 Welcome to It's About Time on Think Tech from our downtown studio in the core of Honolulu. I'm your host Becky Sampson, a professional speaker, author, and coach. Sometimes we get stuck in a rut and need a little help with direction, resurrecting our passion and knowing which next right step we need to take in our business and our personal life. So joining me on the show today is my dear friend Obam Bowen, a master career strategist entrepreneur and author. And today we're going to be talking about success, achievement, and the next level growth. So thank you for coming today. Absolutely. It's a pleasure being here on the show and having the opportunity to spend some time with you today. I know you're so much you just flew in last night. I did. Yes. And you come to the island sometimes. I do often. So my wife and I try to get here at least four times a year and we'll try to stay at a minimum of about a month. This is the first time we're staying less than a month. We'll be here for three weeks. So we leave on the eighth. Sad. I know. I asked you, are you coming back on the island and you're like this day? I'm like, right, come on my show the next day. You're like, okay, let's get going. You know, it's, it's funny because Richard Branson. Great guy. Richard says whenever an opportunity show up, say yes and then figure out how to do it. Jump. That's why I said yes and I figured out how to get here. That is so awesome. You know, it's interesting. When I first came to the island, I think you and I met the first week I was here. We did. I think it was like the second, the second or the third day when you got in. So we're repeating the process. I love it. But I look a little bit more Hawaiian now. You do. You're completely aloha right now. I love it. When we first met, I have to laugh because people, you know, a lot of people come to this island and a lot of people go from the island. And you know, this was my first time living here. Right. But when I came here and I showed up when you and I were meeting and you were like, Oh heck no, girl. I was in my business suit and my stilettos and you're like, yeah, that doesn't work here. Like you're going to have to get a little more. I love the aloha look. I'm really this, this fits you. I love it. I've got my sandals on. Look at that. You're completely aloha. You feel the spirit. I love it. You're awesome. Thank you. But I know the first time we met, I mean, one of the things that I absolutely love about you is that you've got a real passion for helping people kind of get to the core of what they want and getting to their passion and helping them get that out and go share their message. And that's, I think that's one reason why you and I sat there at that Starbucks for five and a half hours. We could have stayed longer. Yeah. I think both of our spouses were like, what's going on here? And hunger took over too. That's true. That's true. Spouse and hunger. You can't go wrong with those two. We've got to fix them both. I know. Well, tell everybody kind of like who you are, because you have a vast amount of experience that has kind of brought you to this point of being able to help people. Kind of tell them where you're from and what you do. Why you do that? Let's look at it this way. So who I am today really stemmed from who I was yesterday, not yesterday. So I spent 20 years as a Marine. I retired in 09. My first duty station was actually here on Oahu. I was stationed at Kanyoi Bay. So I fell in love with the island then. My first four years was spent here. And then I came back a second tour. And once I retired, my wife and I come back every single year. Obviously, once you get bitten by the aloha bug, you know, you don't want to go anywhere else. So in the winter, we become more Hawaiians. And even in the warmer months, we'll come to just so. There's no excuse to come to Hawaii. It's Hawaii. I know, right? But who I am today, my wife and I own eight different companies. I've written three books that sold close to half a million copies. So those are doing well in its own right. I'm a coach, mentor, a lot of my large companies and corporations that I do coach are like Walmart stores, Jeffery Cosmetics, Night Media Covio, Chevrons and so on and so forth. What I found with a lot of those companies after about eight, nine years of coaching with them was I wasn't getting the personal gratification myself that I wanted, the personal interaction that I needed. So I started doing coaching for entrepreneurs, startups. And then I realized more of my passion lied with those who have already started up, they've kind of got over the hump initially, but they want to kind of scale and go to the next level, take it to the next level, right? So being a next level growth specialist, it's all about the choices we make and the things that we do. So I got really tuned into what happens in the mechanics of your mind because everything we do first starts in the mind and then it happens in how we talk to ourselves, so the internal conversation. And then when we actually say out loud and the actions we take, there's kind of a congruency we're there. So I developed a methodology understanding that everything first starts in the mind, then it comes out. What we say, what we say influence our actions and then our actions repeated over time, create results. So the way to change results and or the direction of a company or an individual is to go back to the root of it and change how they think. Yeah, I call it the back it up work, right? We've talked about that on the show too, is that you got to be able to see what's going on, the result that you're getting. Do you want it or do you not and then back it up, right? Back it up to the very core, which is really your mind. And you are a you're in psychology, you're a psychologist. I'm in psychology. So I have a page in human behavior and psychology. So I kind of merge the two together and my work's the leading work in the world today. So now at the UN, I am the human potential as authority because there's no other work that kind of garners around mine. It's kind of a great position to be in. But I stand the forefront of it. It's one of the reasons why I coach and mentor so much so I can stay ahead of the curve. And every year we'll put out a new paper in academia about it. You're only really supposed to put out about one every three years, but I'm an overachiever, so. You think so? Just a little bit. Just a little bit is probably why you know about success. About just a bit. Yeah, so you said it really kind of starts with the mindset. It does. How do you get people in that right mindset? I'll tell you how I get myself out first and then helped a lot of people understand because when I figured it out for myself, that's when I was like, OK, I'm on to something. Then I tried it on a few friends, but I got blown up in Iraq for the third time in 2006. So I was diagnosed with PTSD, severe PTSD, the trauma. I had TBI, which is the traumatic brain injury because I actually when I got blown up, my head got hit into a steering console, lost of memory. And so I was in shell shock for a while. I was actually also paralyzed on the waist down in a wheelchair. And I came back, had a really bad divorce. And, you know, so downward spiral, I was in the worst place that I can be. I ended up homeless, living in my car, you know, had four different degrees, but couldn't do anything with those degrees. And one day I'm sitting in my storage unit in California. It's hot as ever, sweating. And then the box of books I was sitting on broke and then the point Hills think and grow rich fell out. Which is what I should have been reading, right? I started reading it in the first chapter, talked about desire. And what I learned is desires, the thing that'll kind of keep you up late at night and wake you up early in the morning. So then my desire then was to get myself out of the situation I was in. And I started reading more books. Then, you know, I joined a network marketing company, which is flooded with, you know, personal development. So I started on this personal development journey and then I realized 90% of my success was sitting up here. And it was all a matter of how I looked at myself, the affirmations I used to speak to myself, speak life into myself on a daily basis, right? So I started doing that and the success started to show up. And I was like, wait a minute, it can't be that simple. It can't be that easy. The truth is, it's not easy, it's simple. If it was easy, everybody would do it. So it's just a simple, mechanical thing. And I said, OK, let me test it with someone else. And I tested with my wife at the time, my girlfriend. And I was like, wow, it's not too bad. It looks like it works. So you tested on all your friends. I tested on all my friends, which is what you do. So I tested and everybody started to have, you know, I created this different group, this culture, if you may, right? Of folks that are just positive. And sometimes people think being positive is just kind of being weak, but it's not. It's not being passive. It's a choice. You have to choose to be positive because 87% of the world is negative. Right. Right? So I said, OK. I need to figure out how this thing really works and the mechanics of it. So then I went back on my education as being a psychologist and I said, OK, let me look at the mental space of this. And I took the human behavioral aspect of it and watched what was happening to people on a daily basis. And I started creating my own curriculum for it, which actually turned out to be the Today's Today book. Your book? Yes, which I started reading. Which then, by the way, I know it's probably just rocking your mind right now. I even have some pages written out. I started the workbook. So that made it a workbook because there's so many books out there and you read the book, you get the information, but there's no transformation. How do you try it? Right. I always say act. ACT stands for action creates transformation. You've got to put the information into action in order for you to transform. Exactly. And that's really what we want. But because of their mind and other things, it causes them to not get into action. Exactly. Which, you know, which stop is their result? The lack of action is just a lack of confidence. Yeah, I like that. So when when you're not confident enough to take action, then we look at fear. And most people, you know, they use like false evidence of pain and real life. Those are all really pretty. But the truth of it, my definition of fear is this. It's the future anticipation. It's the anticipation of a future pain. So whatever that pain is, could be financial, could be emotional, could be spiritual, whatever it is. We're not doing something because we're afraid of what's going to happen. Right. In the future. The future doesn't exist until you create it. We're all living in moments of now, which is why the book was called Today Is Today. Like, what are you going to do today? What are you going to do to make every second count? That's all we have is today. Exactly. Right. The future is only build of moments of now. Ten minutes from now, while we're still on here, it's the moment of now getting there. And if we're going to take what we're sharing with everyone's time that's viewing us right now to give the best that we have so that they can receive that, then we're serving in the now as the future comes, then I'll have the best now always. Right. So with the book, I really created a blueprint and I wanted to have a conversation with the reader as if I'm sitting there with them, filling out the workload, they fill it out, it goes back and forth. And what happens is once they get to the end of the book, if they're vulnerable enough to go through the exercises, then they can receive transformation. See, what most books do with people is they read the information, they get information, but they don't get transformation. I wanted to work with folks step by step all the way. And I know I can't do that. In the book, you'll see probably the first thing I said, my goal is to touch a billion lives. I can't do it by myself. Right. That's why I created an amazing team to help me do that. But the book, I can get the book into the hands of a billion people. Right. That last year it came out, we've only got in the hands of a little over 40,000 people so far. So I got a ways to go. Hopefully after this show, so you guys know that some of you would be inspired enough to, you know, get a copy of the book. Is it on Amazon? It's not on Amazon. You can only get it to at todaysdaybook.com. OK. The audio version is on Amazon now. OK. All right. So I took it off Amazon because I really want to control how this information gets out at a certain level. So talk about it with the website again todays. It's todaysdaybook.com. OK, perfect. So if you missed that, you can just Google Obamboan and you can find obamboan.com. It's on there, too. We can Google you. Yeah, just Google me. As my daughter says, dad, you're Googleable. It's like, thank you very much. I'm not being Googleable. I know. And I love when people stalk me, right? They also stalk me. Stalking is the best compliment that you can give. I'm like, I love stalkers. Good stalkers. Good stalkers. The bad ones we use the police to kind of hold them. I know. I know. So what would you say is probably the biggest problem that you face when first working with people that maybe haven't had success or haven't been confident or have a hard time getting started? What's that biggest? That's such a powerful question, actually. It's a simple question, but it's a very profound question. One of the things I share with folks before I even go ahead and anything I share with them is, look, you're here because you're a winner. You've been successful already. When you think about the process every child goes through before they're born, you beat out, you know, over 50 billion sperm that races to that egg and you're a champion, right? So my daughter, her name is Miracle, she was a triplet. And my two boys didn't make it. She won the race. She was born a champion. So getting individuals to understand that they were already a winner, you won the moment you actually started walking on your own. How many times did you fall down before you got up and started walking? Who cares? You just did it until you walked. And so with everything in our lives, but then we get to becoming an adult and we start to get responsibility and we forget the fun aspect of learning. You know, with the responsibilities of life. I watched my daughter down. I learned so much more from her just in the human development portion. I sit down and I watch her. She falls down, she gets up, or she'll go put herself down. She wants them, she'll just say daddy. And I'll pick her up, right? How many times when we fall down, we just don't want to ask for help? And for most people, they're not successful because they're not asking for help. Well, that's another great time. I definitely want to go more into that because that's something we talk a lot about on the show. Is I think in general, people have a hard time asking for help. Especially when they need it most. Because they think, oh, I don't want to bother somebody or I'm not worthy of that. And that was a really big thing that I learned that is a key to success is when you're drowning and when you don't have an answer and when you need the support, once I reach out and trusting that the people around us will give us that support. Exactly. So I want to talk more about that before when we come back from the break. Absolutely. You're like, we're like, ooh, yeah! I love it, I love it. Okay, we're gonna go take on a short break. I'm Becky Sampson and this is About Time. We'll be right back in just a moment. Thanks. Awesome sauce. Thanks to our ThinkTech underwriters and grand tours. The Atherton Family Foundation. Carol Mun Lee and the Friends of ThinkTech. The Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education. Collateral Analytics. The Cook Foundation. Dwayne Kurisu. The Hawaii Community Foundation. The Hawaii Council of Associations of Abarbon Owners. Hawaii Energy. The Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. Hawaiian Electric Company. Integrated Security Technologies. Galen Ho of BAE Systems. Kamehameha Schools. MW Group. The Shidler Family Foundation. The Sydney Stern Memorial Trust. Volo Foundation. Yuriko J. Sugimura. Thanks so much to you all. Hi, we're back and I'm Becky Sampson and this is It's About Time. I'm talking with my dear friend, Opom Bowen, a master career strategist, entrepreneur, and author. And we're talking about the ins and outs of success. So gosh, right before we went to break, you were talking about this, one thing I love that you talk about is what you learn from your daughter. How old's your daughter now? She's 16 months this month. I know. She's like a little one. She is. I watch so many of your videos of her and I love that you have used her or not used her. You're utilizing the lessons that you're learning with watching her. What would you say is the number one thing that you've learned from her so far in the 18 months? So I, in my seminars, I teach a lot and share with folks that everyone wants success, but they don't want to break it in two. First you have to embrace the suck before you get the suss, right? So what I... Wait, say that again. First you have to embrace the suck before you get the suss, right? So suss in Hindu word meaning abundance, right? So what I love watching my daughter is the suck part. She'll fall down so many times and get back up with a smile. So my wife and I have decided that we're never gonna tell her like, no, don't do this. We'll always say thank you. We'll reinforce the opposite or reinforce what it is that we want. So if she, like the other day, she grabbed a knife and we'll say thank you so much. That is so sweet of you, right? So she doesn't understand the danger of the knife. So there's no reason to alert her or scare her and she accidentally cuts herself because that's not what you want. The outcome I want is what we basically promote. Kids are gonna hear the word no 30,000 times by the time they get to the third grade. They're gonna hear it 150,000 times by the time they get to high school. I'm just working on minimizing the no's. And what I've learned the most from her is watching that positive reinforcement of how and who she's becoming. So we're on the plane yesterday and my wife is sitting there and you know, in the first class cabin, you start with drinks before anything else. So as soon as they came, my wife got a Mai Tai and it's a wine, it's a wine airline. So they stole the Mai Tai. And then they got her some wine. So my daughter grabbed the bottom wine and the store that she came in. She's like, oh my gosh, she's good. And so my daughter doesn't know panic. So she looked at her like, what's wrong with you? So I looked at her and I smiled. I said, thank you. And she gave me the glass. Now when she, because that behavior is foreign to her, she was like, what is she doing? But I just reached her and I said, thank you. And she's like, there you go. I was a glass of wine wherever it was gonna be a catastrophe. But what I'm learning is how we treat others is how they treat us. Oh, isn't that so true? It's so true. I always say that we also teach people how to treat us. How to treat us, yeah. And a lot of people will be victim. We've talked a lot about this on the show too, is being a victim rather than taking responsibility, 100% responsibility for your life, which then goes back to really what you said about success, right, is being grateful for those moments and letting, I think that's one of the first things I remembered about our conversation is you and I talk so much about letting things flow instead of forcing things, right? And you've, I mean, that's, you are so masterful at that. Thank you. You know, when we take, look at it from a cosmic perspective, right? The universe is created or is designed to give us everything we need, everything we ask for. And I share with people, success is like, walking into Baskin Robbins. So there's 31 flavors. Most people know exactly what they're gonna get, but because we're like, oh, I wanna touch this and I wanna touch that, I learned, I wanna taste this and sample that. So I learned this lesson, I'm actually watching my wife in Baskin Robbins for years and I was the guy that's like, I wanted to taste this, I wanted to taste that, I wanted to taste this, I wanted to taste that. At the end of the day, I knew I wanted only vanilla. Vanilla? Yeah, vanilla. You're boring. I wanted, yeah, just vanilla. Was it vanilla bean or anything? Yeah, vanilla bean, no, vanilla. Vanilla and chocolate chip. Oh, you gotta add the black and white. Mix it in there. So I know I needed that, but I wanna try all the other stuff. And after a while, that teenager, I used to say, oh, the pimple-faced teenager, standing behind there and going like, okay, great. Okay, sir, we'll be right back. And my wife came in and all she wanted was chocolate chip cookie dough. I should go right there and get it. The universe is the same way. The universe delivers to you exactly what you want when you're clear on what you want and you're willing to take the actions towards that end. But if you're kind of wishy-washy, even though you know what you want, but you're not saying it, or people are like, I know what I want. I don't have to do affirmations, really? Seriously? Affirmations is not the end result, but it's a means to the end result. Well, it's reframing the brain. It's reframing. And the neurotransmitters. Exactly. Right, because that's something that we talked about is people don't understand the brain and how it works. And when you learn how it works, then you have the power and the ability to manipulate it. Exactly. I don't like the word manipulate, but that's not what we're doing. We're manipulating our outside world by changing the inside. So one is master, one is always gonna be servant. And when you understand how the brain works, then you have to use the mastery of yourself to serve you. So when you understand that the brain has, there's the conscious mind, which we're talking to each other right now, and then there's a subconscious mind. So the subconscious mind operates like a library with files. Everything you've seen here, touch or experience in your life, it files it in your limbic system. So if you got out of a relationship that was hurtful and you got into one that seems like it's gonna be hurtful, then it pulls that memory back or that file back up from the file. And they're like, oh, don't go down that road. It looks pretty similar. So one of the companies, my wife and I own is a relationship company. So in our relationship retreats, we teach a lot of the young women how they can attract their exact spouse. And same thing for the men. I use this in my second book about relationships. I actually wrote down one of the chapters, I think it's the fourth chapter, what my actual affirmation was that I said, allow twice a day, and then my wife showed up. The first thing, it's crazy how this works, right? But my wife, the first thing I wrote down on there was long flowing curly black hair. You see my wife, she's just, anyways, we're not gonna go there because it's not about that show. But we were, I was talking with a friend of mine at an event and in walks this woman with just long flowing curly black hair. And I actually, and some people say, you don't believe in that woo stuff, I do. Yeah, it does. The energy in the room changed. I just had like a chill, I looked around, I just honestly, dude, I'll be right back. So I went over, I introduced myself, and I don't know what happened, but what it sounded like when I told her was you're gonna be my wife, and when you're ready, you'll ask me to marry you. So she looked at me just like, you're looking at me right now, like I'm crazy, cuckoo, right? So three years she tried to avoid me, and here's what I learned, what you resist persists. So she tried to resist, but I'm still her husband today. And three years later, guess who asked me to marry her? She did. Right, so it does this stuff work. Well, it works, but you have to work it, right? So a dream without a goal is just a dream. A goal without a plan, well, you're just wishing. So that plan has to have an action to it. Consistent, persistent action. Why do you think most people aren't willing to do the work? Well, because it's hard. That's the truth. The fact of the matter is success is not easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. And the fact that it's hard, if we teach others how to embrace the hard, then it's not an issue. We want to tell people like technology's gonna, it doesn't matter what technology we have today, you still have to do the work. Like me being on the show today, it's great. For me, let's look at it. Two purposes here. One of the purposes is to educate the audience and help them. And for me, what are we all getting out of it? The audience get kind of some of my experience and nuggets from years, 23 years of being an entrepreneur. And what I get out of it is the opportunity to present and share with them the possibility of maybe one person saying, you know what? That guy sounds cool, maybe I'll buy his book, okay? No problem. I still have to come on the show and do the work. I still have to come and inspire someone that they can receive the information to eventually have a transformation. And sometimes I think in life, people are not open enough to just tell the truth. Right. Yeah, and I think, you know, I think work, to me, I was one of those people in my old life, right? I don't want to do work, I don't want to feel pain, I don't want to do... But you know, I often, I've been thinking about this concept of bodybuilding, right? Spiritual bodybuilding. Oh, I like that. Yeah, isn't it? It's a good one. I know we're gonna write a book. Yeah, spiritual body, like really, let's go have high-five on that. That's like really good. Awesome. Yeah, because a lot of people, if you want, right, if you want a certain skill and ability, or if you want success, you gotta be willing to go to the gym. You can't just sit and watch other people do it. And in the process of sitting in the gym, you've gotta get on the machine and really do the work. And in the process of doing the work, it's painful, right? Like, but it's the very thing that we resist is that resistance that's going to build the muscle. But there is a period of time that once you do the work, then you can kind of relax and let the body repair itself and you're gonna go back and you're gonna be stronger. Exactly. And it's so interesting to watch. I kind of embrace those kind of moments now where I'm like, okay, this is it. We're going to work. It's gotta happen. And for me, I don't know if this has been your experience, but for me, it's always been able to keep it in the, now, like your book, Today is Today. Like, what can I do today in order to change my life? Or what's the work that I can do today? And it may seem really difficult. And tomorrow may be a little more simple, right? We should actually change the easy button, because I used to have all my clients get easy buttons, but it's not easy. It needs to be simple. That was simple, right, ding. The simple button. See, easy is easily marketed. See, we do a lot of the things that's marketable. The magic pill. It's the magic pill. Like, nobody wants to hear, like, you know what? Being healthy is 80% nutrition. Oh, no. We don't want to hear that. We want to go, let's get this 90 day plan. Let's get this pill. Let's get this 30 day plan. Reset, we'll get you going. But at the end of the day, you still got to go do some movement. I know, and you've recently lost quite a bit away, yeah. I did. I also went vegetarian, right? Oh, vegetarian. Vege sexy. Or as my politically correct doneness is that you're more pescatelian because you eat fish. I'm like, whatever that means, but yeah. So no chicken, no beef, no other meats except fish. Yeah. Was that a hard transition for you? I mean, like you? For years it was, but recently, I've been traveling a lot around the world and realizing, you know, different cultures, different foods don't agree with me very well, but the one thing universal across the world is vegetables. So I said, veggie it is. And then fish, it doesn't matter how you prepare, it's light. So I started doing that and then a couple pounds started melting off because I work out all the time and I run a lot. I ride a lot. My eyes have been getting big as I've been on the bike, just hitting it. But the one thing that I have that's consistent across my travels around the world is when I eat and when I work out, we can do cardio anywhere and you can eat veggies anywhere. Everybody has veggies. So now it's, it sounded weird because it's only been about five weeks that I'm like a vegetarian or a pescatelian. But you're doing the work. I'm doing the work. That's really the theme. That's really what we can kind of wrap things up on is that you gotta be willing to do the work. If you do the work, then the success is on the other side of it. Most people are afraid of that four letter work. I know. Work. But success doesn't come without it. Otherwise you stay in the suck and you don't get the success. I love it. Hey, where does everybody find you if they want to see? Cause you do events and you write your books. I do events all over the place, write books. And the best way to find me now since we're social media, well, Google, I'm Googleable. So you can Google Obama-Bowen and hopefully Obama doesn't show up. I love you, Mr. President. But I think that's the only comparison. I'm the bald guy and he's the one with gray hair. But you can Google me or on Facebook. You can find me on Facebook. Instagram at Dr. Obam-Bowen. And he does a lot of really, really cool videos and stuff. I love him. Cause I watch them. I do, I do. You do? All right. See, now I know. I'm going to do some special for you soon. So thanks so much for being on the show. We're going to end the show by now. Oh, I hate to end it. We need to do another segment or something else. I know. But we're out of time. So we'll have to wrap it up. I'm Becky Samson with It's About Time on the ThinkTech Live Streaming Network series. We've been talking to Obam-Bowen, master career strategist, entrepreneur and author. So thanks for joining us today and thanks to our broadcast engineer and floor manager and Jay Fidel, our executive producer who makes this whole show possible. And of course I'll see you on Wednesdays for more of It's About Time on ThinkTech. I'm Becky Samson. Mahala. Bye-bye. Mahalo, plenty.