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Matt stumbled upon meditation whilst running a call centre business 10 years ago. He found that the practice helped not only energise himself, but also many of his employees around him. Fast forward to today and he's advising lots of workplaces on how meditation can truly benefit their productivity and bottom line not to mention improve the quality of workplace health.
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TRANSCRIPT
Brendan Torazzi
This is a Sydney video production Welcome to Episode 34 of the Australian Health and Safety Business Podcast. I'm Brendan Torazzi, the host of the show and today I'm joined with Matt ringrose, who is the founder and I don't know CEO, what would you say a Bondi meditation said,
Unknown Speaker
probably just say Teacher,
Brendan Torazzi
teacher. All right. I'm joined with Matt ringrose, who is the Teacher of Bondi meditation center. So, Matt, you've had a, you've had a, an interesting story, and I was keen to get you on the show, just to it seems like everybody that I'm coming into contact these days, like 10 years ago, when I was meditating, it was almost like a dirty word. And now it's like, everybody's talking about it. What do you think's changed in the world?
Unknown Speaker
I think it's a natural progression. It's a natural progression from stress levels rising. And people looking for solutions. And then, basically, word of mouth from there. We see a lot of media coverage of it these days. You know, there's lots of things in magazines, there's even now things like meditating Barbie dolls and meditating, meditating Teddy's and all these kinds of things. Really, I haven't seen those. Yeah, there's like, a footballer plays for Liverpool Football Club in England, who does the meditation sitting position seated position for his celebration, after he scores a goal. So it's very much coming into the mainstream. Yep. But really, why it works is it's a response to people not feeling very good. Because there's a there's a situation a global situation, which the World Health Organization refers to as ubiquitous anxiety. Okay, so we've got the Coronavirus going on at the moment. But there's already a pandemic. And that pandemic is stress. Right. And it affects, I think it's fair to say almost everyone in the world, apart from maybe more or less, those people have discovered a way like meditation of soothing themselves, and finding a release in a way to release from that.
Brendan Torazzi
So do you think that like these tangible things, like the Coronavirus is that I don't know how to how to put this in a way that so it doesn't sound you know, too airy fairy, but is it? Is it almost like the world expressing themselves? There seems to be a lot of fear around at the moment. Like, in Australia, we've just had the bushfires. And, and now it's this is the latest thing. Is it almost like these, this undercurrent of the subconscious is becoming tangible?
Unknown Speaker
You mean the fear of people coming out?
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, I don't know. It's like you're you're saying that there's a pandemic was stress, which has been an undercurrent. I think stress is hard to see. Right. It's,
Unknown Speaker
I think they're all just symptoms, whether it's stress every human being, or the way the planet is responding at the moment to the situation with bushfires and plagues. Basically what we got, we got floods. Yeah, play like plague. Yeah. Locusts and fire. Yeah, biblical times. So yeah, the way, the way that the planets responding, and the way that a human response is all showing is that things need to change. So that's how, that's how everything works, right? Something you carry on just doing the same kind of things. This is the nature of people for a start. You just get something you like, and you just carry on doing it over and over again, or get something that's comfortable. And all of this stuff is showing that change needs to happen.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, right. So when unwanted things come up, and I think a lot of people try and avoid unwanted situations, but it's kind of forcing us to reinvent.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it's forcing us to look for a new way of doing things. And in the case of stress, you know, you feel uncomfortable for long enough and you start looking for ways to not feel uncomfortable when you explore maybe go to your doctor and maybe try some pills, maybe try exercise, eating a different diet, all these kinds of things. And along in that mix comes meditation, and I come back to the thing I mentioned about word of mouth. The thing is with meditation, if you find a technique, which works and works for you, and we may talk about technique I teach but it's good because it's easy and it No one can do it and it feels really good and it works, then it's, it's amazing because it's so it seems rare that you find something that really, really does what it's supposed to. And what it's supposed to do is really, really powerful and helpful. So people tell other people about it. And that's why we see it. Aside from the media, that's why we really see it growing, I believe, is that people are having a good experience with it. They find that oh, this actually does help me feel better, and it doesn't have any bad side effects. And so they tell their friends, and that's certainly how, I'd say more than 50% of people come to me via that word of mouth. Word of mouth. Yeah.
Brendan Torazzi
Yep. And I mean, I think people do realize these days that mental health is just that. That's how I like to explain meditation to people. Like even if you don't like the idea of meditating. Do you like the idea of having a healthy mind? Just, you know, it's very mainstream that we, you know, you exercise to keep your body fit? Well, yeah, it's the way I see meditation, it's like you're exercising your mind to make sure that your mind is in a good frame of mind. I get so excited being
Unknown Speaker
exactly but I'll come back to the point you made about like, people thinking I don't want to meditate, that probably be based on the fact that they've never done it or done one that feels nice, because honestly, I've been doing it for over a decade. And still my favorite thing most days, because it feels so nice. And like exercise. You don't have to be in just sit on your ass. You close your eyes like a nap. But better. Yeah. It's like a license nap. You don't have to come out of it feeling guilty. And you don't come out of it feeling sluggish. You come out of it feeling fresh.
Brendan Torazzi
And so are you seeing that more workplaces are condoning the idea of having a 20 minute meditation or
Unknown Speaker
how absolutely yeah, yeah, the different ways of doing it. But it's, they're very open to it, you know, at the end of the day, it makes capitalist sense. Apart from anything else you could look at it from, it's a win win classic Win win, because the employees feel better. And so they turn up more for work, they're less sick, less stress, they're less likely to bring a lawsuit against their company. And they can be much more efficient, and collaborative with each other. Because what it can do is break down those kinds of, you know, working, get quite a lot of silly kind of clicks, and grudges, and all that kind of stuff. But it's all pointless, and it doesn't really help anything or even feel very good for the people who are doing it.
Brendan Torazzi
So what improves cooperation,
Unknown Speaker
it definitely improves just the atmosphere, and cooperation, and you just feel a little bit less separate from everyone else. Yeah, there's so many benefits from meditation for a business. And obviously, all of this realistically for business ends up improving their bottom line. Yeah. Which is why it makes it an easy decision to make for the owners to invest in.
Brendan Torazzi
And so I like, so I guess we're promoting this idea of having a healthy workforce. Have you done work in that area? Like where you go into? I don't know, go into companies and teach them a technique? Oh, yeah.
Unknown Speaker
All the time. Okay, all the time. And increasingly, so and with very minimal advertising, word of mouth thing. Again, it's a word of mouth thing. And it's just interesting, we keep thinking that we should really push this or whatever, but you never need to because, you know, business owners talk to each other. And it started off. I mean, I actually ran call centers. That was my All right, so he wants to see, okay, and owned and run call centers. And
Brendan Torazzi
choose, I bet you would have seen your fair share of stress participants turning up to that day in day out
Unknown Speaker
Well, exactly and not least myself. And then I learnt because I obviously have my targets and all that stuff like everyone else. And so I learned this technique, the Vedic meditation technique is the technique we're talking about. And, and I just found that just as in my position that other business owners wanted to partner with me more that I found more people were coming to me. And you could say, Why? Because weird thing, you start meditating, and then you're doing more business. How does that work? It's because in that sales or business development role, you just seem like you don't need anything. So you seem quite relaxed. And people like that. Because they think, Oh, he doesn't want a bit of that. Yeah. I think I want a bit of that. And they also think that he doesn't need anything from me. So he's not going to manipulate me. So they're making their own decision. And people like to do that was if you seem desperate, as you know, and if you've ever done sales, if you seem desperate, then the personal closed down thinking, well, this person wants this more than I do. They're making a decision here. They don't feel comfortable with that. That's where You all had that situation with the salesperson, right? He seems a bit too keen.
Brendan Torazzi
So, so back to your call center days and running the business. What led you to? Like, what was the point where you said, Okay, I've got to start meditating like how? And other words like I think a lot of people, you know, they probably open to the idea of meditating but just don't have the foggiest idea of where do you start?
Unknown Speaker
Well, when I did it, that was a very good question. These days, I think it's a lot easier. You'd go to the App Store or whatever. And you've, you would get yourself a meditation app. I'd recommend one. If anyone's listening to this and think you don't mind giving this a go. Everyone knows headspace and it's fine. There's one called one giant mind. Okay, which I think it's not as well known. But I think it works a bit better. And it's a bit easier. Okay. Yeah, so when when I was doing, I just felt, I had like, ticked a few of the boxes, as in had some money, you know, reasonably successful. Had the house and family and all that. And I just kind of felt bored or something was missing, best way to put it. And then I stumbled upon a book by David Lynch, the filmmaker, called catching the big fish. And he talks about this technique. And this is Vedic meditation. This is Vedic or into the other name. It's got two names. It's Transcendental Meditation. Okay. So, yeah, so I read this book, and he's talking about, you know, you go and meet this guru was just mean to teacher. And they give you a word, which is especially for you, you close your eyes, and you think this downside, and you go to this nice, quiet place inside most peaceful place. And every time you do it, you go and visit that place and get rejuvenated and come out and everything in life gets better. And everyone can do it. And I was like, oh, because I couldn't actually, I tried meditating before, and I couldn't do it. But this one sounded easy. So found a teacher. And sure enough, it was, and here we are.
Brendan Torazzi
Wow. Wow. And so I guess it's as simple as that, then just making a commitment to start and then yeah, finding? I mean, what about if you don't live? You know, like, a lot of our listeners, you know, that might be in regional areas or not in cities? Yeah. How do they go about it, then?
Unknown Speaker
Well, there's more and more meditation teachers, you can just Google meditation in your area and have a local meditation teacher. But I really do recommend starting with an app. Okay, because it's accessible, you don't need to put it off doesn't cost anything that when dry mind app I just told you about, it's free, okay. And then you can get a taste for it and see what you like, see if you can notice anything changing in your life. And then if you're starting to think, Whoa, this is actually significant. And maybe you're getting a sense that there's even more depth you could explore. And it could be if you had maybe a more powerful technique, and maybe a teacher to guide you, then you might think you know what, I'm actually going to take a trip to x y Zed nearby. From that the nearest meditation teacher I can find and do a course. Because I think it's worth it now. But to tell somebody Yeah, go and have a go and have a four day break in Sydney right now. before they've even given it a go. Maybe don't want to try before they buy.
Brendan Torazzi
That's too much of a jump. In other words at the gym. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. It's all very well missed it NSA. And this is really good. This helped me. And I mean, frankly, probably most people listening to this podcast now this is what's changed. I know someone who's done it. Yeah. And says it's good. Yeah. Like back when I learned what, 12 years ago, my, my wife for she was trying to put me on. Really? Yes, she was like, cuz, without probably a slight overshare. But I say a member of the family is a born again, Christian, and quite evangelistic. And, Sally, my, my wife at the time, was worried that I was going to become like that. Yeah. But you know, I said, Look, I think this is this is basically a relaxation technique, which helps you feel better. And then, and then of about two or three months later, she came up to me, so I said, You seem good. Is that? Is that? Do you think he's done meditation? I was like, yeah. Oh, I'm gonna do that, then. I'm gonna do it now. And ever since then she's meditated twice a day.
Brendan Torazzi
Oh, wow. Okay, so. So walk us through you start the meditation, you've got the call center that's going well, businesses getting better because you've, you've started meditating them, then what happened?
Unknown Speaker
Then I introduced a few of my sales staff to it and get them to go along actually paid in some cases for the courses. And what I'm noticing is you paid for them to do at least some of them. I'm trying to remember the details. But anyway, so they went into the course and we're noticing that the the upsurge in their sales and He's going, it's ridiculous. It's not just personal to me, this is something that helps everyone, at least in sales in a very measurable way. And so when I got the chance to sell the business, it was doing so well, we had a good opportunity to sell it, we actually sold it as part of quite a big deal. Then I thought, well, I'm going to teach and learn to teach this. It also helped me a lot with problem drinking, because I'd been binge drinker. And that was starting to affect my health and relationship and just not my happiness, you know. But I couldn't seem to kick that cycle. And when I learned to meditate, I just the desire just went away, initially at first enough just to finally have the willpower still kind of fancied it. But I didn't do it. Because I finally had enough willpower not to. And then as time went on, I just, it just fell away more and more anally, you'd have to hold me down, and I just can't be bothered with
Brendan Torazzi
it. So So you're saying that if you have problems in your life, they sort of meditation can help those problems become less of an issue?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Whatever it is that kind of holding you back from growing and evolving, it seems that meditation helps those desires for those things, they just start to diminish. Because before what was trying to do is just try through willpower. Really, yeah, I've got to not have the thing. But that's not it. What really is powerful is where you forget about the thing. And that's what happened. In the end, I just forgot about drinking wasn't such a big deal. And so, so that in particular, as well as the fact that it probably that more than the fact that it increases sales. The drinking thing made me think well, more people need to know about this, because I know a lot of people really struggle with that stuff. So if I teach meditation, I can tell more people about the fact that it can help you with your addictions, or whatever it might be.
Brendan Torazzi
And so what's involved with becoming a teacher to become a
Unknown Speaker
teacher? Well, in this particular tradition, the Vedic tradition, it's quite a long, involved process. You have to meditate for I think, these days, three years, then I think it's two years now. And you do that twice a day. But that's no big deal. If you enjoy it, it's going to do that twice a day for 2020 minutes. Yeah. Sounds like a lot, maybe to somebody who hadn't done it. But it's like anything, if you enjoy you find the time. Yeah. You know, it's like people find time to smoke talk 30 cigarettes a day. Yeah, they enjoy it. So that's why they find the time Well,
Brendan Torazzi
I know some of the the I started with the passion. And that was they were recommending an hour twice a day. So yeah, 20 minutes is a walk in the park.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's really easy to fit in your days do when when you get up in the morning, and then you start feeling good straightaway do it before after exercise, and then do when later on at some point, maybe even at bed or whatever. So yeah, where were we described?
Brendan Torazzi
So we're talking about how you become a teacher and what was involved with that.
Unknown Speaker
That's it. So you do that, say a couple of years and you do some study. So you do some study, which involves some theory, some practical techniques. And that study takes one or two years. Okay, and how quickly you do it? Yeah.
Brendan Torazzi
So you've got, I'm thinking, you've got the practice first two to three years of practice, then you get that you get to a certain point where you then start understanding the theory behind,
Unknown Speaker
you can own it, you can overlap the two, right? You can overlap the two. So it doesn't you don't need to have the two years at the start.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, yeah. Yep. So you can be doing it all at the same time.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, these are just kind of like the prerequisites, I suppose. Yeah. And then you, you have three interviews, actually. And they are designed to actually kind of protect you, in a way. Yeah. The final stage? Yeah. Because it's very intense. Yeah. And it involves or it can be, it just depends on the individual certainly was for me, and you go away into isolation effectively. Yeah. And do various things. Lots of lots of tests. I've got a student there at the moment who is doing it. So it's reminder mirrored, or you do lots of mind bending tests to design they call it cracking the simulator. Do you
Brendan Torazzi
have to do you have to learn to levitate?
Unknown Speaker
It's optional. By the end of it, yeah. You might be you might be hovering out there. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So you've got all these mind bending tests, which literally designed to drive me a bit to Lally. Right? And meanwhile, you're also doing lots of meditation up to 14 hours a day of this? Oh, wow. Yeah. And the whole point of all of it is designed to test you push your adaptability to its limits, and release a lot of stress, and basically get you ready to help people. Yeah, so you, the idea is, hopefully, you've worked you kind of got rid of a lot of your own stress. So you're now in a position to not be focused on that. And more Yeah, helping other people.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. Wow. And that and that takes, what, three months or
Unknown Speaker
Yes, sorry. That's a three Months. That's a free month. Who do you mean experience?
Brendan Torazzi
I guess we're the 14 hours a day that would you know, if you're going to uni, doing learning to become some kind of professional that would be, I don't know, maybe a two year course. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
that's right. Yeah. So a lot of hours. So a lot of hours. And so a day when you because you're not always doing 14 hours, you kind of move up to that, and you're in there for the middle month, right? And then down, but you're always doing it seven days a week, right? Yes, seven days a week, you start at four hours a day meditation, you move up, kind of 56789 1011 to 14, you stay at 14 for a month, and you come down. So when you're at 14, the day goes like this. You wake up at three in the morning, you get up, do whatever your morning, routine things are you got to do special things. scrape your tongue, apply some, like some sesame oil all over your body. And all sorts of other strange kind of thing. And then I think you do eight hours straight. This meditation practice. It involves like a few different things. So it's basically a meditation practice. And then you have a break for lunch. Yeah. You'll notice there wasn't a breakfast in there. Yeah, right. You'll break for lunch. At lunch, then you have lectures for like an hour or two. Then you go back to do another six hours or that meditation stuff. Yeah. Then you have dinner. And then you have lectures from like eight till 11pm. And then go to bed then and wake up at three and cat start all over again.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, I mean, look, that sounds like a lot. But I guess in the context that you've, you've started with an app, you've been meditating for a couple of years, you understand the theory? Yes. Like anything, right? You is slowly, slowly getting into it. And that's not the final. For, for everyone, anyway,
Unknown Speaker
no, of course not. I mean, this is this is mastery, for people who want to take it all the way, it's more of a curiosity or an interesting story for people, what most people are going to do is just, they're going to try an app that might be enough for them, you know, or they might get into doing a little bit of meditation, what we really hope is that is a relaxation technique, which they find makes them healthier, and happier, and more less needing to take and more able to give to others. And by the way, when you feel like that, as you know that that feels good.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, I mean, that's a lot more satisfying than, you know, just taking
Unknown Speaker
exactly, exactly. It's amazing. It's amazing that all humans when you feeling good, you kind of and that's when you start feeling really good, actually.
Brendan Torazzi
Oh, that's amazing. So now that you've, you've become a meditation teacher, is that I mean, I know. forevers a long time, but is that are you playing a long game now? Like, is that? What's what's the future looking like for Matt?
Unknown Speaker
Well, I don't know. Because that's one of the things you don't you start not making plans, because you just don't know where you're gonna go, you become more, you know, moment to moment, seeing what's relevant, but that you also have a knowing, yeah, and my knowing is that I'm going to be doing something with this. I'm not going to be going back to call centers, or real estate or anything like that you kind of can't, you know, yeah. But what form that will take I don't know, at the moment, I teach quite a few people to meditate. And then I've just got into doing my own podcast called very Vedic, just a little plug. Which is like about, you know, knowledge and ideas that help people feel better. Yeah. And that was quite interesting. So it could go in that direction. Yeah, we've got the center here in Bondi, which, at the moment, takes quite a lot of, you know, running. And so we're like all things. It'll evolve. Yeah. And who knows what form it will take. But I imagine I'm hoping it will continue to take the form of helping relieve people suffering, and help people feel better.
Brendan Torazzi
Now that that sounds awesome. Now, I've got just a couple of very quick questions for you. How old are you?
Unknown Speaker
I'm 47.
Brendan Torazzi
What do you like to do to keep fit apart from meditation?
Unknown Speaker
I like our 45
Brendan Torazzi
Okeydoke. And how many hours sleep do you get a night?
Unknown Speaker
Last night? Shocking? Not many, but I used to be an eight or nine hour absolutely have to these days. It's probably close to six or seven.
Brendan Torazzi
Okay. And then what would you like to be remembered for?
Unknown Speaker
That's a really good question. Let me just answer that properly. Think about it. Yeah, helping a lot of people through love.
Brendan Torazzi
Okay, that's good. And then finally, if people want to connect with you, Matt, what's your website?
Unknown Speaker
Okay, so got Bondi meditation.com.au and Then there's Instagram Bondi meditation, either of those.
Brendan Torazzi
Okay, that sounds great. Thanks for coming on the show. My pleasure.