Bob Hamp / Founder Think Differently Academy. Author. Speaker. Coach

Bob Hamp is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, author, and founder of Think Differently Academy, and in this episode he delivers one of the most paradigm-shifting conversations ever featured on Headsmack.

Blending neuroscience, change theory, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and kingdom theology, Bob explains why most personal growth fails, why religion often produces shallow solutions, and how true life change happens at the level of thought process, paradigms, and the heart—not willpower or behavior modification.

You don’t need better thoughts.
You need a different thought process.

Freedom isn’t fixing your life.
Freedom is becoming yourself.

Most people are solving the wrong problem.
Jesus didn’t come to fix behavior.

This episode will mess with your categories—in the best way.

This is a conversation about identity, freedom, and learning how to live from the Tree of Life instead of the Tree of Knowledge.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Technical Setup
02:42 Personal Background and Family Challenges
05:43 Exploring the Podcast's Theme and Guest Introduction
11:14 Bob Hamp's Journey and Misfit Experience
17:19 Integration of Faith and Counseling
23:08 Transformational Thinking and Logic
29:04 Kingdom Logic and Its Implications
29:18 The Power of Connection and Faith
30:35 Understanding Kingdom Logic
31:33 The Unseen Forces Around Us
34:28 Tuning into Spiritual Frequencies
34:58 The Pace of Life and Spiritual Connection
39:11 Thinking Differently vs. Thinking Different
43:38 The Impact of Paradigms on Perception
46:48 Tools for Transformative Thinking
54:45 The Tree of Life vs. The Tree of Knowledge
57:30 The Source of Life vs. Knowledge
01:01:25 Understanding Freedom
01:05:26 The Heart's Role in Freedom
01:14:18 Roadmap to True Freedom

Guest Link: https://tdacad.com/

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (11:27.103)
Hey, welcome to the Head Smack podcast. My name is Paul Pavolny and I am excited to have another Miss Fit with me. I have Bob Hamp and he is a licensed marriage and family therapist, an author, a speaker and founder of Think Differently Academy and our online platform for video courses. All of his work centers around the idea that changing thought processes changes everything.

Bob Hamp (11:30.286)
you

Paul Povolni (11:56.387)
combining a bit of neuroscience with change theory and neuro-linguistic programming. specializes in life change and specifically in helping people discover their unique identity. Bob, how you doing, man?

Bob Hamp (12:08.935)
I am doing great. I've been looking forward to this time.

Paul Povolni (12:12.021)
I have as well. I really have been looking forward to this conversation. We got to meet each other in person at an event a few months ago and absolutely loved meeting you, meeting your lovely wife, purchasing a bunch of your books and I've started reading them and absolutely love the things that you have to say. And I was just so looking forward to this conversation because I think it's really going to be a conversation that for a lot of people, they're to have some head smack moments. They're going to have some,

They're going to have some things that will truly make them think, make them think differently and not think different, think differently. And, Exactly. And, that's what I, and I do want to talk about that. I do want to talk about that distinct difference. didn't recognize it at first. I just thought it was a unique take on Apple's, Apple's thing. But then after I started reading your book, I was like, wow. Yeah, this is, this is gold. And so I do want to talk about that.

But before we get started, I kind of want to hear a little bit about your backstory, a little bit about your origin story. Just tell me about your journey to where you are now and what that was like and how it all got started. And you can go as far back as you want.

Bob Hamp (13:24.662)
I was gonna say, how far back do you want me to go? I'll say this, I really like the idea that this podcast is, what did you call it, a conversation with misfits. And to some degree, I think almost everybody at some point feels like a misfit in life, and there are reasons for that, but I think there's a lot of pressure for people to conform. And so because of that, everyone feels like, well, do I fit in? Am I really who I should be?

Paul Povolni (13:26.487)
Hahaha.

Bob Hamp (13:52.704)
So I'll say, you know, middle school, high school, think fairly typically I felt like I did not fit it. I was, I was like it's past tense. was a good student and intelligent student, passed a lot of tests, got A's and, you know, got A's on my papers and such, but really just as, shy as shy could be kind of painfully. So, and so kind of keep myself off outside of the crowd, keep myself quiet and

Paul Povolni (14:02.902)
Ha ha ha.

Bob Hamp (14:22.382)
It's interesting because I do so much public speaking these days. There's a point in my school career where I literally failed a public speaking moment because I froze. I froze in front of 30 middle school students and just all I could do is go, and just, so really felt like I was quite a misfit. And the interesting thing about that for me is these days that is kind of my brand. at the time I

Paul Povolni (14:32.556)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (14:49.07)
didn't like that I didn't fit in today. I'm so grateful that I didn't fit in and therefore I can blaze my own path and it's not a foreign place for me. So my mother was a counselor in the 70s and I was always a little bit put off by what she did. And all I mean by that is it seemed real, you know, feelings oriented and just a lot of, how are you feeling about that? And well, tell me more. And it just, for a 13, 14 year old kid, it just didn't.

Paul Povolni (14:59.086)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:03.875)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (15:18.67)
Not only did it not draw me, but it really kind of off put me. And then, and this is stuff we can converse about as we go, somewhere around age 18 to 19, I really felt like I heard God himself say, really want you to go into counseling. I was like, oh, you're not. Really? That's what you want me to do? Because my picture at the time, my picture of counseling was so,

Paul Povolni (15:24.953)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:38.262)
wow.

Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (15:47.978)
70s oriented. And then I discovered marriage and family therapy. And what happened is I went to a particular college where my psych professor was a doctorate of marriage and family therapy, completely different model than what I'd ever been accustomed to. And it was very strategic, you know, almost like a chess game more than like,

Paul Povolni (15:49.859)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:54.561)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (16:15.758)
plowing through feelings and plowing through people's guts. And not that we don't take into account the fact that emotions play a particular role and it's important to value them and understand them, but helping people change through that model is a very different journey for me. And it kind of got me excited about helping people. So journey into that, I graduated, started counseling practice, and in that counseling practice,

Paul Povolni (16:35.395)
Yeah. Yeah.

Bob Hamp (16:43.426)
years leading up to that, I'd really been, how do I say this? My relationship with God had grown significantly in those years, hence I'm listening to his voice at age 18. And taking what I'd understood about my current standing in the religious community and what I was seeing in front of me in my counseling practice, I set out to bring those two into something that felt like a...

healthy and integrist integration. How do I bring together what I've believed in my faith life and the kind of real human suffering that I see in front of me every single day in my office? And I think sometimes the solutions that religion offers can sometimes be a little shallow compared to what people need. I mean, not always, but I think often it can be. And so looking for something that went deeper than that,

Paul Povolni (17:14.201)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (17:33.292)
right right

Bob Hamp (17:39.714)
back in the 90s, I really began, you told me I could go back as far as I want. Back in the 90s, I really began in those early days of my counseling practice to find potent and practical answers that still were congruent with what I believed, I saw and understood of the life and teachings of Jesus. in that, I really both learned from some other people, but stumbled on some things

Paul Povolni (17:44.439)
Hey, this is awesome.

Paul Povolni (18:02.231)
Right, right.

Bob Hamp (18:09.614)
of my own discovery process that really transformed me in the process. But I also found that those things really transformed the people sitting in front of me. And over the years, it went from, you're sitting in front of me one-on-one in my office and I'm teaching and doing some things with people to I'm sitting in front of 50 people to I'm sitting in front of 500 people. And over the years, my mind continues to grow. My spirit continues to grow.

And so now I find I stand in front of crowds or I write books just because what was happening to me was important and transformational and it seemed to help other people too. And so I wanted to make that as widely available as I know how.

Paul Povolni (18:54.051)
So where did some of that transformational thinking come from? You you mentioned that religion can sometimes be so shallow. And I think it's, I think it's, you know, some, some, some churches and some, some leaders can also, they don't know how to handle certain things. And so they give, you know, these answers that don't really help a whole lot, you know, they're, they're, they're hallmark card type answers, you know? And so, you know, you, you recognize that. And so where did,

Where did some of that transforming of your thinking come from? Was it a person or was it a book? Was it God? it like, where did that come from?

Bob Hamp (19:33.39)
You know, Paul, that's a great question. I could give a couple different answers, but when you ask that, the thing that jumps out at me is it came from my clients. You know, and probably then my second answer would be it came from God sitting in front of my clients. And so I'll say this, when I first really entered into, so at age 14, I had what I would call a born again experience. So I had this encounter.

that I would describe as meeting God in person and really embracing my understanding of how he wanted to enter my life. And it transformed me. I became different. Like I started to see things differently. I started to feel different about myself. Relationships started to change in meaningful ways. And so when I say I went into my counseling practice wanting to make both my faith and my clinical training

Paul Povolni (20:13.657)
Wow. Yeah.

Bob Hamp (20:32.566)
integrate, I had this transformational experience that I knew could be anybody else's. But then here's what happened. I went to church and started hearing a of those hallmark answers. You know, I started hearing some people saying, you know, here's the ritual to perform. And they didn't say it that way, of course, but they're giving kind of those performative behavior modification kind of answers. And I thought that's not what I experienced.

Paul Povolni (20:46.1)
Mmm, yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:02.829)
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (21:03.214)
I experienced something deeper than that. I experienced something in my guts and I want to learn how to bring that real experience and like I said, partner with my clinical training and figure out. So sitting in front of clients, every single one of them needed something different. And so I started trying to figure out how to take this and translate it into the unique worldview of each person sitting in front of me.

Paul Povolni (21:20.739)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (21:32.46)
I will also say another source of it was during my grad school training. This was not part of my grad school, but I found the writings of Bandler and Grindr, the kind of founders of neuro linguistic programming and was fascinated by their work. And so just on my own time during grad school, cause you have a lot of time during grad school, right? I started reading about and understanding NLP.

Paul Povolni (21:50.329)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (22:00.64)
and using it in my counseling as I was growing as a counselor. And that kind of thinking also impacted my personal faith and therefore impacted the way I imparted that to other people.

Paul Povolni (22:15.331)
So, you know, you, you had, mean, it sounds like you had quite a head smack moment. And the reason I use sometimes the word head smack is because there is a smack of thinking of thought of, preconceived ideas. Was, was there anything that you smacked up against in your own heart, in your own mind, in your own thinking, in your own training, as you started to get this new understanding of the mind and the heart and the spirit and everything else.

that you personally had to fight through to, to, to, to conquer yourself, to not let yourself stay in the same track as everybody else was.

Bob Hamp (22:55.022)
Well, I think, I think yes, and I think those early years of having been not like everybody else made me a lot more comfortable with not needing to fit in.

Paul Povolni (23:08.579)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (23:13.76)
And like I said, when I discovered marriage and family therapy as a discipline, it really relieved me that counseling didn't have to be all about psychology, but could be about rearranging life systems, relational patterns, and rearranging relational patterns would help people see themselves and see life in a different way. so that itself helped me kind of jump outside of some of my...

Paul Povolni (23:36.621)
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (23:41.794)
When I heard my professor start talking about marriage and family therapy, that was a head smack moment for me. And I read a book called Problem Solving Therapy by Jay Haley, and probably every chapter I'd smack my head one more time and go, this, this is what I'm looking for, and it's so different, but it so spoke my kind of analytical mind's language.

Paul Povolni (24:00.162)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:06.487)
Right, Yeah, I know for me as well that happened, know, when I had a crisis of faith, you know, growing up in a church that was, you know, it was, when it came to questions, they didn't have answers. And so, you know, when I was in college, you know, studying art and design, you know, for me, I couldn't consolidate and I couldn't rationalize

Bob Hamp (24:08.225)
And

Paul Povolni (24:35.993)
some of the things that I was hearing with what the church was not giving me answers to. And like, didn't know how to answer that. I don't know how it makes sense. And I needed actually to be, my faith needed to be approached with logic. And I don't know whether that makes sense. But for me, was a book by, oh, I forgot a new name, my goodness. It was Evidence that Demands a Verdict, was the book that changed my thinking.

Bob Hamp (25:01.826)
that we struggle.

Paul Povolni (25:04.377)
No, it wasn't Lee Strobel. I have it right here on my shelf for some reason. name is, it was, was, and so this, this book took you through evolution and took you through faith and took you through scripture and the, the, the origin of scripture and how it's, you know, we can trust scripture and we have all this manuscript and I needed that kind of thing to be an aha moment for me to get past the, the non answers that religion was giving me.

And so, you know, it's kind of interesting to hear you say that you started looking at neuroscience and stuff was like clicking. It's like, my goodness, this is syncing up with my, my heart and my mind and my faith. And it's making sense. And it's kind of aligning things in a, in a better place. Josh McDowell that's the author Josh McDowell.

Bob Hamp (25:54.402)
remember some other book by Lee Strobel, it was also a similar kind of apologetics. But you know, the thing, the thing for me, and I say this often these days, there's, tell people there's three kinds of logic, right? There's classical logic where you examine A plus B equals C and you look for the precepts and what they, kind of how these things add up to some logical conclusion. And most people understand at least instinctively classic logic. But there's,

what I call nervous system logic. And that's the, why do people do the things they do even when they wish they wouldn't do them? And why can't people do the things they're trying to do? Is this about evil and darkness and sin or is this maybe something that makes sense when you understand how the nervous system and the brain operates? You start to look at that stuff and go, yeah, there's reasons why people

hurt the people they love. And there's reasons why people are trying hard not to take cocaine, but they keep doing it. There's reasons. And if you understand the nervous system, there are actually very logical reasons.

Paul Povolni (27:03.597)
Hmm, wow.

Bob Hamp (27:05.088)
And just, you know, one of the precepts of neuro-linguistic programming is that everyone's trying to accomplish something good. They just have bad, bad solutions for the problem they're trying to solve. They're essentially saying, everyone's trying to do the best that they know. And so if the best that they know is I'm so anxious that I just need some more nicotine. They're not thinking that, but their body's thinking that. Their nervous system is telling you, just take another hit.

Paul Povolni (27:27.245)
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (27:34.222)
And so there's a certain logic of the nervous system that says, if you understand how it operates, you know why a trauma patient repeats traumatic behavior over and over again, even though it harms them every time they do. Or if you understand the nervous system, you understand that you're operating sometimes in survival when survival circumstances aren't around you. And so then the third kind of logic that I talked about is kingdom logic. And kingdom logic to me,

Paul Povolni (27:34.401)
Hmm, wow.

Paul Povolni (27:47.054)
Bye.

Paul Povolni (27:55.447)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (28:03.894)
And this is really when I've started to understand in quantum physics a little bit better. This one even helps more when we look at that area of science. But kingdom logic is the kind of logic that if you're a Bible believing person, we see things like weakness equals strength and poverty equals wealth and surrender equals victory. And, you know, there's kind of this almost 180 degree kind of logic that when you can look through the right lens, it is logical, but

Paul Povolni (28:20.128)
Hmm

Paul Povolni (28:25.335)
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (28:33.048)
based on classic logic, it's like, mm, yeah, no, weakness is weakness and strength is strength.

Paul Povolni (28:36.345)
Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like, you know, in, in movies and, I'm a, I'm a superhero fan and stuff. you know, they're constantly talking about these, these multiverses and, you know, the kingdom of God is very much this multiverse, this, this, this kingdom that coexists within, within a world that has rules that are very different than

the current rules. And like you were saying, you know, that weakness is strength, you know, you die to live, you know, and all of those things. you know, and that doesn't make sense to people in a kingdom that is very different. You know, in our kingdom, these are the rules. You know, as you said, the first type of logic in this kingdom, this is our rules. But then there's another kingdom that says that's co-exist that says, but yeah, but in this kingdom, these are the rules.

Bob Hamp (29:30.942)
And I think that was part of the struggle that Jesus faced in trying to communicate that. And that churches struggle even more to communicate and end up offering those hallmark kind of moments, right? Jesus is pushing for this deep paradigm shift. If you're operating in the world and it's not working, maybe you're operating in the wrong world. And the church says, try operating this way instead of that way, instead of try operating in a different realm.

Paul Povolni (29:43.277)
Right.

Paul Povolni (29:53.846)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (30:00.216)
Right, right.

Bob Hamp (30:00.856)
You you talk about a head smack moment. I'll tell you a head smack moment for me regarding the kingdom and kingdom logic was the first time I saw the movie, The Matrix.

Paul Povolni (30:10.529)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (30:14.523)
I thought I had found my best friend in the world. I just didn't know who it was. Whoever wrote that, I thought, I just think I found my best friend.

Paul Povolni (30:24.385)
Yeah, I think it was actually a person of faith, I remember right.

Bob Hamp (30:28.16)
I've heard a story that like the two brothers that made that actually got that from a woman who wrote it and clearly, know, clearly whoever wrote it either got a straight up download or they knew the Bible.

Paul Povolni (30:33.421)
Mm-hmm.

Paul Povolni (30:41.399)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so, so some of those, the, kingdom logic, you know, talk about that specifically when, when you work with people, that, you know, that, that are maybe working in these other logics, how do you, how do you start helping them understand the kingdom logic that is so opposite to maybe what they've, they so used to.

Bob Hamp (31:05.646)
I'll tell you a funny story and then I'm going come around to your question through the side door. I was working with a guy who had struggled with alcoholism and his wife and he had actually come in together. So I'd worked on their marriage, but I was trying to work with him along on his addiction. And one day I assigned him to go watch the matrix and explained to him why, and he came back, changed man. He came back, changed man. So

Paul Povolni (31:30.264)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (31:33.228)
Kingdom logic, let's first of all talk about what that is the way I think about it. If you think about the movie The Matrix, and I apologize if your listeners have not seen it, you have to hit pause right now, go watch the movie twice, and then come back. I always tell people you have to watch it twice. It doesn't make sense until halfway through. And then you have to watch it again because now the first part makes sense.

Paul Povolni (31:52.419)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (31:56.442)
It's a movie that keeps on giving. mean, it's it is.

Bob Hamp (32:01.504)
Which is why Kingdom logic is so difficult because it doesn't make sense when you first approach it. And then once the shift happens, it's like, this makes sense. Now let's come back and look at the things that didn't make sense before. And so one of the things, this is, know, I talked to a lot of people who don't necessarily start out with a faith or a faith like mine. And one of the things that, that I start with is, you know,

Paul Povolni (32:08.045)
Right, right.

Bob Hamp (32:30.798)
two ways that I enter this conversation. One of them is the reality that we live in is, you know, 5 % what we see and 95 % what we can't see. And I'll say, if you struggle to, you know, to approach that from a biblical slash religious perspective, then just consider it from the quantum science perspective.

In fact, it's probably more than 95.5. From the quantum perspective, it's probably more like 99.9 and 0.1. And so if the frequencies that are observable by the human senses are this much on a continuum, then there's a lot more that we can't see than that we can see. And a lot of the things that we can't see affect what we can see.

Paul Povolni (33:05.492)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (33:15.63)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (33:21.92)
And so at some point, if we choose to remain ignorant of the unseen, we're impacted by forces that we may not acknowledge, but we're still impacted by. So again, consider the kind of newer information about EMFs and the way that electromagnetic frequencies can potentially have negative impact on the body and the nervous system and the various things that it can do.

Paul Povolni (33:37.794)
Wow, yeah.

Bob Hamp (33:50.508)
Those are invisible forces that are all around us that I can't see it, the ear can't hear it. But unless we become wise to it, we could potentially be harmed by it.

Paul Povolni (33:59.886)
Yeah. Yeah.

Bob Hamp (34:01.422)
And countless other examples of that once we get outside the visible spectrum of what we see with our experience with our five senses. In the same way, there is a spiritual realm that we can either benefit from or not understand.

And if we choose to, go ahead. I was gonna say if we choose to understand it, that doesn't take away its beneficial power. It just means we don't necessarily get to avail ourselves of

Paul Povolni (34:32.492)
Right, right. Well, it's kind of like sitting, sitting in a forest and saying, I am alone, not realizing that over your head and through your body are frequencies, you know, but if you, you know, if you had a radio, you could pick them up. You can pick up, you know, multiple types of frequencies that are coming through you, but you could, you know, you can, Hey, I'm, I'm alone in this forest, but in fact, there's, there's things happening all around you and sounds and vibrations and stuff that you just don't have the tools to plug into what that is.

Bob Hamp (35:02.978)
And that radio frequency is actually one of the metaphors I use because in order to pick up those radio frequencies, you have to do a couple things. You have to be a receiver and you have to tune into the correct frequency. And so if there's frequencies that aren't radio and perhaps frequencies that were designed for the benefit of the human soul, so spiritual frequencies that are designed for our benefit, we really are a receiver.

Paul Povolni (35:16.388)
Right.

Bob Hamp (35:30.424)
We're designed to be a receiver of spiritual life. And that being the case, we just have to learn that frequency. I started to say figure out, but I'm not ready to go there yet. We have to learn that frequency. That's another conversation altogether, but we have to learn that frequency and then start to dial in. And I would submit that the pace of life that most people live is a frequency that's not compatible with the frequency of spiritual life.

Paul Povolni (35:30.682)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (35:41.682)
Hahaha.

Paul Povolni (35:48.58)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (35:59.352)
Wow. Okay. Talk about that a little deeper. That is so good.

Bob Hamp (36:03.042)
Yeah, anxiety, frenetic activity, drivenness, gotta keep up with Paul because Paul's succeeding and I'm not. All of those are speeds at which our mind starts to go and when our mind starts to go that way, our nervous system speeds up to match that and we end up having potential diagnoses, anxiety, depression, et cetera, et cetera. And then someone says, well, if you pray and believe in God, he'll

Paul Povolni (36:26.221)
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (36:32.194)
He'll heal your diagnosis. And I think, well, that's a super hallmark way to say that. And it's not wrong, but it's not right. And so the frequency, know, God has this way of describing it. He says, you know, be still and know that I'm God. And that's actually almost a prerequisite, you know, because he's not moving at the pace of frenetic activity, because he's not moving at the pace of keeping up with Paul's amazing successes.

Paul Povolni (36:39.628)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (36:54.554)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (37:01.644)
He's moving at a pace that I call Sabbath. Sabbath is I'm at rest on the inside.

Paul Povolni (37:05.464)
Mmm.

Wow.

Bob Hamp (37:09.666)
So if he's a God who's at rest and I'm a human who's at work, our frequencies are passing right by each other and I'm not receiving what he's broadcasting.

Paul Povolni (37:20.962)
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (37:21.858)
And so if I can learn to bring my frequency down and get increasingly at rest, I start to sense something in the spiritual world that's more than me. But if I'm just constantly moving fast, I'm not praying really fast that God would help me while I'm moving fast. I had a client in here the other day who said, so what you're saying is I'm walking alongside God, but I've started running and he's kept walking.

Paul Povolni (37:34.456)
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (37:48.768)
and he's talking to me, but I can't hear him because I'm running on a head. Bingo.

Paul Povolni (37:48.904)
Hahaha.

Paul Povolni (37:53.016)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it seems like when you're in that, that anxious state or that hyperactivity state, or you're super busy that it, you, you want God to speak louder and, know, you, know, because a whisper at that point, you're not going to hear you. You're wanting him to speak louder because you're just not ready to hear him in a whisper.

Bob Hamp (38:16.172)
Yeah, and you're also anxious about it, so you desperately want him to speak. And desperation at one level can be helpful in the sense that if we're, you know, here's where again Jesus is trying to teach to a group of material men this kingdom logic, and he says things like, you know, for the poor in spirit, you guys are gonna be blessed. And for the meek.

Paul Povolni (38:41.145)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (38:41.942)
you're gonna inherit the earth. he's given all these qualifications that we don't think of as like really qualifications of success. What he's saying is, if you'll settle down to these places, if you'll settle down to these places, you'll really connect to the source of all life. And when you connect the source of all life, you'll experience more aliveness. And people hear, I better be meek. I better be, you know, all these things. Well, no.

Paul Povolni (39:05.475)
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (39:11.49)
These are ways to tune into the frequency, and it's the frequency that brings you life.

Paul Povolni (39:17.464)
Wow. Well, and then there's a story of a prophet that was looking to, to, you know, see God or hear God and, know, God wasn't in the thunder. God wasn't in the lightning. God wasn't in the storm. He was in the still small voice. And I think a lot of times we, want that thunder and lightning, know, word from God. And sometimes it's a whisper and the only way to hear a whisper is to lean in, you know, and, get close and

And I think sometimes it's a lot tougher to do that. We want the bombastic.

Bob Hamp (39:51.788)
Right. And it's, think, you when I talk about helping people change, one of the consistent dynamics I run into is people are trying to experience a change using processes that cannot produce that change. Or to say it in terms of the way I was trained, people are trying to solve a problem, but they've defined the problem wrongly, they use the wrong solutions. And we often say,

Paul Povolni (40:07.086)
Well, yeah.

Paul Povolni (40:19.245)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (40:19.746)
You know, people don't come to me for counseling because of their problems. They come to me for counseling because of bad solutions.

Paul Povolni (40:27.286)
Wow. Wow. So talk a little bit about, you know, and part of that is, the way you think. And we, we kind of talked about a little bit of this at the start and in your introduction, you know, you use the term think differently as opposed to simply think different. And, you know, when I saw your books and I purchased your books, I'm like, that's cool. But, know, I, I've loved Apple's campaign of think different, and this is a kind of a cool take, cool take on that.

Bob Hamp (40:42.786)
up.

Bob Hamp (40:53.016)
Me too.

Paul Povolni (40:56.154)
But then when I read your book, it was way deeper than that. And I absolutely loved the way you talked about that. talk a little bit about that, about the difference between think different and think differently and how sometimes we can take the wrong approach to change life change.

Bob Hamp (41:14.156)
Yeah, I'm grateful that you ask because those two letters can be way more important than they sound. know, grammatically speaking, the ly makes the word different, an adverb instead of an adjective, which means that it modifies not a noun but a verb. So when you say think differently, you're not talking about your thoughts, you're talking about your thought processes. So real change.

Paul Povolni (41:29.53)
Mmm.

Bob Hamp (41:41.908)
isn't just when you have a new thought because you can have a new thought and then another new thought and another new thought and all you're doing is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. But to think differently means to have a new thought process. And a new thought process really is not so much about rearranging the deck chairs but completely turning the boat and changing course. So when you change course, it doesn't matter. You can rearrange the chairs any way you want but you're all going to get safely to shore.

Paul Povolni (41:51.63)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (42:04.826)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (42:11.618)
But the thing about thought process is thought process always produces the same outcome no matter what thought is coming in. So to make that make sense even more, you've got people who are optimists and that's a thought process. And an optimist can take any information and make it good news. Wait, my car got hit? I can't wait to see what insurance is gonna do. My house flooded? Man, I'm gonna get a whole new floor out of this. You know, they've got a thought.

Paul Povolni (42:19.642)
Hmm, wow.

Paul Povolni (42:35.319)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (42:40.088)
process that takes all the information coming in and turns it into good news. Well, a pessimist has a thought process also, and it takes the same information and turns it into bad news, or it can even take good news and turn it into bad news. And so what we begin to see is our human experience is not a result of our circumstances, but a result of our thought processes. Because we can view our circumstances, and we do view our circumstances

Paul Povolni (42:45.85)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (43:04.174)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (43:09.57)
through our own thought processes, and whatever we've already come up with is what we're going to come up with tomorrow until our thought processes change.

Paul Povolni (43:19.032)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (43:19.81)
So the optimism pessimism thing really is just a simple illustration, but everybody has a thought process like everybody has a fingerprint. There's an old saying that says that we believe we see the world as it is, but we actually see the world as we are. And so what that means is the lenses that I wear are the thought processes and paradigms that I carry and whatever's happening in the world around me.

Paul Povolni (43:30.221)
mmm yeah

Bob Hamp (43:48.364)
are colored by my own lenses, now I see the world not as it is, but as my thought processes portray them to me. So two people can watch the same circumstance and one goes, that's awesome. And the other one goes, we're doomed. And again, that's optimism, pessimism, but we've all been trained a way of thinking, but we spend a lot of time looking for what to think.

Paul Povolni (43:57.241)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (44:05.88)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (44:16.781)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (44:16.949)
And even a lot of our education system tells us what to think. And a lot of books tell you what to think. But if you think a different what, but the same way, you're still gonna produce the same outcome with a new thought, but the same old thought process.

So the L-Y is the key to all the change because think differently and now everything changes. One last thing I want to say about that is what a lot of people don't know is that the word repent in the New Testament literally means to think differently.

Paul Povolni (44:34.937)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (44:44.473)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (44:54.146)
Wow. Wow. Now, you know, I've, I've met people that, you know, have hopped from job to job, to job. And, you know, one of the things that they've said is, man, everywhere I work, you the boss is terrible. And I can't stand my coworkers, you know, I like them at the start. And then before long, they're, they're just, they irritate me and, they're all against me and they don't like me.

And you want to kind of shake him and say, don't you see, wherever you go, there you are. And it could have to do with your thought processes. And somebody once said that words create worlds, kind of based on Genesis and God spoke and worlds were created. But you're also saying that those thoughts that generate those words also create the world that you're in.

Bob Hamp (45:44.365)
Right. And so what happens, one of the things, so I do some consulting with businesses as well as, you know, individuals and families. And one of the things I do when I go to businesses is I say, this is going to make more sense in the days ahead, but you need to know that everybody repeats their family of origin pattern until they don't.

And what that means is, you know, if you were the youngest child in your family and you were always treated special and everybody always kind of took care of you, that's going to be your experience most places you go because you actually recreate that both by your choices, your, you know, thought patterns, thought processes, you repeat that by your attractions. And so not only do you repeat it, but you draw people to you that, that treat you that way. But if you're an oldest child,

Paul Povolni (46:05.39)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (46:33.55)
and you're always responsible and you're always carrying burdens that are other people's and the adults around always expect you to take care of things, you're gonna repeat that pattern until you learn not how to change the pattern out there, but the belief system or thought processes in here. So absolutely, when somebody goes from one organization to another and has the same experience over and over again, it's the exact same internal mechanism as the woman who keeps marrying alcoholics.

Paul Povolni (47:02.746)
Wow. Well, somebody's head is spinning from that head smack. That was awesome. And the Bible does talk about, be conformed, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And so this kind of conversation and this kind of stuff that we're talking about very much aligns with that kingdom way of thinking of how to get a new life, how to change from what you've been getting, how to get something new.

Um, so talk a little bit, you know, let's, let's get some practical tools for thinking differently. If you've been thinking different, you've been, you know, I think these thoughts, therefore I expect these outcomes, but I need to be thinking differently. What are some, what are some tools or what are some things that people can like take from this, this conversation? And I know we can't be exhaustive and you've got books about this. So I do recommend they check out your books if they want to go even deeper into some of this, but, what are some tools that they can take away? Uh, even, even today, um,

because some of the stuff you've said has really resonated with them. Do you mind sharing some of those?

Bob Hamp (48:05.87)
Yeah, I'd love to. The difficulty for me is always that my tools are thought tools and not necessarily behavioral tools. But let's look at these a little bit. So let me break down this idea. know, Einstein notoriously said you can't solve a problem at the same level of thinking that created it. And so a lot of people think, so I've got to think better thoughts.

Paul Povolni (48:27.321)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (48:33.73)
And that's actually the same level of thinking. And so the first thing I would say to people is, if you don't think about thinking, somebody else is doing your thinking for you.

Paul Povolni (48:45.807)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (48:46.766)
And if you're not learning about learning, you're probably not going to change much because the way that you take in information is part of what you learned in kindergarten and in first grade. And now by the time you've learned how to learn, you may not be learning all the possible ways that you can learn. So thinking about thinking and learning about learning or metacognition is a, is a crucial step towards change. And so let's look at levels of thought so we can talk about what Einstein said and answer your question.

So you've got what I call the words and ideal level. That's when we talked about thoughts and thought processes. The words and ideal level is where most people live and breathe and have their being, but it's also where most people are speaking and most people are listening. Hey, I have an idea. what's your idea? It's this. Well, let's try that instead of this. No, but a level up from that is for every word and idea that we speak, there's a thought process that governs that.

Paul Povolni (49:45.85)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (49:46.146)
Now we've gone up a level of thought. And just like I said, if you change a thought process, you can actually say the same words or have the same ideas with a new thought process and it has a different.

Paul Povolni (49:58.383)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (49:59.138)
So the metacognition says this, if I'm looking through my lenses and I never look at them, I never know what I'm not seeing.

But if I take off my lenses and start to examine them, go, how do I think? You know, I'll say this and I don't know where you stand on this. suspect I might, but we live in a period of history where I think that propaganda is at an all time social engineering high. And propaganda is somebody else thinking for you. And what happens is if you don't stop and think,

Paul Povolni (50:10.926)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (50:38.008)
Right.

Bob Hamp (50:41.134)
how am I thinking, then you're thinking as a result of what's being fed to you because people who practice propaganda or marketing for that matter already understand how people think, not just what they think, they understand how they think, and they engineer the thought process so that you'll buy their product, so that you'll be drawn to their brand. They're thinking for you effectively if you don't examine your own thought process. In the same way, so is propaganda that comes from

Paul Povolni (51:06.957)
Yeah. Yeah.

Bob Hamp (51:10.808)
where whatever its source, know, it's, people who influence in those intense ways, understand thought process and they can get you to think a different way. And if you don't stop and go, that's not how I normally think. Not just what I normally think, that's not how I normally think. How am I thinking and how did that thought get in my head and what did I do with it when it got there? Start.

Paul Povolni (51:25.242)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (51:38.41)
asking yourself those questions to take your glasses off instead of looking through them, look at them. Now there's a third level of thinking that's important to understand. is, know, level one is words and ideas. Level two is thought process. The third level is what we call paradigms or worldviews. We come into the world as an infant and our brain starts trying to make sense of the world without asking our permission. And it builds this ongoing roadmap of what's real and what's true.

And because it starts at infancy and often completes before we're even a teenager, a lot of the paradigms that we have in life, and by the way, a paradigm is a roadmap that both filters out what we see and allows in what we see. And what that means is a lot of what's going on around you, you're going to miss it.

Paul Povolni (52:27.494)
Wow. Wow.

Bob Hamp (52:28.502)
Some of that because it's spiritual and invisible, but some of it because your paradigms won't allow certain things in that don't fit with your paradigm. I don't know if you ever go shopping with your wife.

Paul Povolni (52:37.88)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (52:42.914)
When I go shopping with my wife, we can walk down the same aisle and we see completely different things. She sees the aesthetics and the color and the kind of the beauty of things. I see the gadgets and the toys and the things that you can pick up and manipulate. And we've just walked down the same aisle, but I didn't see what she saw and she didn't see what I saw.

Paul Povolni (52:49.39)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (52:57.498)
Right.

Paul Povolni (53:04.354)
Right. Well, it's kind of like for me, you know, when I, when I go to a restaurant and look at a menu, you know, I, I analyze the design and the layout and everything else and my kids see the food pictures, you know, and if I was to go to lunch with an editor, they would look and see the typos and the mistakes, because they have a filter of how they look at stuff. And even, another example, I guess would be that, you know, we, we have a red car and before we got the red car.

I don't think there was any red cars anywhere in the state that we live in. But suddenly when we got a red car, everybody else got red cars, you know, because suddenly we had something triggering.

Bob Hamp (53:43.542)
it was allowed into your paradigm. And what used to be filtered out by your paradigm was suddenly allowed in. And so, yeah, the illustrations you give are perfect in that is, know, a design person is gonna look at everything through the design paradigm, which means they're also gonna miss what an editor would see, who's gonna miss what a child would see. And the whole idea is if you don't stop and look and go, what am I letting in? What am I keeping out? How?

Paul Povolni (54:00.824)
Right. Right.

Bob Hamp (54:12.852)
What do I believe about things like love and goodness and justice and and where did those here's the question where did those things come from? Because the paradigm is the ultimate kind of it dictates thought process which dictates thoughts and So kind of the golden goose of change is if you can shift someone's paradigm You change everything you change their thought processes and every outcome is different So

Paul Povolni (54:20.431)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (54:27.565)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (54:39.204)
Right.

Bob Hamp (54:40.332)
Let's take the conversations we were having earlier. A lot of people have a paradigm about religious stuff. And the paradigm is usually about good behavior, bad behavior, heaven, God's rule, and punishing us, our rule, and trying to behave well. Almost everybody has some version of that that's their paradigm. If it didn't come from family, it came from watching TV and living in a culture where religion is portrayed in those different ways.

And so you've got lots of different people talking about, may go to hell, I may go to heaven, here's my reasons why. And we all have some paradigm about religion. So you and I start talking about kingdom logic and it's a very different conversation than, are you behaving right?

Paul Povolni (55:20.728)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (55:28.854)
Are you not sinning and are you doing the right things? None of that was a part of our conversation. Because that paradigm, I think, is toxic and it leads to hallmark prescriptions. And if you're supposed to behave well so that you go to heaven, just know that God works together for those who believe in him. It's like, okay, cool, but I can't stop throwing up. If I could just stop, you

Paul Povolni (55:43.693)
Hmm, yeah.

Paul Povolni (55:52.172)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (55:58.072)
binging and purging, that would really be good. So I heard you say that God works all things together for good for me, but why can't I stop making myself throw up? okay. There are some things you believe about yourself and there's some things you've come to believe about your place in the world. And your paradigm says the only way that you can have power is power over your digestive system. And so if we can get those two things to come together,

Paul Povolni (56:07.332)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (56:20.569)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (56:25.471)
the spiritual life that's offered to you and a belief that you don't have power in any way except by controlling your digestive system, you might not only stop throwing up, but you might actually feel more who you are.

Paul Povolni (56:39.81)
Yeah, yeah. Man, that is so good.

Bob Hamp (56:42.072)
That's that's paradigm level stuff.

Paul Povolni (56:45.1)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think even those paradigms or, or kingdom thinking, kingdom logic, opposed to those that are not part of the kingdom, they're, they're in the parallel universe, that, that we all live in is, is, you know, what happens sometimes is when people in that parallel universe act in ways that are not kingdom universe type things, you know, kingdom thinking people will judge them. And it's like, well, they're just

they're behaving in the way that you would expect somebody to behave in that universe. You can't put your universe type thinking on them because they haven't made that king in that universe, their king, right? Does that make any sense? know, and so, so a lot of times, you know, when, when, sinners are acting like sinners, we get, we get mean and grumpy and judgmental and, and hateful and it's like, but they haven't, why are you expecting them to act kingdom when they haven't submitted to the king?

Bob Hamp (57:23.95)
100%.

Bob Hamp (57:40.27)
Yeah, and you know, in kingdom logic, there is no room for judgment. There is no room for judgment because we're all either connected to the source of life or we're not. And if you're connected to the source of life, things start to change inside of you that may or may not show immediately on the outside. But if you're not connected to the tree of life, you're trying to figure out how to act to make your life work. And it could be...

Paul Povolni (58:07.481)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (58:08.556)
the knowledge of evil or can be the knowledge of good, but both of them are you trying to make your life work instead of receiving life from outside of you. know, kingdom logic doesn't leave room for judgment because even the person who's climbing the branch called the knowledge of good is no different than the climbing branch called the knowledge of evil. They're both climbing a tree of self-sufficiency.

Paul Povolni (58:31.354)
Wow, okay, so talk, I think you talked about this at the event that we're at. And so it was mind blowing and I wish I had had my notes in front of me. So talk a little bit more about that tree, about that, what you just shared there. I'd love for you to expound a little bit on

Bob Hamp (58:48.12)
Yeah, I would love to expound on that because I think it's the place where the Christian world goes wrong right at the beginning. And the teaching that I do on that is called the problem that Jesus came to solve. Most people, like I said early on, think the problem Jesus came to solve is misbehaving human beings. I'm come and get you guys to get this right. And if you don't get it right, I'm just gonna throw you in hell.

Paul Povolni (59:05.081)
Mmm.

Bob Hamp (59:17.262)
You know, that's again, a little bit stereotypical, but that goes back to this idea that in the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter three, there's this moment in time where the first humans, Adam and Eve, stand in between two trees and God tells them, don't eat from this one, but definitely always eat from this one. And says, if you eat from this one, you'll surely die. And as the story goes on, of course they eat from this one. And so a lot of people think the story's about disobedience.

And if disobedience leads to death, then Jesus came to help the disobedient not die.

Paul Povolni (59:52.612)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (59:53.496)
But the story, I would say, is much more about source than it is about outcome.

You know, the outcome is they ate the tree, but then they did some things after that that were also outcomes. And every outcome after that says this, when the tree of life was their source, there was a natural flow to life. Life came to them, lived in them, and moved through them, and there was just a natural flow. When they turned away from this natural flow of life, and life is beginning to ebb, this is why God says, you'll surely die. You know, and so people start to disconnect from the source of life.

and they turn to knowledge instead. What's the right thing or what's the wrong thing? And now instead of just inhaling the breath of life, they think, I gotta figure this out. What's the right thing for me to do and what things should I not do? Or what's the bad thing that I shouldn't do but man, I really wanna do? And it ends up being this kind of mental tug of war of good versus evil that we have to figure out and manage with our willpower. And the outcome of that is Adam and Eve look at themselves and start hiding and covering and

Paul Povolni (01:00:33.178)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Hamp (01:01:00.578)
distancing themselves. so what we see is that when we're left to the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of evil makes us think something's wrong with me and the knowledge of good tells me I have to be the one to fix it.

Paul Povolni (01:01:12.856)
Mmm, wow.

Bob Hamp (01:01:14.69)
The tree of life would say, listen, if you're empty, open up and I'll fill you. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil would say, if you're empty, you don't show anybody, don't let anyone know, don't show your weakness, don't show your frailty. And what you need to do is build a version of you that looks good to both people and God. And so we form religion, religious practices that we think we have to perform in order to fill an emptiness that we can't really fill by performance.

Paul Povolni (01:01:34.222)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (01:01:44.278)
And so what I say to people is the problem Jesus came to solve isn't the behavior of taking the fruit from the tree, but it's rather the fact that when they took the fruit from that tree, they became their own source. But with this tree, the tree of life, God is the source of life in us. When we turn away from that tree and stop feasting on the breath of life itself, we turn over here and our source now becomes knowledge. Well, whose knowledge? Well, mine.

Paul Povolni (01:01:56.962)
Mmm.

Paul Povolni (01:02:12.205)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (01:02:14.23)
and yours and anyone else listening. It doesn't matter because not in the way I illustrate this, Paul, I think this is a super, super helpful way to understand this. Remember the old days when the internet came from the wall, right? Your computer and so you had a power, you know, power cord and a data cord. And so the question is what would happen if you switch the cords and put the two cords into the outlet? So you put the data cord in the power outlet and the power cord into the data.

Paul Povolni (01:02:27.77)
Right, right.

Bob Hamp (01:02:43.822)
Well, nothing would happen and it wouldn't nothing would happen because data isn't power and power isn't data.

Paul Povolni (01:02:44.792)
Hmm. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:02:53.156)
Wow.

Bob Hamp (01:02:53.838)
In the same way, knowledge isn't life and life isn't knowledge. And so knowledge isn't wrong or bad, it's just not life. And when we try to get life out of knowledge, we create systems that are lifeless. And we're the ones creating the systems believing that if I can just get the system right, then God will approve of me and I can go to heaven. That whole belief system comes from this tree.

Paul Povolni (01:03:06.874)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (01:03:21.186)
What it says over here is if you'll just surrender to the breath, let the breath come to you and live in you and move through you. You're already in heaven.

Paul Povolni (01:03:31.418)
Wow. Wow. That's, that's something that, that people are going to have to chew on for a little bit. That's so good. that's, that's been a head smack for some. And so, you know, if somebody is trapped in that, that place of knowledge, you know, and you probably deal with this in, your counseling and your therapy. how, how do you, what, what are the telltale signs and how do you start?

shifting that to the right place. What are some of those tools or some of those things that you start sharing with them that kind of helps them reset into the right place?

Bob Hamp (01:04:09.966)
It's a great question. If knowledge is the source of life and it's not, but that's what we believe in this tree, then one of the signs is we're constantly trying to figure everything out and trying to make life work based on what we know.

Literally just this morning sitting across from me in this chair, very successful young man in the first years of his business career is doing very well and completely unhappy.

And he literally said to me at my first session this morning, said, I've just been trying to figure out how to make life work. I've been trying to figure out why I'm so unhappy. I've been trying to figure out. And the difficulty is figuring out isn't a process that produces happiness.

Figuring out how to produce strategy, figuring out how produce forward movement, figuring it out how produce systems. But it can't produce happiness because happiness doesn't come here first. Happiness comes here first.

Paul Povolni (01:04:58.394)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (01:05:13.518)
And so the people present as anxious, frustrated, never to quote, you know, the Rolling Stones can't get no satisfaction. People present as, you know, very disconnected from their emotional self. People present then, you know, with because they're disconnected from their emotional self, they present with all kinds of behavioral symptoms because emotions matter. But if they've disconnected those emotions, they're just kind of rumbling around inside producing

outcomes. And so people present all those different ways and the question is always how do we back them into seeing, hey, there is a way.

the thing your heart's hungry for, there's a way to that. But it's not gonna come through cognition. It's not gonna come through intellectual understanding. Intellectual understanding can move you towards, this conversation is hopefully an intellectual conversation. It can move you closer in proximity to this tree called the tree of life. But at some point for a life to come into you, you have to open your heart to life.

Paul Povolni (01:06:24.164)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:06:25.3)
And so no amount of information produces life in us. No amount of right information produces life in us. It's just like I said, the data cable plugged into the power input of a computer doesn't produce power because it's not power. And so people present with a range of different behavioral or emotional circumstances because that's what their knowledge of good has told them to do to try to solve the internal unrest.

Paul Povolni (01:06:40.09)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:06:53.41)
Yeah, that is so good. Well, and, one of the things that you talk about as well, that, you know, when I started reading in your book, about thinking differently and, and when it comes to living, is you talked about freedom and I loved how you talked about freedom. And, so I want you to talk a little bit about that because I think a lot of people have.

the wrong understanding of freedom and the way you articulated it, the way you explained it and talked about it, I think for somebody could actually be a freedom moment for them and a head smack moment that literally changed their lives. So talk about that for a little bit about freedom and how we maybe have the wrong idea of what that actually means.

Bob Hamp (01:07:37.41)
Man, you are loading me up with all my favorite questions. So the thing is, we have the wrong idea about freedom because we were born with a prisoner mind. And all I mean by that is we, I illustrate this by saying if a little child was actually born in prison, and that's all he ever knew, he could walk up to the prison walls every day and look out over the field and go, I hope someday I could get free. I hope someday.

Paul Povolni (01:07:50.202)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (01:08:06.745)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:08:07.308)
get free. And his picture is that freedom is getting out of where he is.

I don't want this anymore in my life. I wish this was gone. So people think I'll be free when I can stop drinking. I'll be free when I can solve my anger and my angry outbursts. I'll be free when I can get out of the problem that I'm frustrated about. That's the prison, right? But that's a way of thinking about freedom that comes from being born into the prison. It comes from being born into the, I am the solution to my problem. But the only way I know to do that is build a version of me that's acceptable in the world's eyes.

Paul Povolni (01:08:36.682)
Mmm, well.

Bob Hamp (01:08:44.344)
which what are the odds that that version of you is gonna be the real you?

And so the way I define freedom is freedom is not about getting something out of you or getting something finished. Freedom is not the absence of something, but the presence of someone. And what that means is when you become the person you're created to be, you're free. When the false version of you, the performing version of you, what's the thing that's so popular these days, the

imposter syndrome version of you, when all of those things fall away and you can just let the real you out, you're free. And so the whole idea is we typically define freedom by when I finally solve the problem, but you can solve the problem and still not become yourself. But you can also be in the problem and become yourself and be free.

Paul Povolni (01:09:29.026)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:09:40.472)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:09:46.274)
And then the problem changes because you're no longer supporting it. So there's a story in the New Testament where two guys are put in jail. And you would think that the doors to the jail and the bars and everything would be a problem for them. But instead they sit there and go, we can be ourselves here. We love God, we love each other. excited about, we love the fact that God is innocent. We love God. So they just start singing how much they love God.

Paul Povolni (01:09:50.724)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:10:06.724)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (01:10:16.352)
and they're completely free in circumstances that look like bondage. And here's the fascinating part why the story matters so much. Once they were free in their circumstances, their circumstances started to change.

Paul Povolni (01:10:29.325)
Well, yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:10:31.202)
We think the other way around. We think, solve the circumstances, I'll be free. No, no, become yourself in your circumstances. Now you have the authority to change your circumstances.

Paul Povolni (01:10:43.032)
Wow. Wow. And then by changing, by changing their, by, by behaving as they, as they were within that circumstance, it also affected others around them. they also got free, you know, because they saw an authentic somebody doing something. And so, that's, that's, that's a great way to put it. And so, you know, I love that, that you talked about, you know, if, if you're in, if you're in prison, freedom to you means no wall.

you know, or no bars, but when you, when you're truly free, that you see that there's way more to freedom than just no bars. Right. And so, so, you know, talk about, you know, how, how, how people can sometimes, you know, not see the, the world because of the bars and how they can start seeing and some, some other, and you've shared some, but what are some other things that they can do to.

to look beyond the buzz when it comes to freedom.

Bob Hamp (01:11:44.41)
Yeah, I do think that you know to begin to look at our levels of Take off the glasses and look at them instead of through start examining our your belief systems You know, we often form those belief systems, which are the building blocks of our paradigms we form those early in life and So much of what holds people captive is those belief systems and they come from chronic consistent interaction

And so one of the reasons I've continued, even though I've got a lot of other things that I do, I continue to have this counseling practice is because there is a time to solve the problem. You know, there is a time to help somebody not make themselves throw up anymore. There is a time to help someone not be depressed or anxious anymore. But you do that not by talking about the problem, but by really turning their attention toward who they really are.

And part of that is, you know, who were you before you started building this prison? What was it like when you were eight, nine, 10 years old? What kind of things did you dream about? Part of how you do that is you get people to say, you know, when you are on your deathbed, what are you going to wish you had done with your life? Who do you, who will you wish you've been? And part of it is, and I'll just say it this way, you heard me say at the very beginning at age 18, I felt like God said to me,

Paul Povolni (01:12:46.745)
Mm.

Bob Hamp (01:13:10.722)
I want you to be a counselor." And so when the belief that God speaks isn't just that God gives guidance, but that God reconnects to us.

And so probably the most important thing I could say would be the connection that we make to God isn't about cleaning up our act, it's about restoring our heart. And so learning that there's a spiritual being that created all of the universe and that he created it so that he could put us in it, so that he could pursue us and be in relationship with us.

Paul Povolni (01:13:33.922)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:13:50.306)
When we open our heart to that, because our heart is where our beliefs reside, when we open our heart to that, in connecting to him and then learning to hear his voice, those beliefs get like lifted into the light and go, hey, did you know that you believed all men are dangerous? Hey, did you know that you believed you'll never succeed? Did you know that you believed, and as you start to really connect to that voice and to that creator,

Paul Povolni (01:14:09.497)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (01:14:19.874)
the beliefs that have held us captive start to become increasingly evident.

Paul Povolni (01:14:25.528)
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:14:27.128)
That's a lot of what we do on our website at Think Differently Academy. And I know you'll talk about that or put that in the show notes or something, but we have a lot of resources to help people with all the things I just described. How do you learn to discern God's voice? How do you learn to connect to Him? What is it like to, as you connect to Him, to find the things that have held you back and let Him untangle some of those things?

Paul Povolni (01:14:50.734)
Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think, I think, you know, even just understanding freedom and understanding that, you know, the way, the way you've defined it, is the very thing that could keep you locked where you're at, because you keep fighting for the wrong outcome. Right. And so, so, you know, and, and I love the way you define that, because I think for a lot of people, it's, the immediate, you know, I will be free when I can do this.

this one thing in front of me, not realizing that there's a lot more out there beyond the walls. know, like you said, the baby grew up, you know, surrounded by prison. You know, it doesn't know that there is theme parks. It doesn't know that there's beaches. doesn't know, you know, and so, you know, it's, it's version of freedom is just the bars disappearing. It doesn't realize that freedom is far beyond that.

Bob Hamp (01:15:38.35)
about these emotions.

Bob Hamp (01:15:47.223)
that the child in prison has no idea what's possible. He just knows what he sees just a hundred feet outside the fence and he thinks that's the whole world.

Paul Povolni (01:15:52.204)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:15:59.96)
Right. Right. And so, you know, as somebody deals with, you know, bondage and, and, and being in that, in that mindset, you know, I, you know, I, I see, I see that happen often and I see people wrestling with that. And for them, they don't know like what, what is, give me a first step, give me a second step, a third step. Like how,

how am I going to, I get it, I understand what you're saying, I feel like I've limited my idea of what freedom really is. If you were to give him a roadmap to freedom, what would that look like?

Bob Hamp (01:16:43.842)
Yeah, I would say first of all, you define freedom the way we're talking about. Otherwise all of your efforts, even if you do the next couple steps, you're still doing those steps to get to destination that's not real freedom. So defining freedom as becoming yourself is crucial. start, step two, start examining what are the beliefs, what are the thought processes that have kept me in captivity. Take the glasses off and look at them instead of through them and start examining those beliefs.

Number two, number three, the process of changing paradigms is difficult. It's not as easy as I see it now, I'll do it differently because it's been set in stone in your mind and heart for a long time. But the longer you look at it and the longer you, know, actually my third book, Think Differently, Learn Differently is about how we change paradigms. And it's a lot of communication strategies. It's a lot of teaching strategies.

But the whole idea is that you gotta kinda chip away at those things. And so you chip away at it by questioning things. Questioning your own picture of yourself. Question what you've believed up to now. Not in some, you're wrong. I don't believe the establishment. was raised in the 70s. But rather in some sense of, if I don't see everything that's real, I should question what I see so that I can open my eyes to what I don't see.

Paul Povolni (01:18:02.573)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:18:13.354)
Step number one, redefine freedom. Step number two, start examining your thought processes and paradigms. Step number three, start questioning them. Step number four, and I'm gonna say something that has it more complicated, step number four, start looking for healing for the reasons why these thought processes and paradigms don't budge. A lot of times they don't budge because of childhood experiences.

Paul Povolni (01:18:36.408)
Hmm

Bob Hamp (01:18:41.302)
or because of particularly painful experiences. Sometimes they don't budge because, know, chronic pain emotionally, relationally, physically. And so sometimes the restoration of our body, our mind, our soul needs help from somebody else. And I'm not trying to put in a plug for my, my waiting list is too long. I'm not trying to get clients. What I'm saying is don't settle for the hallmark answer that says try harder, do better.

Paul Povolni (01:19:05.037)
You

Bob Hamp (01:19:11.0)
but look for healing for your soul. Look for the restoration, what I call breaking the power of the past is the things in the past that have shaped you. Let yourself look at those things through new eyes. And I think it's helpful at that point to find a counselor or a coach who thinks in those ways or search for resources that can help you think in those ways. So hence, I have a whole website full of resources and the books that I've written, et cetera.

Paul Povolni (01:19:11.289)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:19:39.961)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:19:41.29)
And kind of tied to that is at the same time you're trying to resolve those things from the past, really start to learn who you are and try to step into that even though it might be awkward and infantile at first.

Paul Povolni (01:19:56.642)
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Man, this has been so rich and so good and so many head smacks, so many freeing revelations and ideas and thoughts and, and so much to share. And I'm sure somebody listening to this would be like, man, Paul, I wish you had pulled on that thread and gone down that route and, asked to follow up on that question and that. And, but there's been so much good, but I also want to share with you that, you know,

Bob has a ton of resources available. has books available. If you want to go deeper with any of these topics, know, Bob does have a lot of these resources available for you that you can go as deep as you want to go and read those, those books and check out those resources. Definitely check out, you know, his website, TD ACAD. So it's think differently Academy. it's TD ACAD.com. Be sure to check that out. Check him out on the socials as well.

What are the, are there any other ways I can get ahold of you?

Bob Hamp (01:20:58.53)
The website's the number one way. And again, like you said, the socials, that's a pretty good place. I'm relatively active on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are kind of my home base. I know that makes me a boomer, but I am. you know, but those are places you can find me. But the website's the number one place.

Paul Povolni (01:21:17.932)
Yeah. So I like to end by asking a final question of what's a question or a head smack that you'd wish I'd asked you about that I didn't ask you about.

Bob Hamp (01:21:28.76)
That's a great question.

Uhhh...

I wish you'd asked and we've sort of bumped up against this, but I would love to have talked more about the role of the heart.

Paul Povolni (01:21:43.34)
Okay, talk about it.

Bob Hamp (01:21:44.398)
And in that, I talked a little bit about kind of my disdain for the early seventies kind of therapy models that are overly emotional. At the same time, I'm discovering like what's very personal to me. These ways that I'm growing personally right now have to do with discovery slash rediscovery that the, um, the heart is literally more powerful than the brain. a, when a child is conceived, what develops first is the heart, not the brain.

And you and I sitting where we sit, the electromagnetic field produced by the heart is significantly more powerful. I wish I could tell you the exact numbers, but it's significantly more powerful than the electromagnetic frequencies of the brain. And I'm discovering that the power of the heart, understood and engaged on purpose, surpasses what I have believed up until my 63rd year of life.

Paul Povolni (01:22:41.102)
Wow. Wow. Okay. Now I want to ask you about that. Okay. So tell me more about that. That sounds unbelievable.

Bob Hamp (01:22:53.976)
So there's a verse in the book of Proverbs that says, your heart above everything else because from it flow the issues of life. And the word that's translated issues could actually just as easily and maybe even more accurately be translated outcomes.

So the idea, and again, guard your heart, could just as easily be translated, tend to your heart like a garden, because from your heart, from within it, from around it, from about it, come the outcomes of your life. And so what I've always said, and I'm starting to understand, I said this lacking understanding, but I just sensed it was right, but I'm starting to now understand just this year, if we're created in the image of a creator, then we must have some creative capacity.

Paul Povolni (01:23:16.542)
wow.

Paul Povolni (01:23:29.604)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (01:23:47.01)
And I don't mean just creative in the sense of drawing art or making music. I mean creative in the sense, how can we impact the world around us? I've got a couple stories that have happened this year. I'm gonna choose this one just because the other one's much more my wife and it's her story to tell and she's gonna join you at some point. And I'll tell her I didn't tell her story. But as we've explored this together,

You know, one of the things is we are both pretty heart centered people, but we're also being more intentional about it because of what we're learning. We had just spent a lengthy time in the Bahamas. We did a marriage retreat there and then we left some time for us to rest and recover. We love, we both love the ocean. It stirs something deep inside of us. Ocean life even more so. And we do about a three mile walk every day, sometimes twice a day.

And on that walk, we would often see rays and sharks and schools of fish and just all that stuff just excites us. We come home and our home here in grapevine, Texas is not anywhere near an ocean. There is a lake here, but not an ocean. And the lake is not pretty. I'll just say that we love grapevine, grapevine lake. We don't go there much because it's just, we love oceans. So we.

Paul Povolni (01:24:50.756)
Yeah, yeah, me too.

Bob Hamp (01:25:13.878)
want to keep up our pace and so the very first or second day that we're home, we put on our walking clothes and we head out to walk our three miles. And as we walk out of our house, about half a block from the house, I lament and I say from the deep places of my heart, I'm like, we're not going to see any sharks on this walk, are we? She goes, no, no, we're not. We both kind of feel the like.

Paul Povolni (01:25:34.106)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:25:42.254)
And I don't mean to sound cheesy about that, but we both miss where we were. So we do our mile and a half, two mile, we come back our mile and a half, two mile, and we get almost the exact point on the road where I made that statement. And we both at the same moment look down at the ground and on the ground, there's an inch and a half plastic shark.

Paul Povolni (01:25:47.791)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:26:06.486)
my goodness. Wow.

Bob Hamp (01:26:08.194)
We laughed so hard. If you look at my Instagram, you'll see a picture of it with a of a description of that story. But it's literally a little plastic shark. One of the fins is worn off. But we both look at each other and we're like, we immediately start laughing. And I said, I was right there 10 feet away when I said, we're not going to see sharks. And we kept walking. We came back and we found this. And it's not life changing.

unless you think in terms of the serendipitous creative moments of the universe saying, hey, I see you. I know what's in your heart and your heart means something to me. Let me at least give you something in response to the longing of your

Paul Povolni (01:26:46.84)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:26:55.578)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (01:26:56.822)
We have it in our kitchen now, this little inch long shark. And it's not the same as walking on a beach in the Bahamas, but it reminds us every single time we are seen, we matter, and the universe has a sense of humor.

Paul Povolni (01:27:11.65)
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. So, so I, know, it sounds like, you know, the, the things that you're sharing about the heart are, are, you know, a recent head smack to you or something that you're feeling really deeply. So I do want to give you more time to talk about that. You know, what other, you know, revelations, head smacks, thoughts about the heart and the power of the heart have you been wrestling with or marinating in, recently?

that are really affecting the way you're doing stuff moving forward.

Bob Hamp (01:27:44.962)
Yeah, I will definitely say the other end of that. The first thing we talked about is the heart's creative, but the other end of that is how do you tend to it? And I've just really come to recognize I have way more say so about the condition of my heart than I was actually taking control of. And so if what comes out of my heart produces outcomes, then I want to really be intentional. And so a couple things, one of them is,

Paul Povolni (01:28:04.964)
Hmm.

Bob Hamp (01:28:13.838)
Polly and I, Polly's my wife and like you said, she'll be on at some point. We've both been working on the simple thing that everybody seems to know and that is when you drive, it's easy to get impatient and lose your temper.

Paul Povolni (01:28:25.626)
Yeah.

Bob Hamp (01:28:26.626)
Well, that seems like the world has control over us if we let that happen all the time. And so we're learning to choose how to perceive things and how to garden our heart, even in Dallas traffic, so that we don't end our drive less of ourselves than we were when we started our drive. And in that, I'm also working on, you know, over the last several years, you know, I've had multiple betrayals.

and left some real scars here and left me really angry at certain people. Well, the thing is, I may never even see those people again. More important, that's not loving to me to carry around that kind of toxicity in a heart that's made for love. And so even though I do a lot of teaching on forgiveness, I've kind of harbored these places of, but these people, these people really deserve my ire.

And it's like, why am I doing that to myself? And so taking charge of both new and old things in my heart to go, look, I don't have to let those things happen. I'm in charge of that has really lightened me and resensitized me at a deeper level to the spiritual world around me.

Paul Povolni (01:29:26.808)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:29:37.284)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:29:46.978)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and does, doesn't, know, if you're, if you're holding onto things like that and other people might hold onto other things that that is then becoming a part of that filter for your paradigm of how you see the world when you're not letting go of that. And so you're letting others create the world around you, whether the world in your heart, mind, or physically by holding onto those things, right?

Bob Hamp (01:30:13.272)
I've let them hand me a pair of glasses that I would never choose for myself, but I ended up choosing it, which means I can choose to change them.

Paul Povolni (01:30:19.32)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Man, Bob, this has been so good. Such a great conversation. you know, and, and I'm sure we can, you know, keep going and going because, know, we've, we've haven't even tapped the surface of, of, the richness of some of the stuff that you've shared in your books and things like that. And maybe we'll do a followup at some point, as well, but I do want to emphasize again, your website and I will put it in the show show notes as well.

It's T A C A D. So it's short for, thinking, think differently Academy. it's T D A C A D.com. check out Bob, check out his wife, both have great content, great books, great resources, free stuff available as well as, things that you can be involved with and plug into and find community. And so I do encourage you to do that. And so thank you so much, Bob. This has been wonderful.

Bob Hamp (01:31:15.01)
Yeah, this was super fun. Thanks, Paul. You too.

Paul Povolni (01:31:17.176)
You have a great day.