapel. And I probably read that half a dozen Times when I was first getting into writing. And then another thing, you know, mindset stuff, as you're saying Michael Singer's the untethered soul, and he's just talking about, you have to just stay present and don't attach to things. And this is an old ideology, not attaching. It's a Buddhist thing, you know, but it's such. It's such a strange thing that we get trapped in the past and then we're projecting into the future. And you would think, well, what do you mean? I'm present. I'm living at this moment in time. No, you're not. You're actually living through all these filters, and then you're projecting out what you think is going to happen next. And so it's really is a battle to be in the present moment, which is very. Just sort of defies logic, right? It's like, what do you mean? I'm sitting here talking to you in the present. And so he did, you know, a series of just experiments of, you know, just sort of being untethered and allowing things to happen, no matter bad or good, letting it go, let it go. So he was pretty great. But. But, you know, Zen things and, you know, things really just open my eyes to letting go. And we are so much more than the crap around us and these sort of smaller beliefs that we have that keep us stuck. You know, they have. There's a study that the heart gives off something like a thousand times the electric, the electromagnetic field that the brain does. And so here's my theory is, you know, people say, oh, you're playing small. You're living small. It's because you're trapped in your head, not in your heart.

Mark Taylor 00:40:52

Yeah, absolutely. I love that the acronym FIRE is important to us here in terms of feedback, inspiration, resilience, and empowerment. Is there one particular word or something that speaks to you when you see that?

Douglas Robbins 00:41:09

They all jump out. And if I may mention a person who I see all this in, and that is my wife. She is the most amazing, most capable person I know. She's a business coach, she has a podcast. She also has a daily planner book. But she came from a very difficult, abusive, neglectful childhood. And she is. She's always way ahead of me. But she is the definition of resilience, of empowerment. She inspires me, and she also keeps me as far as feedback. My toes to the fire, my feet to the fire. Because she is an example of overcoming challenges, of overcoming terrible experiences and putting it aside and saying, no, no, I'm more than this. And I don't choose to live that. That happened to me. That is not my definition. And so she really inspires me more than anybody I know.

Mark Taylor 00:42:25

I love that. I mean, that's. That, that, that in essence is kind of what you need to know. And if you're lucky enough to be around someone that can, like, say, be the essence of what those things are, then you're incredibly lucky. And if you. Anybody listening? Who's got someone like that, then, yes, good luck to you because that's such an amazing thing to happen. And I could identify with that. My wife is the person I say just that one step ahead all the time and just able to kind of bring that in. And it's one of the most amazing things to actually to live through from that point of view. And I love the fact that, you know, this conversation today has taken us into all those important things. And I think if we understand these things, if children understand the journey of this and find their path in and learn in the way that we're talking about, whether you want to be any particular job, whether you want to be any particular area, whether you want to investigate any part of the world and certainly investigate who you are and find out all of that, the world's going to open up and then like, say, being present to enable that, just to allow that to happen and to be guided into and. And for it to be fulfilled, I think gives you everything that you know, and that's very different. I appreciate when you may be sat in a classroom later this afternoon or tomorrow, but understanding it to begin with is kind of the essence of it. So, Douglas, thank you so much for sharing all these things with us. It's been a brilliant conversation and just tell people where they can find out more about you and obviously all the things that you're doing.

Douglas Robbins 00:43:50

Thank you. Yeah. Again, you can find my podcast, the Douglas Robin Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube. You can find my website, the Douglas Robbins douglasrobins author.com if you're interested in learning more, there's a free giveaway. There's a very sweet story called Barbecue Dinner. If you sign up with your email, you get that and then you start getting other emails with podcasts and books coming out soon. And Mark, I just would love to say, you know, like, it's been such a pleasure being on the show. And I'd like to just use one other example with my daughter, who's, as I mentioned, 15. So she's home, she's often stressed out, she's dealing with her homework, she's looking at social media, all these kind of things get her worked up, get into her head, etc. And then sometimes we'll go over to the park where there's a little. Little lake over there and there's frogs and little critters. And she switches gears. She's not deliberately consciously shifting gears. She's connecting to that other part of herself. And her disposition changes, her personality changes. And that's what I'm saying is we all need to extract ourselves from that noise and chaos and plug ourselves back into what is soothing to our souls. But it's been such a pleasure being on the show with you, my friend.

Mark Taylor 00:45:07

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.