Robin Wheeler Death Is The Ultimate Orgasm — Author, Mystic, Sage, Entrepreneur and Speaker

My next guest in Syria I've been so excited about this evening and we've been chatting for a while and we've been threatening to do this for a while and today is the day. Robin Wheeler, welcome. Thanks so much for having me David. It's the most fascinating thing. Would you consider yourself a serial book writer and publisher? I'd have to confess that I am. I wouldn't have put it that way but since you mention it. The latest offering is a book called Death is the Ultimate Orgasm, a handbook on how to live and die. We're going to get into this in a bit because the story of where the title came from is absolutely fascinating and you do it as a bit of a throwaway line but we'll get into that. First and foremost let's find a little bit more about Robin. Tell me who is Robin? Where did you start off? Are you South African, Joburg? Where are you from? Okay, yes I grew up in Joburg. I have English roots. My ancestors were English but I grew up in Joburg and studied psychology which was in a way kind of a modern western search for spirituality and then I worked in the corporate world in human resources in the early to mid 90s which was kind of the work application of psychology. So it was understanding people and then understanding work and then after a few years they were working for two banks. I had an epiphany, an illness induced epiphany where my body just wouldn't let me go to work anymore and I was forced to reevaluate my life and do some serious soul searching and after doing that I had this realization that the world was changing really fast. This was 95 and the millennium was just on the horizon and everyone was sort of reevaluating everything, you know, whether we'd actually make it through and what the world was going to be like and how we were going to survive and there were books as well like the Celestine Prophecy talking about this transformational shift that we were going through and all of that sort of integrated along with my inner discoveries and I realized I had to go out and be myself for a living and when I took that step that phrase came to me pretty soon afterwards. So in 96 I started out doing that.

How to be yourself for a living? Well a couple of years after that I wrote my first book and in it I actually predicted exactly what you've just had on with Brad and Andy. They said they'd been going three years and they talked about their respective stories of how they were unhappy at work and how they weren't fulfilled. That's essentially what I went through 25 years ago and realized was the future of humanity. So to hear about people doing that and to hear about them making their business doing that is exactly what I saw coming and what I realized we would all be doing sooner or later. So it's really my vision sort of manifesting and my realization coming to pass because this alignment of who we are, what our purpose is, what our talents are, what we on the earth to do with what the world desperately needs from us, which is what they were talking about in their terminology, in their form, in their business model, is what we're all struggling with and what we're all awakening to. So I call it being yourself for a living because for me that really is a nice simple term that sums it all up and it's a good reference point. But it's paradoxically the most profound and meaningful thing you could ever do and at the same time the most simple and elemental one. Because I've noticed this over the last couple of years and it seems to be accelerating that with work these days and you talk about being yourself for a living, there is this huge, I mean everybody's talking about it, there is a shift. The other day I saw the coolest bumper sticker, just said on the bumper sticker, shift happens and I love that but is this shift to more humanitarian-based thing, to embracing your humanity, but a very spiritual and I notice in your writings and in the things that you say and as we joked about, I joked about you with this with you in one of our messages that I am a bit of a stalker about my guess, there's a big spiritual depth to what you do. It's not one of those blatant kind of you know the aliens are going to come and visit kind of thing but there is this profound spirituality and I believe that is coming more to the fore these days as science and religion meet in the form of quantum physics these days.

Exactly that. So now that would be one entry point into being yourself for a living or whatever you want to call it. It's where and we use the word spiritual very cautiously because it has all sorts of associations to people. I mean they're associated with religion which is not what I'm talking at all and then you get people who say they're kind of spiritual but not religious which is kind of more in that direction but ultimately the way you put it there David is really good because it is a profoundly essential and deep thing that's actually beyond words yet it permeates everything that you do. It's an awakening of your consciousness and it's really bringing that consciousness or that awakening to everything that you do. Hence and it's all in the individual, it's not in society, it's not in the structures. Structures can't be enlightened, it's the individual that's the origin and that gets brought into your individual self, your relationships, your personal brand and in whatever position you in whether that's a leadership position or a service position your business. Because for me personally I mean when I started out in this working world which was mid 80s I guess. I was I was mercenary it was all about the money all the time and I measured my worth with the numbers with how much money I had, how expensive were my toys, did I have the best toys and I got to say I mean I got slapped upside the head it took me losing everything three times okay because I'm a bit of a slow learner three times you know when people break into your house and clean out the entire place and then you're insured so you replace it and they just wait until the replace the universe is sending you a message and you know what at that stage I was paranoid I was uptight I was not a nice person right and you know energy in action is one of the things I believe in energy flows where attention goes I was paranoid about losing my work losing my business getting broken into and guess what I made it all happen beautifully elegantly I really did and as soon as I stopped worrying about that and for me as I said I think it takes longer it took longer for me than for some people and I'm not I wouldn't even say I'm close at the moment I've got my toe on the path I believe and that path could change which it does but you know when you're happy and when you're doing something that speaks to your soul I think that's where magic comes from that's right so there that's there's your reference point we all need an existential reference point it's how you feel when I talk at conferences I start by saying to people how does it feel to be yourself for a living and that is a scary question well it is

it's it's it's but you're very insightful to see that because it sounds like a very non-threatening one but it's actually the most challenging thing you could ask check somebody says who are you no I don't even start with that well that is another version of the ultimate question because if you everything that you're searching for whether it's through material wealth or success or whatever manifestation you use on the on route what you're really looking for is yourself if you can find that then you go through a breakthrough realization and humans on nature you know example I use is if if a river is flowing downhill to the sea natural course it doesn't just wake up one Tuesday morning and say let's take a different route yeah it needs a boulder to or a an earthquake or a tree or something so humans are the same we all need some sort of seismic reorganization of our lives and for me that was what I described initially as a kind of an illness there was nothing wrong with me I went to doctors who told me I was in perfect health and if you look at African spirituality sangomas who get called to their spiritual calling which is to be a healer which is what I am as another word for being yourself for a living is a healer someone who is able to um transmute um your suffering into your service to humanity um if if the sangoma doesn't answer their calling they get more and more ill until they just follow it so there's a surrender to the higher or an acquiescence of the ego to the the truer self or whatever terminology you want to use and if we don't we get slapped on the side of the head like you said well yeah it starts off with gentle murmurings yes you get a few hints and then if you don't listen me it took it took several full blown yeah smacks upside the face and yeah and I mean I've now come to realize I was at that stage in my life where you know I could I knew something was happening and it and it was terrifying but yes every time every time one of those events has happened it's it's literally catapulted me to another level of awareness so now I come to the stage where I used to be happy when I was on what I would call a plateau everything was just safe yeah now I think dramatic was happening now when I get there I'm like okay all right I know something else is happening and and once you do that the the shock of whatever that something is becomes less because you're paying more attention but you see if you look at what you've just described there is your awareness you're aware of how life works of how you work of who you are in that you're not describing ultimately who you are but you're describing the you that has traction in the world you're describing the tensions of of of how the process of being alive works and then you you're aware that there's a higher answer and you're open to it but if you look now what you said to my question what does it feel like to be yourself reliving your initial response was terror yeah now if you can be aware of that then you are conscious enough to understand that we are all terrified of stepping into the truth we're all terrified of the truth of the unknown but terror is just the feeling you have on the cusp if you go back to the question how does it feel to be yourself reliving existentially what does it feel like you're going to be in alignment you're going to be flowing you're going to be creative because we are creative beings and creativity has a certain tension involved it's not a plateau it's a climb if you use the metaphor you guys were talking about in the hour before it's but it's not stressed out of your brain it's an optimal state of arousal flow harmony calmness enlightenment but full engagement with life fully present so you're creative you're entrepreneurial you're growing you're relaxed you're happy you're coming from a place of love so that existential space for me is the new humanity that's that's what we're all getting to and we're going the hard way that's basically what's happened if i knew in 96 when i started how damn hard it was going to be i would have had to have got sicker because i would have put it off even longer and many entrepreneurs will tell you that they if they'd known what they were in for they would never have gone for it it has been extremely hard on a spiritual level and a business level but i wouldn't change it i wouldn't change one second of it yeah i i would i would agree with you absolutely and i and i i've said this before often you know um being an entrepreneur in whatever way shape or form from a micro business right the way for sure is the most exciting terrifying thing you will ever do in your life and yes i think 90 percent of us we go if we'd known then what we know now we would probably you know not have done it yet i think we still would have you know but it's it's that is sadly it's it's part of the human condition i think maybe it does get better but you know there has to be this this level of suffering and and hardship before you get to where you're going otherwise you don't value it well it's interesting that you say that because and there's the valuing it um it's actually um whether it's climbing the mountain or finding yourself or finding out who you're not and realizing that you don't you can't actually die you know to come to the book title that you that you'll come to and those things only come from encountering the reality of life it's not a something you think in your head it's something you go through on all levels and um anything less than that would be a compromise you know and we had to live to the full so um i really that being yourself for a living if you keep coming back to that idea i mean being is being in the moment being present being who you are um using the talents you're born with developing your creativity um and that's kind of the otherworldly or the or the kind of spiritual side and then the entrepreneur side of being be entrepreneurial is the is the concept of the brand and the entrepreneur side is the worldly and the way the logo depicts them is it's almost like a yin and yang it's the kind of two together how do you bring the transcendent into the mundane and and that's the endeavor of of i think for humanity at the moment is how do we whoever we are whether it's you me or your previous guest or anybody um how do we integrate who we are with what we do to be of service to the world for the benefit of everyone as we face the most uh enormous challenges uh in recorded human history i mean we are in the cusp of extinction we have to do this you know we don't have many choices left no my special guest in studio robin wheeler i'm going to just call him a serial author he's a speaker he is an educator we'll be back talking a little bit more i'm going to talk about some of those books that robin has written and then yes we are going to get on i'm savoring this one i'm saving it death is the ultimate orgasm uh robin robin's latest offering we'll get to that gratification we'll get to that in just a bit my special guest in studio uh we got robin wheeler it is what's involved by the way thank you for tuning in thanks for staying with us um oh shila's just gone i love their title death is the ultimate orgasm which true i had a near death experience and it was too beautiful to describe in earthly words i'm loving the show so thank you shila we appreciate that um but before we get onto that as i said i'm saving it um you then went through this this period in your life and you decided and then you got this this being yourself for a living and then you went out and you wrote a book and and the book was called insights actually um insights came a bit later i wrote a book called be entrepreneurial an autobiographical handbook which was the late 90s i wrote it in 98 put it out in 99 and then the millennium came and then i put out two more books which were like travel books with spiritual messages the one was called heading home which was about my backpacking experiences which i'd had between studying psychology and working in corporate hr and it was like you know you head out into the world looking for yourself and you're actually heading home and life being a metaphor for that and then i wrote another one in 2003 called hunting power which was um i was cash strapped and uninspired overworked and burnt out and bruce springsteen announced the rising album after years of um not not playing live with the easterly band and so i went to london without a ticket and got into the show at the door by negotiating a ticket from the tarts so the book tells that story and that was the early 2000s and then i got divorced so that um there was a sort of a lull and then insights came in 2007 and i didn't know it at the time but it became a template for for the the series and now they're 23 24 going on 24 of them of which six are out and they're being re-released now with three new ones coming um to follow that clearly clearly my stalking didn't unearth those first couple of books okay yes so so you released insights 2007 yes was it your intention that this was going to be a series no i actually was writing for the media a lot at the time and i had a whole lot of pieces that didn't fit you know when you write for the media you you write in a certain voice for for that platform and but i'd written a whole lot of pieces that were either sort of um stabs at articles that didn't have a home or i just written freely and creatively and i suddenly realized that i actually had half a book there and when i saw that and i realized that you know um this new way of being life itself you can't put that into a model you can't you can develop a tool that that helps people but life is is infinitely mysterious so i found that if i wrote pieces that were just short quick poetic easy to read i could delve into all the deep mysteries um but also do it in a way that's um easy to dip into anywhere and so i kind of talk about all sorts of aspects of life but i'm really referring to the much deeper stuff along the way and when i when i got that idea and i realized okay let's finish this book and turn it into a whole string of easy to read insights um the book galvanized and i put it out and then only shortly after that when i wrote the sequel did i realize oh wow this is actually a series forming here so then we got further insights deeper insights truer sexier and and on okay and you're re-releasing all of those yes when they're coming out now between now and christmas uh so one at a time i've written some um chapters for each looking back so so insights one is is 12 years ago insights two is 10 just sort of because they're classics and they they're actually more relevant now than than they were then because they're quite visionary you know and people um were kind of in a space of we know you're right but and they were more concerned about what's after the but we were in survival mode i mean to a degree we still are in survival mode in in in this country um but just when i think you know i do i do a little bit of writing i write scripts and i do some blogs etc etc when i think what the amount of work that goes into just that when i'm thinking that you've written this many books i mean does you must love what you do i say on my worst day i adore it yeah i live it it's it's my writing is is my it's my spiritual digestive system my i'm i'm always writing i write all the time not that i do it in a structured way i just dispose myself to the muse and if an insight drops i write it i've written the last probably the last 15 books all on my phone since smartphones came out and um even this death is the ultimate orgasm which is 103 000 words i wrote on my phone on your phone are you nuts i am it's actually because that was a smaller one now i mean i've got a bigger phone now but so but you know when you're a writer i mean if i was stranded on a desert island all i'd need is a stick in the beach i need as long as i've got something to write on a creative outlet i'm fine you know so whatever it is it's not the easiest writing on a touch screen but it's better than nothing so i'll do it and i always advise people just follow your muse follow your creativity because it just gets better and better well i mean i i asked uh one of the an author i won't mention it's very well known author um and and i said to him at one stage he said you know what do you what is this whole writing thing you know how do you go about becoming a writer and i i sort of got looked at knowing and he looked at me and he went the answer is rather simple if you want to write then write that's it and i was like i was expecting a little bit more than that but yeah it is it's true i mean if you want to write write and and it does get better just keep going get going and keep going all right so let's move on okay um and by the way robin has given us uh five of the insight series to give away tonight so we're going to be giving away insights further insights deeper insights truer insights and sexier insights those five were given away that's a good amount of reading right there it's a couple of years yeah but the one that fascinates me um is this this latest offering uh death is the ultimate orgasm a handbook on how to live and die and i've often made a joke about this you know when you when you say here death is the ultimate orgasm always gone yeah because that way you can be coming and going at the same time um but you know this is taboo you mentioned sex and death in one like right there in the book title and i mean people are going to look at this and either think um that that this is some kind of you know modern day kama sutra or that you've lost the plot talk to me about the book i mean why why this book okay um as much as i love writing the insights books and as much as they've been kind of the backbone since 2007 or 2006 when i started writing the first one um i got to the point where um the year before last year it was late uh 2017 where i just i finished a book i think i wrote three that year and i just thought i've had enough it was book 20 actually and um i just took a break i thought let me stop uh and i deliberately um didn't write i actively didn't write because i thought let me do something new i'd like to open myself to something different and secretly i actually carried on writing the insight series but um i went to thailand um but actually what happened before that is george michael had died um the the last christmas before that and um he his manager and a guy called simon napier bell and from the 80s he managed where i'm in the 80s and took them to china and um he posted a post about george being an exceptional artist and mentioned his his how he'd managed him and i shared this on my page and i said look george is an example of someone being themselves for a living and simon is the example of the manager that i would like to have in my life and business and similarly bruce springsteen's got his manager john landau you know and that creative collaboration is and and the business side of it you know anyway the next morning i woke up to a message from simon um who had seen this and was asking me all about what i do and and loving the concept and everything as in as in george michael's manager yeah got hold of you yeah well mark bowland's manager the the decade before and the odd birds there before yeah he was he was up there with um brian eppstein and all the main managers of the 60s and then in the 70s he was huge so a real legend in the rock management field and then i found out um that he lives in thailand which is my kind of my second home my happy place so when i was there in december of 2017 um i organized to go up and see him he lives in pataya i was in puket and we spent 11 hours together um six and a half over lunch and four and a half over dinner and um we were like two peas and apart i mean the man's 80 he's old enough to be my father um so there was kind of a father-son mirror and there was a two autistic creative men mirror and all sorts of a brotherhood and we talked about you know everything um and uh that evening we were having a bottle of of wine in an italian restaurant and uh all the banter that had sort of happened over the day and was in the air and he and he he said something and i said well death is the ultimate orgasm and he said to me there's your bestseller and i just realized it right there i actually zoned out and started writing at the table because it was like hovering you know and i just came home and wrote the book and put it out see that is that is amazing because i mean again you're very you're kind of very like just came home write the book and put it out this is a monster book yeah it's a it's a time you know and and and it covers a whole bunch i mean i can't wait to dig into this book um but uh as i mentioned earlier my reading list is has suddenly expanded greatly over the last few months um so you had the title okay which is yeah all right catchy it's it's catchy it's edgy it's kind of like you know what the heck are you saying where did the content come from because a friend of mine and one of my great mentors always used to say to me coincidence is god's way of remaining anonymous or the universe's way of remaining anonymous so i mean it was a coincidence that you posted this and only ended up there and met him but so you've got the title now how the hell did you fill up the rest of the pages well you know when you it's like writing a song you know you might get a hook or you might get a title or a or a you know a little sort of piece of inspiration and then when you attend to it the thing just keeps coming through and you realize oh this thing needs to sort of um be given form you know and if you've got the skills if you're a musician you can just sit down and and voice it and uh being a writer you know when you get uh quite experienced at it um you know that you've got the craft uh behind you you know so as i just sort of you know for example my dad had died just after insights came out book one um literally a couple of months after that my dad got ill and died and i was i went through all of the illness with him and he i was with him holding his hand as he as he took his last breath so death um had made itself known to me in very intimate terms and i spent the decade processing that i mean it was one of the most beautiful um satisfying experiences of my life you know so there was that and um my girlfriend had been ill and she'd been through chemotherapy and i just come out of uh dealing with that um in very sort of intense close quarters and her brush with with mortality and um just various strands like that um george michael's death and what that had meant and how people um when it's almost as if we we hear with this inner message to give the world and it all suddenly makes sense when we die it's like it kind of brings it full circle you know so and also this thing about um death not being um the end it's it's if you've got a linear approach if you're thinking you know you've got a line a vector beginning end death and you know atheistic people would would insist that uh nothing happens yeah but if you look at say someone like steve jobs famously made his speech about using death as an advisor um where you know if you if life's giving you a hard time just remember you're going to die because that'll put everything in perspective so if you embrace death as a reality not something to fear which you know there's an element of fear but definitely and then you bring that forward and you actually embrace that we're living and dying all the time so what is our legacy well yes what what are we doing what are we here to do and um if you if you don't embrace death you can't live to the full so it's only in consciousness of death and understanding of death because everything we're doing is actually building up to death well i mean that's that's that's one of the ironies of of being human is that from the moment you are born that's where you're heading the package is already signed and sealed you were talking about the entrepreneurial journey that to me is just a smaller metaphor for the journey of life itself i mean if you when you take that thing to be born you've bought the whole ticket the whole ride and you're in for the whole thing and you have to just handle it and we're all here to do that we'll talk more about the book when we come back my special guest in studio robin wheeler what's involved and my special guest in studio is robin wheeler prolific author there we go that's my big word for the night prolific um i tell you what he says reaching over um we're going to give away all five of the insights books that we have here in one night yeah so we're going to give away the set okay this is uh thank you robin thank you because uh you self-publish these yeah yeah i started you know with being yourself for a living being my ethos um when the first book came out in 99 i looked at options and basically i self-taught myself the publishing business but i just realized i had to do it authentically and i wasn't interested in compromising and so i kind of just learned the ropes and put the book out learning as i went and that just evolved into my own publishing business one of the things i do in the corporate world is a product called fully booked where i take companies through a transformation process i don't jump the gun i want to get onto this because you've just done one now yes which i want to talk about but uh you know so so this is i mean you know this is this is your own you know this is your blood sweat tears money and everything in this my life my soul i even typeseted our design i got got a designer to do the covers but everything in there um is straight through my hands and that's part of the spirit of it yeah so if you would like to win this set of five books uh it's the insights series by robin wheeler uh we've got insights further insights deeper insights true insights and sexier insights uh we're gonna pick somebody randomly so uh you can uh just whatsapp us and uh give me your name and just say insights okay give me your name and say insights you can send that to 0 8 4 8 2 2 0 9 3 8 that's the whatsapp line 0 8 4 8 2 2 0 9 3 8 uh otherwise sms us 4 1 3 4 8 sms are charged at 1 ran 50 if you'd like to win that set of five books i'll give you some chance to get those wow okay maybe you don't need that much time they come flooding in um i'm also going to be giving away um a copy of death is the ultimate orgasm robin's latest well latest published book not the latest latest book because we're going to get onto that in just a bit um it's he leans over once again uh it says a handbook on how to live and die we've talked death okay it's the only thing they say anything that's certain is death and taxes but but it says here how to live as well so so what is the book about i mean this must have been a hell of a journey and and you know uh let me just have a have a quick look here this is 380 90 odd pages so this is what a hundred thousand words 103 000 yes yeah it's it's a lot of writing you don't just do this on a sunday afternoon no it took a good few sunday afternoons it was six days a week 14 hours a day for about five months which is still pretty quick i might die on quick for this so so how did you it i mean we got the dying pot done but how to live yeah i'd say to sum up how to die is going to it consciously don't be afraid to how to live uh the book is actually about how to live because that's all my work is about how to live so it's really all the same message how to be yourself for a living how to follow your calling how to embrace death as an advisor how to um resolve your ancestral issues how to use your talents to be of service to the world how to um be creative for a living how to um personify the new humanity how to be a leader all of that integrated and um it kind of flows together into this sort of plait of insight and that sort of climaxes with this realization that if you do all of these things if you be yourself for a living you might feel like you lost sometimes you might be might feel like the universe has its knee on your head you might be down and out but you just keep going keep being true keep leading the way and it all comes together and it's the ultimate climax well there we go um one of my just as an aside one of one of my theme songs when the when the going gets tough uh you know the saying when the going gets tough the tough goes shopping but one of my my songs because i'm a great believer in music and the healing power of music uh believe it or not song by tim mcgraw called live like you were dying there you go um i don't know if you've heard the song it's all about a guy who gets diagnosed with cancer and what he does um and that was always one of my inspirations so the other book that we're giving away is uh death is the ultimate orgasm robin wheeler's latest offering says here on the cover don't die before you read this and now you know uh it's a handbook on how to live and die what's involved we're wrapping it up my special guest in studio uh is robin wheeler wow okay so um hang on people you went nuts tonight again um i just got to see okay who won there thank you hang on just got to do this it's easy i don't have a producer okay i need to have a person for this like a person who does producing things but i don't you know we kind of independent here we do it all ourselves uh well done and congratulations the winner of uh the uh death is the ultimate orgasm and uh that winner there went into the randomizer came out with anthony in kai alami well done and congratulations somebody will be in touch with you from the radio station just remember all prizes are delivered courtesy of nightwing couriers robin um in wrapping up you said another part of the business uh is where you actually it's called uh the the website the company is called b entrepreneuring that's right that's not bentrepreneur it's b entrepreneur is the website so it's be and then entrepreneur or be with entrepreneurial.com.com that's we can get hold of robin but you also go in and you help businesses write their story yes so the one side is my own books in my own name and then the other side is i consult to companies i run transformational projects helping them achieve three or four of their key objectives solve one or two of their main problems and shift everyone into this more enlightened state of being yourself for a living and i facilitate that people write a chapter of a book which i then publish as a business manifesto training manual uh branding tool christmas gift corporate gift and i've just done one at my local mall bedford center it's a lovely mall that it's special and it always has been i've been going there since i was a kid so i've got out i've got um the tenants the key independent tenants there to write this book together it's coming out next month and it's going to change the face of retail fantastic stuff we'll have to get you back to talk about that we're out of time if somebody wants to get hold of you robin where can they do that uh probably social media our best facebook robin wheeler just linkedin yes linkedin all of them we mutual stalkers on linkedin i'm very active on all of them so just look me up robin wheeler get hold of him a great guy to have a chat with some great books as well see where you can get those i'm up and out of here special treat for you tonight we get kaz in she's doing double tonight apparently i don't know pete decided he wanted to go to the state dean's out and about being famous so it lands to cast to keep your company which he does exceptionally well i'll catch you again next week same time between six and eight yet another edition of what's involved robin thank you once again so much and to each and every one of you thank you so much for listening