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Bob is such an incredible soul who absolutely had a huge part in the personal development world. I mean, when you think about the early 1900s, we had the start of the new thought era and people started to wake up. Consciousness really began to shift. You had authors like Napoleon Hill and Florence Scovel Shinn, among others who began to help people understand that they weren't victims and that if they adopted radical self responsibility, they could change their life. Probably one of the most important shifts in humanity was rather than blame others for circumstances and for current results, that if we change our thinking, if we wake up, if we become more aware, if we have a vision of what it is we truly want and we hold that vision firmly and take action and make shifts within ourselves, we can have it. That was the gist of the New Thought Era.
Why Bob is such an important aspect of this whole shift is that when he was in his late twenties, someone gave him a copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and it changed his life. Prior to receiving a copy of Think and Grow Rich, his life as he would say, was a bit of a mess. He didn't have money, he wasn't very healthy, and he definitely wasn't very happy. I'm going to share more details about that first part of his life and what happened thereafter as part of me sharing a bit about Bob's Human Design and everything playing out as it needed to play out. But, what's so fascinating is that again, this new thought era was really taking hold and people were starting to take on radical self-responsibility and see that they can live life by design – That they have choice, and that life is happening for them and not to them.
What I think is so fascinating is that Bob was such a part of the start of the personal development industry as we know it today and as part of the coaching industry as we know it today. I think so many people have heard of Jim Rohn, and of course pretty much everyone's heard of Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins learned from Jim Rohn, but before them there was Bob. It was a different time. There wasn't social media. There wasn't even an internet that we were using, and he literally did the city to city in person seminars to get his message out.
Bob Proctor's Human Design
Bob was an Initiator, also known as a Manifestor. Initiators are only about 9% of the population, and they're really here to initiate, to create, to not have to wait for something to respond to or wait for an invitation. They are here with this inner driving force to bring something out into the world. He's able to initiate from a place of calm. He has a decision-making strategy of wait for clarity, which means you've got to wait for the emotional highs and lows to kind of settle down before you make a decision. The fact that he was an Initiator is not surprising at all with what he was able to create and do.
Bob’s Public Role, also called Profile in traditional Human Design was a 4/6. As a reminder, the 4/6 is being The Influential Role Model, which I would say Influential Role Model is 100% what Bob was. Even to this day.
The Fourth Line
The fourth line is this friendly, warm energy that can literally open up the hearts of someone else. Bob totally was that kind of person, right? Community forms around a fourth line that's operating correctly. People that have the line 4 have such an ability to connect with others.
Now, the fourth line can also experience people fatigue, and you need your time alone to be able to recharge and all of those things. He has a couple of things in his design like I do where time alone is very important in that time alone is where the creativity can flow and the intuitive hits can come in.
But, the fourth line for the most part is all about the connection, community, opening people's hearts, and being very influential.
The Sixth Line
Bob also had the sixth line. The really fascinating thing about a sixth line is that they have what I guess we would call a tri-part life. That means that in the first 30 years or so of their lives, they really operate more like a third line. So, the first 30 years are a lot of trial and error, testing this, testing that, school of hard knocks kind of life. Some things work, and some things don't. Six lines are very adaptive and changing and trying new things and seeing what works in their first 30 years.
Then, around 30 until about age 50 or so, is the next part of the sixth line’s tri-part life. In that stage, it's all about really having learned lessons. They call it being on top of the mountain. At around 50, you're coming down the mountain because of all the wisdom you’ve gained. You are now here to go and share what you've learned with other people to make impact and help others. It's kind of like you come off the mountain after 50.
Think and Grow Rich
When we think about how his life played out in the first 30 years, he was trying to figure it out. He wasn't certain. He always said that right around the age 28 or so is when he got the book, Think and Grow Rich. I'm looking at his Cycles and his Saturn return, his Cycle for the 30s started right about that time. So, right about around the age of 28 or 29, he gets this book and things start to change for him. What's so cool is that we can see in his design that there was a big shift that happened here. Then, once he read Think and Grow Rich, he went on to for the next five years or so, he built a cleaning business.
When he read Think and Grow Rich, it made him realize that he could change his circumstances, that he didn't need to be hanging out in bars and kind of jumping from opportunity to opportunity. He was in the military, he was a firefighter and he was in debt, and he knew he needed to make changes. When he read Think and Grow Rich was right about the time of the first major cycle, which is called the Saturn return, and over the next five years or so, he was building a cleaning business that was a multiple million dollar cleaning business across multiple cities. He really changed his life at that point.
Here's Bob in his thirties now, and he has a successful company. He's turned his life around, but he's now observant trying to figure out what happened to him, why me? And, he decides that he wants to go and work for Earl Nightingale. He left his business. I don't know if he sold it or what happened with that, but he ended up going to work for Earl Nightingale making almost no money, and he was totally okay with that, and it was really gearing him up for the next phase of his life, the next cycle.
The Next Shift
It's so powerful to see this because when I look at his design and I look at that very critical time when he was shifting gears and starting his own business, going out from Earl Nightingale and working for himself, he was really learning to be a Natural Influencer, 2/4 Profile. He needed to learn the skillset of going out into the world and truly sharing his message and what he was so passionate about. He also was learning that he was really in this new cycle, and the theme of this cycle was called Rulership, and it was all about leadership, authority, power, but that had grace and a framework, the potential to bridge from old power forms to new ones.
When he came out onto the scene with his own business, his message was so incredibly powerful, and it was so uniquely his. In fact, one of the things I love about Bob is I can go back and I can listen to some of his audios from the early 1980s, and it was the same messages that he was sharing the week that he passed away at 87 years old. He developed at that time of this shift around 40 to have his own message, his own company, and his own vision for his purpose, which was so incredibly powerful. What is really interesting is right around 1984 is when he hit his Chiron Return, his 50s return and Cycle. What's so powerful about that is that is the year that his book, Born Rich, was published.
This is like the real coming of age of his message out into the world. His book was released at the time of his Chiron Return, which is so incredibly cool. His cycle theme going into his 50s was all about unexpected encounters, surprises, unanticipated visionary leadership, and taking surprising, meaningful risks.
If you are not familiar with these cycles, our 50s Cycle is really all about that shift to the full flowering of our purpose. Here we have Bob with his book on the scene and stepping into surprise encounters, taking meaningful risks, becoming this unanticipated visionary leader, which is how the rest of his life played out.
Bob's Life's Work Theme
Bob’s Life’s Work theme is called the Cross of Tension which is about pushing to be better, pressure to provoke others to find purpose and access creative spirit, and pushing beyond limits, out of comfort zone. You better believe that makes a lot of sense for Bob Proctor.
Provocation, the trait or Gene Key of Provocation, was Bob’s number one Gene Key in his Core Four. He was a 39.4. The 39 is all about provocation and provoking others into self-responsibility, provoking others into finding spirit, into fighting their own creative spirit. That was Bob to a T, and it's so fascinating to look at.
Bob's Strengths
He also has the Channel or design of talent, this ability to bring out his depth of wisdom out into the world. I think we all experienced that if you've ever listened to him.
Another huge strength that he had was the 22-12, which is one that I have as well. It's all about having this platform of transformation, really being able to, when in the mood, bringing forward from the Emotional Intelligence center almost this art of language, of being able to say things in a way for people to really be able to be transformed, which is so incredible.
Deeper in Bob's Design
As I studied his design, I wrote a story for Bob that speaks to his strengths, design and what his Life’s Work is that I am going to share now.
Bob was the 4/6, The Influential Visionary. He was struck by a thunderbolt at around age 28, and using his initiative, insight embodied the role of the sacred provocateur, teaching others that the path to wisdom is an inner journey, and it is a lifelong one. At that, Bob was here to learn the wisdom of provocation first for himself, then teaching others into self-responsibility and spirit.
He was here to learn the wisdom of joy and vitality in life. He was here to learn the wisdom of controlling his own resources to then help others. Through his tri-part life, he was able to become a deep well of undeterminable wisdom. He was driven by ideas and learned which ones mattered. He was driven to care for the collective, and generously shared his wisdom with the tribe. Over time, he brought us into the shock of a new direction and found his transformational voice.
How to Study Your Own Human Design
Now, it doesn't matter where you're at. It doesn't matter what your age is. It's really fun to be able to do this work so that you can get confirmation perhaps of where you've been and excitement and vision for where you're going, and where your life's work ultimately could go.
I’m turning 50 this year, and hitting my Chiron Cycle. As I read my shifts and where I'm going, it is beyond exciting. When I am sharing and working with clients on their Cycles in business, their Cycles in their Life's Work, and what they are here to create and do in the world, it's magical. It has sparked this confidence, this excitement, this rally to go out into the world and do big, powerful and impactful things.
I want to invite you to the upcoming free masterclass Designed for Prosperity. We're going to be looking at how your Human Design Bodygraph and your Gene Keys help to reveal what your path to prosperity is.
What's your story? What's your legacy that you are going to leave? I hope that you got inspired by Bob's. He played out his whole life without ever knowing Human Design. That's because he was operating correctly. He was doing so much inner work and growth that he was listening to his intuition. He was listening to where he was truly meant to be in this world and not letting society and shoulds and noisy roommates and paradigms hold him back. But for so many of us, we get stuck. And I'll tell you that I have so many students of mine, clients of mine, that have worked with Bob or were trained in Bob's work, and every single one of them says, “oh my goodness, Bob would have loved this.”
Bob would've loved Human Design and the Gene Keys because it is the key to those paradigms that he would talk about. It's kind of like the missing piece because how do you know what those paradigms are? It's hard to know what our limiting beliefs are. They're buried and limiting because we can't see them. So, if your Human Design can help you see some of your pitfalls, some of your biggest shadow patterns, but also so that you can see your highest potential, that's a win-win in my book.
I would love for you to join us in our upcoming free masterclass so that you can start to see what your story is, and be in the position no matter what cycle you might be in of your life, to really tap into the flowering of your full purpose on earth.
