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I recently had the opportunity to speak with Dr John Demartini on his recent visit to Sydney. Dr Demartini was featured in the movie called ‘The Secret’, which was my first introduction to his work. Dr Demartini is an inspirational man, and when you understand and learn about his journey – I have no doubt you’ll be inspired too.
What is Dr Demartini known for? He’s is a human behaviour specialist, an educator, a business consultant, internationally published author with over 40 books to his name. He is the founder of the Demartini Institute, as well as the creator of the Demartini method, which is used by health professionals worldwide. Dr Demartini originally trained as a chiropractor, but now travels the world to over 60 countries teaching, training and inspiring others to get in touch with their values. I was inspired by his outlook on life, and how getting clear on your values can lead you down a path where you love what you do so much that you don’t make the distinction between work and play anymore.
In the following interview I asked Dr Demartini about two key areas:
- How can we get back on track with wealth building – what if we’ve hit a wall in our business / stuck in a startup or overwhelmed in debt? How do we avoid the temptation of the ‘next bright shiny object’?
- How can we become a leader if our self-confidence is stopping us from moving forward? As a self-confessed introvert who’s currently writing a book about introversion and self-confidence, I had to take the opportunity to get his perspective on this.
Dr Demartini was down-to-earth, and speaking with him left me feeling inspired and I’m really grateful that I can share the interview with you. To learn more about Dr John Demartini, check out his website at https://drdemartini.com/.
Interview with Dr John Demartini
Joel Annesley: So firstly, a big welcome to Sydney and to the show.
Dr Demartini: Thank you.
Joel Annesley: It’s an absolute pleasure to have you here.
Dr Demartini: Thank you for having me.
Joel Annesley: Before we talk about some of these learnings, I’d like to talk a little bit about your background if you can share with us? I know you were a former chiropractor, yes?
Dr Demartini: Yep.
Joel Annesley: So I’d love to know a little bit about how you started there and how you’ve made the transition to where you are today, where you get to travel the world and inspire and encourage millions of people?
Dr Demartini: When I was 17 years old, I met an amazing teacher in Oahu on the North Shore at Little Sunset Recreation Hall. I attended a class that he was a speaker at, his name was Paul C. Bragg. And that one hour, that one man with his one message got to me. And inspired me to do what I’m doing today. I was challenged as a child with learning, and I had reading challenges. And I did never think I was going to be intelligent. I was a high school dropout. I was living in Hawaii in a tent at the time, I was a surfer. But that night after listening to him speak, he inspired me to such a degree that I thought, “Well, just maybe I could overcome my learning problems.” And I wanted to be a teacher, and I wanted to be intelligent, and I set out on a goal to do that. And 45 years later almost, here I am. I never gave up on that dream. I had to learn how to read and learn how to write, and learn how to speak, which was a slow steady process, but I never gave up on it. The reason I’ve read so much is because once I learned I could, I devoured over 30,000 books now.
So I’ve been basically reading and reading, and reading since. And developed speed reading skills over time. So the very thing I was told in first grade by my first-grade teacher that, “He’ll never be able to read, he’ll never be able to write, he’ll never be able to communicate or amount to anything. Never be able to go far in life.” Became what I became pursuant of. Now, I wanted to be a teacher, healer and philosopher, ’cause I had a health problem at the time. I nearly died at the time. And so I chose a path of studying philosophy and healing. And I chose chiropractic as a philosophical basis of my healing, ’cause I did not believe that we had an excess of organs or a deficiency of drugs. I believed that we had a power within us to bring about healing transformation. And I was interested in studying applied physiology, not from a college as so much. And I chose chiropractic as my profession. I went pre-med in school, I was blessed to become eventually a scholar and an honour student, but I chose that pathway because of philosophy and because I wanted to work with people, and I wanted to learn physiology and applied physiology.
I opened up a practise in 1982. In 1983 I expanded it, and the following year I expanded again. And I went from a 900 square foot little office to a 5 000 square foot office with five doctors and 12 staff by then. So in literally 18 months, we were there, and people wanted to know how did we do that. And I was pretty focused and pretty dedicated, and I can’t say I had all the specialised training on how to grow a business, I was just committed to making a difference in people’s lives.
And people wanted to know how I did that, and that got me the opportunity to speak at a conference, and in more conferences, and more conferences. Then I realised that I could make a difference in other health professionals. And I did chiropractic groups and medical groups, and osteopathic groups, then pediatry groups, orthopaedic groups, different health professionals.
Then I started that arena and I did consulting and speaking for that, and delegated much of my clinical work to my docs. And then I realised that that was a very limited view, I can only reach maybe a million people of doctors. So I realised that that wasn’t gonna do it. I started doing radio and television. Had one radio and television show on health. And I just kept growing, and it just moved to every industry and even in governments. So I just didn’t stop on the pursuing of wanting to teach. I still involved in teaching health professionals today, but I … That’s just one small tiny sector of the goal now.
Joel Annesley: Obviously, the teaching side is where you’re really passionate about. I mean, you know when we all come down to this idea of focusing on what we love doing, I think that is so, so important. So I mean, obviously one of the take-home message for you is, you know, you could’ve just stayed in a practise but you really honed in on what you were good at. And the results of that are very obvious now, so that’s really good to see.
Dr Demartini: Well, what happened is, when I was 28 years old, I picked up a book called, The Time Trap by Alec MacKenzie.
Joel Annesley: Right.
Dr Demartini: And when I read that, I realised that I was majoring in minors and minoring in majors in some of the activities that I was doing. So I can’t say that I really wasn’t inspired and very proficient in the healing arts, it’s just that I realised that if I was to sit in a cubicle and do the healing process, I was gonna limit my impact. I was averaging about a 100 new patients a month at the time. And that would be about 50 000 people my entire life working, if I worked for 40, 50 years. I realised that that was too limited. And I realised that I could go out and speak and influence people much more effectively, and then have doctors I can delegate things, and have technology I can train them on in things of this nature. So it wasn’t that I didn’t love it doing the healing, and I was great at that. It’s just that that was … I could see that that was the most … Not the most efficient pathway for me to reach the most amount of people, to serve the most amount of people and bring healing to most amount people. So I’m still involved in the healing arts, but now I have thousands of doctors that I guide and I direct and consult with, which I did today in fact, to help them be able to serve more people.
Joel Annesley: So the take-home message there is, leverage your time.
Dr Demartini: Prioritise your actions to do the most productive, the most meaningful, the most inspiring things. Delegate all the low priority things, and you’ll produce morse, you’ll serve more, you’ll get rewarded more and you won’t be bound by constraints. I was told when I was 20, 21 years old, by a guy named Ed Tullisen, “Never live where you can’t see the farthest horizon.” So I’ve been pursuing making sure that I am a global citizen.
I don’t live any particular where. I live on a ship called, The World, which goes all over the world. And I move from country to country. I’ve been in about a 120 countries now. And I’ve done various programmes in more than 60, but I did one programme in 60 countries. And I just love travelling the world and teaching, and researching and helping people do whatever it is that they love doing.
Joel Annesley: Yeah, that’s fantastic. It’s really inspiring. I think especially for my audience, Mindset To Millions. So we’re all about tapping into the right mindset to develop that financial independence. And you know, what I wanted to share with you is some of the key challenges that a typical reader might experience. And we can talk about how we can go about resolving some of those challenges. So you know, I believe that many of us are waking up to this idea that money, earning money is very much a mindset game. Instead of just racing ahead with a plan, you’ve really gotta look at what’s going on in the back of your mind. And I think many people are waking up to that as well. You know, we all are stepping into this entrepreneurial platform where we’re reading the right books, but the problem is, is we’re not taking the right actions, and we end up repeating the same mistakes.
So you know, a few examples might be that we start a business, but we just get stuck in startup mode and we don’t go beyond that. You know, we hit that ceiling. Or we end up taking on massive amounts of debt, you know, and struggling with paying the credit card and things like that. And so at the same time, we’re visualising the house, where we’re picturing the million dollar bank balance, you know? And having that successful business, but there is such an incongruence from where we are and where we really want to be. And I think some people, although as much as they like to visualise, their frustration kicks in, they feel lost. And then they’re looking for the next bright shiny object. What would you say … So my first question is, where are we going wrong? What are some of the first things that we could start to reassess and do differently?
Dr Demartini: Well, I don’t know if there’s necessarily a moral wrongness or anything to it. But I would just say that, that every human being lives by a set of priories, a set of values. Things that are most important to least important in their life.
Joel Annesley: Right.
Dr Demartini: And whatever’s highest on your value, you are spontaneously inspired from within to fulfil. You’re very disciplined, you’re very reliable, you’re very focused, and you achieve in that area, and you expand yourself in that area. Whatever’s low on your values, you procrastinate, hesitate and frustrate. You need extra drive to push you to do it. So anytime you say you want to do something and it’s not aligned congruently with your highest values, you will probably have an internal conflict inside. ‘Cause you’re tying to be something what you say you want, but it’s not actually what you want.
And I have asked thousand of people in conferences, “How of you want to be financially independent?” And everybody puts their hand up, everybody. But less than 1% actually obtain it. And those the ones who we do a value assessment, we find out that those are the people that have a true value on wealth-building.
Joel Annesley: Right.
Dr Demartini: The rest of them have a fantasy about the lifestyles of the rich and famous. And they’re visualising the fancy cars, the big houses, the penthouses, the yachts. And they’re focusing on immediate gratification instead of actually the business plan, the intrinsic value of an asset, and learning what real wealth-building is. And so they’re holding onto their fantasies and beating themselves up, because they’re not actually, one, caring enough about the customer to make sure that they’re meeting an enormous amount of needs, making sure that they’re efficiently and effectively driving the business towards that, and that they really are understanding that they have to take a portion of their money, whatever they earn and save it and invest it, and put it into assets that appreciate in value.
There’s certain things that they’re fantasising about that are incongruent with wealth-building. And if they don’t have the values that will lead them there, and so they end up being a statistic or the 99 percenters. And I can tell, I have a value determination process. I can do this value determination process and I can tell what their values are, and I can tell you whether they’re gonna be one of those one percenters. Just from those values, because the hierarchy of one’s values dictates one’s financial destiny.
So if they don’t really truly have a value on service people and truly contributing to people’s lives and filling real needs, to where people will pay for those needs, they don’t have a desire to master the understanding of wealth-building. This real strategy to wealth-building and not just fantasies, and they don’t have a desire and structure it electronically and strategically to go and make sure that their money works for them, they’re probably gonna be one of are 99 percenters.
Joel Annesley: What are some of the first things that they can start doing to determine what are their values? ‘Cause I know a lot of people are lost and they’re just … They don’t know where to start.
Dr Demartini: Well, the first place I start is a value determination process that I developed. It’s on my website, it’s free. It’s complimentary and takes about 30 minutes of their time. But it looks at how do they fill their space. I’m not interested in what people say, I’m interested in how they live.
Joel Annesley: Right.
Dr Demartini: You don’t ever need to be reminded or motivated from the outside to do what’s truly important to you. And your life demonstrates what’s truly important to you. Because every decision you make is based on what you believe will give you the greatest advantage over disadvantage at any moment in time to your highest values. So if I look carefully at how a person fills their space, they will fill their space with things that are valuable to them and they’ll get everything else that’s not valuable out of their space.
Time, they’ll make time, spend time and create time for things that are really valuable to them. So when somebody says, “I can’t get around to doing it.” It’s not really important, because they make time for it. I make time for my research and I make time for my travel and speaking, and nothing stops me from that. The third thing is, they’re energised and they got more energy at the end of the day than when they start where they’re doing something that’s high in their values, and they’re drained if they’re not.
So I look at where do they really gain energy? Where do they extract energy spontaneously from the field? You might say, a zero-point of energy, that where they get it from the field? The next one is, what is it that they spend their money on? So if they’re not buying assets with their money, I can tell you right now, they’re not gonna be financially free. If every dollar they spend, keeps buying immediate gratifying consumables and depreciables, and not truly assets that go up in value, they gonna work their whole life for money and be slave and never one’s master.
I’ve been looking at where they’re most organised, where they’re most disciplined, what they think about visualised affirm about how they want their life that’s showing evidence becoming true, not fantasies. I look at what they converse with other people about most frequently. I look at also what they’re most inspired by, and who are the people that inspire them, because that tells me … ‘Cause people like Warren Buffet spent, by the time he was 11 years old, read every book in the Omaha, Nebraska library on finance. He was already doing stock trades at 7. So that tells you that he has extremely high value on wealth-building.
And so if you don’t do … Aren’t showing evidence of something and you’re not making progress on it, it’s not really important to you.
Joel Annesley: Of course.
Dr Demartini: You would make it … Then I look at exactly what it is that you have as goals that are consistent that are coming true. And then I look at what you love learning about, reading about, studying about most. If I look at those 13 values determinants, they’re objective. They’re not subjective idealisms and platitudes that people assume. Because will say, “Oh I’m very much … I want to be prosperous. I want to be wealthy.” But their life doesn’t demonstrate anything in that way. So I look at what their life demonstrates. Once we had assessed that, we are now grounded and we’re starting from the base. And we’ll look and see if wealth-building is even on that.
Now, I’ve done thousands of these. And wealth-building is only in 1% or less. In the top four values, wealth-building is only in the top four of about 1% or less. So the real truth is, they don’t really want wealth. They want the lifestyles of the rich and famous without all the work. As one great financial guide said to me, “If it’s exciting, you’re probably screwed up. If it’s boring, you’re probably on track.” Which means that if you have a methodical strategic system of wealth-building, you’re probably not all excited with dopamine, and not elated, and not gambling, and not trying to get rich quick. You’re not immediate gratifying, you’re focused on a long-term mission of building wealth and making a difference in the world.
So those, I look at the values first. Then I basically start structuring their finances where they’re making sure that they can’t interfere with it with electronic structures. They can’t emotionalize, ’cause emotions destroy wealth, and strategies build it. So you put a structure and strategy in place that they can’t screw up. And then they’re now focused on really serving people. If they don’t have a value on serving people and a work ethic, they’re not gonna be able to be wealthy.
Joel Annesley: So what we really have to do here is ultimately paint the picture of how things are, because obviously when you’re stuck in your head, you really know … Until you get it out onto that page, you really don’t know right? I can see being that really, really helpful to avoid the syndrome of the next bright shiny object.
Dr Demartini: Well, immediate gratification is a compensation for not being in your executive centre. When you’re doing something that’s really valuable to you, you’re blood-glucose and oxygen goes into the forebrain. When you’re executive centre comes online, where you see inspired visions, you’re strategically planning things, you’re executing the plans and you have a lot of self-governance. And you’re not distracted by immediate gratifying distractions and consumables. They’re not living other people’s brands, you’re building a brand. If you really have that as your mission, you’ll be working towards wealth and there’ll some evidence of it already starting to show.
Joel Annesley: Yes, of course. Yeah. I have a question around the value that you put on, or that you place on intention. So creating, and versus actually taking action.
Dr Demartini: Well, your highest value, you will spontaneously intend and attend. So you’ll notice things in your environment, you’ll make decisions quickly, and you’ll intend to take action on the thing that’s highest on your value.
You’ll never dedicate anything but the highest value. That’s really where it is. So anything else is sort of a fantasia, and anything else you strive for that’s not congruent with the highest values, is gonna lead to self-depreciation. Which is gonna undermine the very wealth consciousness and wealth-building.
The wealth consciousness is degree of congruency you have in life. If you say you want to go out and make a difference in the world and serve people, if that’s true, you’re going to do it and you’re gonna end up being rewarded. When I ask people “How many of you have ever used Microsoft Windows?” Every hand in the room goes up. Now you know why he’s a billionaire. He created something that everybody could benefit. If you really, really want to be wealthy, you’ll be thinking about, “What it is that the service is that I’m gonna do? And how am I gonna serve people with that and make sure it’s meeting thousands of people’s needs, or millions of people’s needs. Or billions of people’s needs?” And the greater the needs you’re actually gonna meet, the more income you’re gonna have. So you can’t expect wealth without service.
Joel Annesley: So what do you say to somebody that is sceptical and they’re sort of thinking, “Okay. So I’ve got to put this plan into place, but you know, how long is it gonna take? You know, what if I don’t have the knowledge? What if I’m not good enough?” What would you say to those people who are really doubting themselves? Who’ve been so much on the job-mindset, and really disconnected from looking into what they’re passionate about, and their core values. What would you say to them?
Dr Demartini: You just said it. If they’re not congruent with their highest values, they’re gonna automatically have self-depreciation. They’re gonna be questioning. They’re not gonna wake up their entrepreneurial spirit.
Joel Annesley: Yeah.
Dr Demartini: They’re not focused on serving people, they’re focused on their own problems. They have a problem oriented, instead of solution oriented.
They’re not gonna innovate or create, and come up with things. Or they’re not gonna be able to humble themselves to a cause bigger than themselves, to be able to use other people’s skills or talents to go there. So that is gonna undermine their creation, and they’re gonna end up blaming things outside, thinking that, “There’s a reason why I’m not wealthy.”
But the truth is that they are just not congruent and they don’t have it on their values. And so I start there. I don’t waste my time on anything else. I start with making sure that we know where wealth is, and then I have a system on how to raise wealth up on the values.
Joel Annesley: Right.
Dr Demartini: So I can take anybody whose had difficulty with wealth-building, and we can over a matter of hours work on the value structure and raise it up on the values, and change their destiny financially. So I go through what I call, the Six Steps to Wealth. I found that there are six things in all the wealthy billionaires that I’ve interacted with. And those six things, if you don’t have those in your life, then extreme wealth is not gonna happen, or even pretty well moderate wealth’s not probably happening.
And the first one is, do you have the value of building a business that really serves vast numbers of people? So I tell people to write 200 benefits of why they want to do that until there is a new myelination pathway in the brain, a neuroplasty pathway in the brain where this is now what their focus is. If they have a big enough reason for doing it, they’ll do it. If not, they’re gonna have other things that are higher in priority distract them. Because you’re making decisions based on whatever’s more advantageous. So if you don’t have more advantages than disadvantages to going out and building a business, not likely to happen. Either directly by you building it, or indirectly by hiring people to build it.
The second one is making sure that you have 200 benefits of managing that business effectively and efficiently, so you’re really doing things that allow the employees to get the best deal and the customers, so there’s actually a profit margin so you can extract to start to save money. The third one is 200 benefits of saving an ever progressive portion of the profits, because the people that have the biggest businesses have cash reserves. And they learn to save before they invest it, before they speculate it.
Joel Annesley: Of course.
Dr Demartini: And the next one is the 200 benefits of investing in ever greater degrees of leverage, so they’re learning the art and mastery step by step on how to leverage their money working for them through investments, secondary investments and reinvestments in their own business. The next one is the 200 benefits of actually accumulating a fortune and a vast fortune, because they don’t have a desire to build a fortune and they just want to buy things, they’re not gonna be … Money’s never gonna work for them, they’re gonna work for money all their life.
Joel Annesley: The value can’t be money.
Dr Demartini: No, it … Well, no. It can be wealth-building but it can’t consumables.
Joel Annesley: Consumables, yeah.
Dr Demartini: If the second you get money, if you just keep buying a car and you keep buying things that go down in value the second you got them off the lot-
Joel Annesley: That’s right.
Dr Demartini: … you’re gonna go backwards. And the last one is to 200 benefits of creating a financial cause that leaves a legacy, ’cause if you don’t have a big enough cause for doing it, you won’t do it. You need a cause. You know, if you look, Bill Gates built a business to serve vast numbers of people. He ended up managing it with Paul Allen and made it efficient. He made vast profits out of it. He saved it. He has a whole year’s worth of total revenue capital coming in for a whole year sitting in reserve in his company.
All the big companies keep at least 40 to 100% of the whole year’s income in capital savings. Then comes their investments and ancillary investments that helped Microsoft and his own personal needs. Then he ended up accumulating a fortune and then he ended up creating Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
And you find the same six steps in all the wealthiest people. So if you don’t have that in your value system and it’s not in the top four, five values some of those things, that can’t happen. And I don’t mean to be pessimistic, I’ve just … I have factual data to show that the people that I’ve interviewed that are extremely wealthy or on their way into being wealthy. I see what their values are, I see the people that fantasise. And they have a higher value on immediate gratification, consumables, fantasy lives and other things.
Joel Annesley: ‘Cause I mean, at the end of the day, it’s great to fantasise about that, but when you really think about it, once you’ve had the car, the house and all of that, you think, “Well, what’s left in life?’
Dr Demartini: Yeah, there’s more to that.
Joel Annesley: … how … Yeah, “That there has to be more to life than just that instant gratification.” So tell me a little bit about what you’re working on in that area?
Dr Demartini: Well, I have the … My dream, I’ve been studying and learning. So, studying philosophers, studying Nobel Prize winners, studying the great achievers and things have been my fascination. So I’ve decided that I … I studied all the Nobel Prize winners, so that’s been important to me, so I want to create a Demartini Prize that’s to compete with the Nobel Prize. So I’m working at accumulating enough capital that on the annual prize it will beat the Nobel Prize, that’s one of my goals. And there’s also my institute of education, so I’m making sure that my classes and my students are continuing the work after I pass.
Those are things that are important to me. There’s many other smaller projects, but those are the ones that are most meaningful to me. If you don’t have meaning in your life, you look for immediate gratification. And you’re going for … Dopamine fixes, and that’s where you erode your fulfilment in life. It’s not immediate gratification that counts.
As Aristotle said even in his times, eudemonia and wellness and whole-being, and meaning is way important than immediate gratification and pleasure. And people want a quick fix, a pleasure and dopamine, and they don’t realise it erodes their meaning.
Joel Annesley: Very valuable lesson indeed. Yeah. Look, before we move on, and I know you’ve shared a couple of resources already. But in the wealth-building space, is there any great books or resources that you can recommend? Obviously your own, but are any great books that you … Just made such an impact on your life?
Dr Demartini: I was impacted by a guy named, Charles Ellis. Charles Ellis is a very smart mathematician, statistician, a financial wealth-builder. John Vogel, he had an impact with Vanguard. James E. Hughes is a brilliant man. I can highly recommend all of his books on estate planning, multi-generational wealth-building for people that are thinking longer-term. ‘Cause if you don’t, you’ll probably build your riches, and then your family will erode it. So it’s wise to think a little bit longer-term.The magnitude of space and time in your mind will determine the outcomes you have. But those are some, and I think The Book of Wealth by Hubert Howe Bancroft is a masterpiece. I’ve summarised it in one of my wealth-building, Wealth Wisdom of the Ages DVD. But I think that those are all great pieces to put your hands on. But there are many books, I mean there’s … I’ve gone through thousands of books on financials, so every one of them has a little gem that you can pick up something from every one.
Joel Annesley: And put it all together.
Dr Demartini: But if you’re not reading and studying, learning on mentoring, or being guided along the way, you’re reinventing the wheel, learning through trial and error and teleonomics, is teleologics, which is foresight. Hindsight is never as powerful as foresight.
Joel Annesley: Very much so. That’s really, really powerful. Well, thanks for that. I’d like to move on and talk a little bit about personal and professional development. And something that’s quite dear to my heart is personality types. The introverted and the extroverted personalities and the mindset beliefs associated with that. So you know, in terms of this scenario, myself, I’ve called myself an introvert with … You know, sometime you’ve got that overbearing, overactive mind that stops you from taking actions, stops you from speaking out when you really wanted to. What would you say to people with this mindset that who want to step up and be a leader, be an entrepreneur, take on a new business, but feel limited because they have the definition of being reserved or be … You know, they call themselves shy. You know, where we might be less likely to strike up conversations in a busy crowd, but it doesn’t mean that we’re not gonna be successful. I’d love to hear your take on that.
Dr Demartini: I’d love to present that.
Joel Annesley: Yeah.
Dr Demartini: Because that’s an important thing. In psychology, the construct of types is being faded into traits more so today. What’s happened is, when you are living congruent in alignment with your highest value, you become more extroverted.
Joel Annesley: Right.
Dr Demartini: … because you become more confident, and you achieve more, and you start to become an expert in the area of your focus. As you are living in lower values and subordinating to expectations of others and trying to live in other people’s expectations, the injected values of others, you’ll cloud the clarity of your own mission, you become more introverted, you have less confidence in yourself, and you tend to even beat yourself up and label yourself. And you don’t come out, and your decisions are less because you’re not seeing opportunity in making decisions quickly and taking action. So that label of introvert is that Jung had created it, and Doctor Myers-Briggs and all that is a symptom of not subordinating to other people’s values. When the second you actually find out what your mission is, I don’t know about your background, but I’d be willing to bet that if you were more introverted one time, once you’ve found your … And navigated through and found what you’re loving to do today, your extraversion is arising. It is coming forward. So once you do what is really, really, really inspiring to you and you delegate other things. When you’re able to do what your greatest at, and find the one thing as Gary Keller says, that allows you to excel and expand, you have a natural born leader that emerges spontaneously, it’s waiting for it to come out. So I don’t like to label people introverts or extroverts or any of those things, because I find that everybody has all those capacities depending on how congruent they are in their life. In fact, I have to share a funny story.
Joel Annesley: I’d love to hear it.
Dr Demartini: I was speaking in Houston, Texas. I was doing my 10-day programme on science, religions and philosophies of the world that I was teaching. It’s a full 150 hour programme. And during a lunch break I went off to meet with my girlfriend, to meet with a group of socialites. Group of extremely wealthy socialites in the City of Houston. And the girls’ conversation were about gossip and things that were going on in the city. I knew nothing about the people they were talking about. I knew nothing about the content. And I sat there, and the entire hour during that lunch, I didn’t say a word. And when I got through, I have my girlfriend a hug. I said, “Thank you,” to them, I greeted them. I didn’t say a word the whole hour.
Went back, and the lady said to my girlfriend, says, “He’s such a quiet man. He such an introvert. He doesn’t seem to have much confidence,” et cetera, et cetera. That’s how they interpreted me.
And my girlfriend just laughed, fell out of the chair almost. She said, “You have no idea. Put him in his setting and he’s very, very outspoken. Put him in a quiet space where doesn’t know anything about things, he’s quiet.” So we all have the capacity for any of those labels. So we want to be careful about labels and understand the human dynamics that are driving those and start prioritising our life. When we fill our day with high priority actions that truly inspire us, it doesn’t fill up with low priority distractions that don’t, one build an extroverted dynamism, and one putting yourself down into an introvert. So that introvert is a feedback mechanism to let you know you’re not congruent. Get congruent, watch how it comes out.
Joel Annesley: Okay. That’s really, really powerful actually. This idea that essentially we should just remove the label. That we just need to come back to what are our values, and when we really identify that, we’re going to change those beliefs around being-
Dr Demartini: Totally.
Joel Annesley: … introverted, shy, whatever it may be, that’s just gonna be wiped clean.
Dr Demartini: Well, I have … If I was to go to a conference on cars, I haven’t driven in almost 27 years. I’ve delegated driving for 27 year. I don’t drive. Don’t even know about cars, don’t care about cars. So if I was to go to car conference where 25,000 people are, I’d be probably perceived as an introvert. Just quiet and listening. Same as cooking. I haven’t cooked since I was 24 years old. So I have no desire to cook whatsoever, and nothing to do with domestic issues. I delegate all that stuff away. I’m good at pushing a button in a hotel or having somebody to take care of that. So in the process of doing that, if I was in that setting at a major cake decorating conference or something, I’d be labelled at the conference an introvert. So we never gain or lose those behaviours. We use those as feedbacks to let us know what’s valuable to us.
Joel Annesley: That’s very, very powerful. So any introverts out there, if you’ve given yourself a hard time, you beat yourself up because you don’t get out there enough. Part of it is that you’re not in alignment with your true values, what you truly enjoy doing in life.
Dr Demartini: Yeah, some are very much into the video games. They go, there are-
Joel Annesley: Yeah.
Dr Demartini: … amazing in the video games. And they have a whole other world out there that they’re alive and inspired by, but in the typical interaction with other people, that’s not their focus. So I’d rather not use a typical or type label. I’d rather understand the behaviour, human behaviour, that’s my focus. And find out what’s driving that. And the same person under a different setting can come completely out of their shell and do amazing things.
Joel Annesley: That’s really, really powerful.
Dr Demartini: Or they’ll delegate. Some introverts will actually go, “You know, I know what the business that the world needs. I have no interest in being out in the front. I’m a behind-the-scenes guy and just like to visualise it quietly in myself. And get people around me that specialise in that.” And they can do that and they can be quiet, behind the scenes, do what they love to do without being the extroverted leader, but they’re still doing something that they love to do. But they’re just living in a quiet environment. But you get them talking about what they love doing, and they’ll come alive.
Joel Annesley: Well, I mean essentially when we try and define, you know, it all essentially comes down to where we get our energy from. You know, as it was said that you know, you’re an introvert, if you get energy from being alone. Versus extroversion, you know you get energy from being in a crowd. So in that case, if you tap into your values naturally as you said, you’ll find the passion to want to share your story.
Dr Demartini: I have both. I love my research. When you came up to first do our interview we tried it in the other room, and it wasn’t the right setting. And I can sit for days doing my research in total isolation. I can … I love learning, I love researching, I love writing, and I love putting together new programmes and things of this nature, and finding solutions to problems. I love doing that. I also love standing on stage in front of millions of people.
Joel Annesley: Yeah, yeah. Very powerful-
Dr Demartini: I think we all have all those capacities. I don’t know what the limited is really of our capacities.
Joel Annesley: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay, well thank you for that insight. I think that’s really, really powerful. So essentially at the end of the day, we all have that leadership capacity inside us. It’s just step one-
Dr Demartini: In our highest value.
Joel Annesley: Yeah. In our highest value. I think that’s the take-home message. That you know, I think you can share with-
Dr Demartini: There may be somebody out there that’s a master couch-potato specialist. They know every T.V. show-
Joel Annesley: Yeah, yeah.
Dr Demartini: … and movie. They can tell you everything, they can tell you when there’s gonna be a tear in the movie, and that’s their specialty. But what happens is our society has this expectation sometimes that it’s supposed to be a business or supposed to be this, but that’s where they excel.
Joel Annesley: And there’s value … Well, there’s capacity to actually-
Dr Demartini: Well, Oprah appreciates that for the ratings.
Joel Annesley: Yeah, exactly. Exactly, but there’s the ability to take that knowledge and share it with the world, right?
Dr Demartini: Exactly.
Joel Annesley: Yeah, yeah.
Dr Demartini: Yeah. I would actually be probably a neophyte when it comes to that, because the only time I watch T.V. is when I’m on it.
Joel Annesley: Yeah. Well look, it’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. And I really appreciate your time. I’m sure our audience will appreciate tuning in as well. How can we learn more about you? I know you’re in Sydney for a little bit longer. So tell us a little bit about what you’re doing and how we can get in touch, or look at your programmes.
Dr Demartini: Well, I got here Thursday.
Joel Annesley: Yeah.
Dr Demartini: I came in from South Africa. And I did a presentation that night, and did another presentation the next day. I did media interviews. I’m researching, writing in between those. I did My Breakthrough Experience programme, which is a personal development programme on helping people break through whatever’s limiting their life at the time. I did media the last two days, and interviews, and a webinar. And I’m doing a seminar five-day training programme the next five days on my methodology for facilitators I have. And then I’d go and do a young adults inspired destiny programme for youth.
Joel Annesley: Fantastic.
Dr Demartini: And then the next day I’m in Melbourne and I have a webinar and also an evening talk, and some meetings, and some media. And then I have programmes in Houston, so I just full-time travel around the world and do my research, writing, travelling and teaching.
Joel Annesley: And if you weren’t in touch with your values, there’s no way you’d want to do all that travel.
Dr Demartini: Some people think that … You know, “What do you do to chill out?” I go, “My life is a chill out.” I do what I love. I don’t know if people don’t comprehend that. They want to put things in boxes and stuff, but I … This is what I love doing. I’ve been doing it for going on 45 years, and this is what inspires me.
Joel Annesley: There’s no distinction between work and play.
Dr Demartini: No. My vocation and vacation are the same.
Joel Annesley: Yeah, yeah.
Dr Demartini: But if they want to get a hold of me, they can go to drdemartini.com.
Joel Annesley: Fantastic.
Dr Demartini: And they can find me on YouTube and Facebook and all those medias and stuff. But my website’s probably the best way to get access to what I’m up to.
Joel Annesley: Great. Well, thank you again, Doctor Demartini. An absolute pleasure having you. And make sure you check out that website.
Dr Demartini: Yes. And can I say something to whoever’s listening out there?
Joel Annesley: Yes. Yes.
Dr Demartini: Just want to say something about wealth. One more thing on wealth. I didn’t have … I spent the first 27 years of my life buying things. And it wasn’t till I turned 28 that I started to actually get kinda savvy about the financial world. And I started to save money and invest money on buying real assets. Things that worked for me instead of me having to work for them. It doesn’t matter when you begin, although time is in your favour if you start early. But it’s just about beginning. So there’s no reason why you can’t begin today to identify what your values are, take a look at where wealth-building really is, on there, so you face reality.
There’s a way of shifting them, I call it the Six Steps to Wealth. And then actually now starting to structure your life and organise your life, because the second it’s really valuable in your life, you’re executive centre will help you plan, organise, structure and have discipline to achieve it. First, start with the congruency of actually truly having wealth on your value list. I promise you it makes a huge difference, ’cause the people who’ve done that, that I’ve helped do that, their financial destinies change. The hierarchy of your values dictates your financial destiny.
So take the time to get in touch what it’s really at, so you don’t have to bang your head against the wall wondering why it’s not happening. You know exactly what you’re gonna do, and you know how to get the result. So I just want to share that, ’cause I just know that it will make a difference. Somebody did that for me when I was 28, and so I’ll pass that torch to you.
Learn more about Dr John Demartini at drdemartini.com.
The post Understanding Your Values with Dr John Demartini appeared first on Mindset 2 Millions.
