From Mob Lawyer to Meditation Teacher Ep 127 | Guest: Bob Martin

In Part 1 of this 2-Part episode of the Evolving Humans podcast, host Julia Marie interviews Bob Martin, a former criminal trial attorney who transitioned into a mindfulness teacher and author.
Martin shares his unique journey from working in a carnival amusement park to becoming an attorney for the mob.
 
He discusses his spiritual exploration of Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity, and how these influenced his book, "I Am The Way Finding the Truth and the Life through a biblical re-Imagining of the Tao".

Martin also talks about his transformative experience with Daoism, which led him to leave his law practice and pursue a career in social work.
 
He emphasizes the importance of making clients feel heard and understood, and how this approach has positively impacted their lives.

RESOURCES:
Many thanks to Pixabay's Juan Sanchez' Touch and Sound 113676-420 for the music bed.
Bob Martin's Author Site
Bob Martin's Meditation Site

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Transcript

This transcript was generated by ai, and therefore may contain errors.
Julia Marie (00:00):
This conversation was so good. I'm going to bring you the entire discussion. In part one, we'll hear the story of how my guest went from a carnival amusement park life to an attorney for the mob. In part two, you'll hear how this lawyer made the transition to meditation, teacher and author, you'll want to stay tuned. Welcome to Evolving Humans, the podcast for Awakening Souls. I'm your host, Julia Marie. Settle
in and get ready for another spirited conversation. Bob Martin is my guest today, and we're going to talk about what it means to go with the flow. Bob has had a diverse career including his role as a criminal trial attorney, social worker, therapist, professor, and mindfulness teacher. His spiritual journey has been equally varied. He explored different religions, Taoism, Buddhism and Christianity, and he brings the east
and west together. In his book, I Am The Way Finding the Truth and the Life through a biblical re- Imagining of the Tao. I want to welcome you to Evolving Humans. Bob, thank you for speaking with us today.
Bob Martin (01:32):
Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Julia Marie (01:36):
Well, I always like to start at the beginning. So what was it like growing up in Bob's house?
Bob Martin (01:45):
Well, we were a carnival amusement parks family. My folks were immigrants from Eastern Europe and they left Hungary because of the Bolshevik invasion, and my mom was Latian and Roma Gypsy. And both of those folks, the Bolsheviks wiped out my folks' family and everybody wiped out the Romas. So they kind of came to the conclusion that they really couldn't be a God. And although my dad was, he was my hero and he was very meticulous, a very honest, a very good man who loved America and his new
home in America. But they came to the conclusion that there really couldn't be a God. So I really wasn't raised in any kind of spiritual tradition. We were the cotton candy popcorn folks at the amusement park, and eventually we sold a lot of hot dogs in Queens, New York. So it's odd, you feel like you're a bit of an outsider growing up in that kind of a community, but then your family is very large because it's everybody in the park.
(03:15):
One thing that my father did feel was important though, he used to say, we are madans. He talked like Dracula with that Hungarian accent, and he said, you must learn the Bible stories. And so even though we never went to a church or anything, he would always bring me to go to Children's Bible School or Sunday School to listen to the stories. And quite frankly, for me, many of the stories were kind of Disney ish, but I kept being told that there was someone and I wasn't sure exactly where he lived. That was a little bit
odd, and I was a little bit not quite understanding, but that this person, Jesus loved me and that I accepted that into my heart. And I know that in many of the difficult times in my life, I always had this feeling that there was someone. And over my life it turned out to be something or some energy or something a little
less defined, but that it loved me. And if I treasure anything from my upbringing, it's that sense of being loved.
Julia Marie (04:37):
I thought when you first started talking, you were kidding about the carnival barker scenario, but it was really true.
Bob Martin (04:45):
Yes, it was. Yes it was. It wasn't until I went to third grade that I actually had a regular schooling. I mean, in the carnival, in the amusement park, the kind of culture that it is is that everyone in the park, all your carneys, all the ride putter uppers and all the gamesman and the vendors, you trusted them with your life, but anybody that walked into the park was a mark and it was your job to separate them from their money.
So it was a different thing going mainline.
Julia Marie (05:28):
So how then did you find your way into the legal profession where by the way, you had a pretty interesting career?
Bob Martin (05:40):
I did. So I was always a big fellow and one of, I was a big robust, I guess you might say rotund, and I always had some would go on about that and some ostracization would go on around that. But then I kind of found that my body was useful in playing football. And so I played football in high school and then got
a full ride to the university, played in college for a semester and a half, but then I broke my leg and had a career ending injury. And so I left Boston and went to Pratt Institute because they had a restaurant and hotel management school. And it was my dream that at that point my dad was doing quite well. We were selling enough hot dogs on the beach in the summer that he did not have to work in the winter. And I
thought that was a marvelous life and that was my ambition and that's what I wanted to do.
(06:55):
So I finished up college there and I was living, it was 1969. And so what does a football player do when he doesn't play football? He becomes a hippie and the Woodstock generation and all that. I was living in kind of a hippie apartment. You never really knew who was going to be living there at any particular time or with who. And there was this young man named John Berman, and we used to argue over Vietnam and
Nixon and politics and that kind of thing. And he kept telling me that I should be a lawyer, I should be a lawyer. You should be a lawyer. So he wasn't working as far as I knew, but he kind of disappeared for a while, about three weeks. And he came back with a postal money order made out to the educational testing service for the amount that was to purchase an entrance ticket to the law school aptitude test.
(07:56):
And he gave it to me and he said, you should be a lawyer. Go take this test and how can you say no to that? Right. And I went and I took the test and I did okay. And a budding brand new law school decided to take a chance on me down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And they did. And that's how I got started. The postscript to that story is that John, who had been a heroin addict, went clean when I got accepted, and he moved down to South Florida also and went to the community college to become a private investigator.
And we had these dreams that I was going to be Perry Mason and he was going to be my Paul Drake. And that's a reference that some of your listeners might not pick up on.
(08:48):
So I finished, I took the bar, I was hired by the state attorney's office, Janet Reno, and three days after I was hired, sworn in and hired and was given my office, John met a girl and they decided to get high. And he did not realize that over three years his tolerance had gone down and he shot up and died. So I've always kind of thought that John was my guardian angel and that he had had a purpose in this world to
come and get me to be a lawyer. And so I've always taken the job pretty seriously.
Julia Marie (09:27):
Well, the story gave me goosebumps when you started talking about him handing you like, it makes me want to cry, handing you that money order and telling you to go be a lawyer. Take the test. Yeah, I believe he was a messenger sent by God or the infinite intelligence, whatever you want to call it. That was the field at work in your life. And that's part of what we're talking about. It's about a certain flow in life.
And sometimes even when we may be oblivious to what that flow is, the field will give us a prompting.
And in this case, it took the form of here's the money order. Go take the test. I feel like you were starting to maybe come alive as far as your consciousness, but you had your first wake up call when you asked your therapist for advice about a major business decision you were wrestling with. What happened there?
Bob Martin (10:30):
Oh yeah. So by 32, I had already paid off my house. When I was in the state attorney's office, we hit the mob up for a lot of money. And when I went out in private practice, they came to me and wanted to hire me in effect. And so they were very, very good to me in terms of financial rewards. And I had paid my house off and I was running around with them and feeling very arrogant and kind of a jerk to tell you the
truth. And I came to a, because of that arrogance. I get this idea for a business that was going to make me billions and billions of dollars, it was going to just be terrific. And I went ahead with it and I went through everything that I had saved up, and I was about to remortgage my house in order to try to keep this business going, because personally, I was going south.
(11:32):
And when I'm going south, anything that I deal with goes south. Fortunately for some reason, I was able to keep the law always kind of, I compartmentalized, and that was something that was untouchable, but everything else was going south. My family, my marriage, my job, not my job, this business. So I went to George and I said, what should I do? What should I do? Should I refinance the house? So he reaches behind and he picks up a little bag with some coins in it, and he moves the coins around in his hands. He
drops 'em on the table, he looks at them, makes 'em counting, does a couple of mathematical calculations, draws a line, does it again, does it six times. I am stunned at this because I mean, I'm paying him $65 an hour for his good advice, and he's throwing coins. And so he puts a number down and turns around and opens a book up to that same number and shows it to me.
(12:36):
And the title of the chapter is Retreat. So I cursed him out and I stomped out of the office and I rode around Miami thinking, and finally I couldn't not take the advice. It was the right advice. I went to the office and I walked in and I told the staff, we're done. It's over. I'm out of money. I'm sorry. We're closed.
And I saved the house and I saved me, and I stopped digging a hole. And a couple of weeks later, I go back to see George and I ask him what that was, and he tells me it was the ING or the ing it's pronounced. And I said, what's that? So he says, it's a method of self-evaluation and self therapy that was developed in China. It's a part of Daoism. What's Daoism? I come to find out that George was the English language
editor for master watching me who was a 72nd generation Dalin master priest from the Shalin Temple.
(13:57):
And so again, I'm stunned and I start asking him a little bit about Daoism, and it all made sense to me.
Here was a methodology of maintaining an effective, efficient, and virtuous life that didn't ask me to believe in any kind of spirit. I couldn't touch or see or feel. And so I studied with me and George for eight years, and that changed my life. That was absolutely transformative, such that eventually I wound up getting in some dispute, let's call it with my mob clients, and thought that it was in my best interest to
move to North Carolina, to which they agreed and we shook hands on it and they never bothered me after that. But I came to North Carolina and when I got here, my life was all about public service. So that's the kind of change that came over me through that study
Julia Marie (15:09):
That fits all the markers of a wake up call. There's a total transformation of your life when you have a spiritual awakening, your point of view usually radically changes, and you do concrete 3D things to actually manifest more deeply that change in your life. And it sounds like that's what happened. So was this the time when you closed your law practice and then started going to school then?
Bob Martin (15:39):
No, I actually came here and trying to get myself set up in a new community, and it was a bit of a culture shock, moving to semi-rural North Carolina from Chrome and Glass Miami. But I got a job with the District attorney's office here and for about five years. And then I opened up a law office here for another few years until, and that's when I started representing indigent clients. When I was working course for the
da, I was in effect representing victims. And when I started working in my own little office, it was all indigent clients, those folks who could not afford a lawyer. And I saw that they had this constant involvement in a revolving door they would come into, I don't mean to say my presence, that sounds a little arrogant, I don't mean that, but they would come into contact with me and I would do what I can for 'em, and they would go back out.
(16:49):
And then the same behavioral patterns that got them in trouble the first time would take effect again, and I
would see them again, and then I'd see them again. So I resolved that if I was going to deal with folks, there would be something that I could do that would interfere with that cycle. That's when I closed my office and went back to school to get a master's in social work. And then I went out and acted as a therapist for several years until I got a handle on what that work was and integrated the skill. And then I opened up the law office again. And the difference, and I think this ties into some of the questions that
many folks have in terms of purpose and meaning, but what I resolved that I wanted to make happen was that these folks would come to me and everyone had a story.
(17:55):
Some folks were more difficult to deal with, some certainly less, but I wanted to make sure that when they left my involvement, that they had felt heard, that they understood why and how they got to where they were, that they felt that somebody had stood up for them. And I think that goes back to that sense that I've always had, that somebody loves me. I wanted them to feel that somebody loved them and stood
up for them regardless of whatever things they may have done. They were still a child of God, and that somebody cared for them and then that they would understand that whatever the consequence of their action was, whether they went to jail or probation or whatever, the consequence was that they understood why it happened and why it was either fair or if it wasn't fair, why it wasn't fair, and the frailties of the
system they were dealing with and that they just had an understanding. And to my great pleasure every once in a while, this is a small community, so you run into people, often people will come up to me. I don't remember, I wrote a poem once about, somebody came up to me today and said that I had done something nice for them and I didn't remember who they were. And so that happens, and people have told
me that the fact that they had felt listened to and that somebody stood up for them made a huge difference in their lives.
Julia Marie (19:34):
Well, this is a perfect example of how we don't necessarily have to throw away our profession or our career in order to still be of service to spirit and to the people that we come in contact with. And so I really appreciate you sharing that because oftentimes I get asked, well, how can I do my spiritual path and live my 3D life? And now I can tell them, well, go listen to the episode with Paul Martin and you'll see
how you can do that. It's a beautiful example. So thank you for sharing that. And the other pattern that I've noticed as you've been talking is throughout your life, you've been on both sides, and that explains to me now more why you wrote the book you did,
(20:30):
Because it's both sides. Well, that's our time for today. My conversation with Bob continues. On the next episode, I want to thank you for your continued support of evolving humans through your subscriptions
and your comments. If you found value in this episode, please share it with at least one other person so that together we can bring more light to the world. If you want to know more about my Awakening story, the link from my book, signals from My Soul, a Spiritual Memoir of Awakening, is in the show notes
below. You can now leave a question or comment by clicking on the link at the top of the show notes. I look forward to hearing from you. And now here's a quote for you to ponder as you go about your day.
Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First, we make our choices, then our choices make us. Anne Frank