E 3: Dr John Demartini

Nichola Burton: Its my great honor and privilege to be interviewing dr. John Demartini today. Now, John is a human behavior specialist. He’s a leadership and performance expert. He’s an author and educator and a business consultant and the founder of the Demartini Institute that was established in 1982 in Houston, Texan, Texas, and 2006. It was expanded into Johannesburg in South Africa. Now John’s signature program. The breakthrough experience has been presented in over a thousand times across 63 countries. John’s the author of over 50 books translated in 36 different languages.

He has created over 76, seven signature programs and has produced over 70 CD and DVD series and subjects like human behavior, achievement, leadership, business mastery, and human relationships. And John, it is a pleasure to talk to you today. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me.

Dr John Demartini: Thank you.

Nichola Burton: How are you going in lockdown? I mean, you’re the man who, when I think of someone traveling across the world most days of the week, that’s you, how have you coped with the situation where you haven’t been able to do that?

Dr John Demartini: Well, you know, I, I have, I flew in from Tokyo. I was filming a movie there and also doing the breakthrough experience. I flew into Los Angeles. I got there two days before they did lockdown. So I was there for the weekend and all the programs got shifted and I went online and I have been online ever since. And I have been doing, I think, seven brake shoes online to seven day programs, a five day program, about a hundred webinars. And God knows probably 200 interviews in the last three months. So I’ve just been doing everything online.

I go jogging here in the morning when I’m here, I have, for two months, I had a private hotel, allow me to stay in the hotel with 10 people running. Now it’s been closed down. They let me stay here. And I had a private cook and I’ve had my own private villain and in hotel. So I can’t complain. I’ve been blessed and it has a lot to do with how we proceed. Things

Nichola Burton: So in, it was Friday the 13^th in March, when all of our industry stopped right at 13, that’s significant, it’s significant it’s that we have billions of dollars of guaranteed income just wiped off the books. So you’ve got people that their livelihoods are determined on people being able to get together, celebrate. She made a live music experience that have no ability to do that. So they’re angry. They’re so angry. How do we leverage that anger to be able to create something new for this industry in order to, I guess, not even rebuild and recover, but recreate and reimagine.

Dr John Demartini: Well, anger is unmet expectation and this is going to be sounding shocking possibly, but I’m going to say it. I found I’m only angry when I’m comparing my current reality to some thing of what I used to have that I liked or something I fantasize should happen in the future that I like, but I’m not in touch with what’s actually going on right now. And whenever I have those expectations, I get angry. So the wisest thing, cause it’s not matching my fantasy of how it’s supposed to be or how it’s supposed to, how it was scheduled and how it was arranged. So I go, I look at what’s actually fat and I go from there.

“So it’s not wise to compare your current reality to a fantasy of how it was or how it’s supposed to been. It’s wise to stop and look at how is it and get grounded about the reality. And then ask the question, how is my current reality helping me fulfill what is most important to me in my life? How’s it helping me move forward towards my mission? How is it helping me? How is it on the way, not in the way and how can I use this most effectively and efficiently to fulfill what’s most deeply meaningful to me. If I ask that question and don’t focus on being a victim of history, but be a focused on master of destiny, amazing things, synchronously start showing up in your life and it contained change.”

And literally in minutes I’ve seen this happen. We have an executive centre, which is the forebrain, which is thinking in terms of foresight that sees things objectively and is able to see both sides of things. And we also have an amygdala, which is a support layer of the brain, which deals with hindsight and deals with impulses and instincts and animal behaviours and survival behaviours, which makes us a victim of history. And we have a choice of which way we want to go with it. We can either see it as the devastation and run a story and tell people, and then surround ourselves with other people with the same story and run a thing. Or we get on with our life and say, okay, how do I use what’s real right now, most effectively, bill Gates has to question every day, which is a great question.

How do I serve the greatest number of people today in the most efficient and effective manner, in a way that will inspire me with the resources that I have? How do I do that? And you know, what’s interesting is there were a lot of parts of me that resisted doing some of the things that I’m doing now, but this got me over the hump. And now I’m thankful for that.

Now, if you’re a musician, I don’t know if you saw the new video of Mick Jagger yesterday. It was a live video with Mick Jagger.  He is working with the Rolling Stones working on a new album and he was performing with them, his, in his own house with a harmonica and creating it, his portion of the lyrics and the harmonica component and his while other guys are in their private homes, doing their part. And then they’re mixing it and they’re making this album.

The wise individual will stop and ask. I got 24 hours a day. What is the highest priority thing do today helped me accomplish a longterm mission. And if you’re, if you’re thinking of their longterm mission, you could be using this productive time in a way that is highly creative, to create a new song. You can learn a new skill. You can go and learn about what’s out there in the market. Now what’s the new market going to be? What talents, what technology I can be studying. You can be using every minute of your day, still on an objective.

And when the sling shot comes in back, because right now we’re under tension, but once it releases, you’re going to have a flood of people that are going to want to go to a live event. And there’s going to be the biggest return. If you’re working productively. Now there’s going to be the biggest return to compensate for that little bit of gap there that there’s going to be six months to a year or whatever. And that gap will be an insignificant for peace compared to what you’re going to make. If you get creative now and use the time. Because most of the time we get so busy that we don’t have time for our creativity. We’re working on it and not on it, but in it that’s right. Yeah. It was a fantastic time to actually get amazingly creative things done, writing lyrics. I’m working with a singer right now.

And you know, it works on a new song, working new, on a new company. What’s the newest technologies and how do I save efficiency? And on the future, how do I do technology? So for my business now, we can go live in a live performance and worldwide on an internet performance. We are now reaching 400,000 people, a million people in a live seminar, not just so it’s televised. How do we learn all the technology to make us do that? We now get way more income, and less cost. It teaches us to value, saving a portion and investing in ourselves and having a value of cash.

The fortune 100 companies in the world all known to have at least at least 40%, at least six months worth of liquid capital, sitting in reserve for these times and smart people know to do that. I’ve always kept a year’s worth of capital on reserve and buy into the crashes and take advantage of the crashes. So there’s, there’s no setback on that, but if the people with foresight are planning ahead and they’re using this time incredibly creatively, because it’s the challenges that generate innovation and creativity, and it’s the easy days that you keep going through the same routine and expect it to go on. When people think, Oh, I’m successful because it’s working, they keep doing what eventually doesn’t work. So this is actually a great opportunity for people to actually use their time.

So are they learning something new? That’s going to advance them in the next decade? Are they basically thinking highest priority, creative things? That’s going to help them build new products, services, and ideas. Are they actually paying attention to what are people actually needing and looking for right now? And what are they going to need? The second, this thing comes out of hibernation. What is going to be the music they’re going to do? What is the thing? If we look, and there’s also things you can be doing, you can be interacting with your fans in other ways, in the meantime, and keeping them engaged. I’ve already seen people in musicians that are doing that. I know a lady that was doing dancing and everything else. It just says, I just love you. I just want you to keep in contact with you. I’m doing a special thing. And she got a dancing video put out to keep her fans activated and that went viral.

So there’s, there’s creative ways of doing it, but they can’t live in the past about how it used to be. Cause you’re gonna be bitching and you can’t fantasize about what it is the wise thing to do is what exactly is the fact. And then how do I use that fact to the greatest opportunity I can in this moment with the resources I have the people, because right now this is a great opportunity to make contact with all kinds of people on zoom and be planning and putting together the most amazing event that’s never been done with creative ideas right now. That’s right. When you come out of the shoot, you’re ready and you’re prepared and it’s all ready to go. It’s just turnkey. Let’s go, let’s go make this thing happen. And let’s go make four times the amount that we’ve ever made before.

To me, that’s the way I would use my time.

Nichola Burton: It’s been a great reset as well. So many people have appreciated the ability to just, and actually have the time, like you said, to innovative and pivot, my team have just been running for the last decade. And they’ve all said, it’s been really good to have time to re skill to, you know, get healthy and sort of reimagine what I’d like to do. There’s so many opportunities in this experience. And I think listening to you today, it helps people to understand what the value of anger actually is.

Dr John Demartini: Anger is giving us feedback. I always say that when we’re in our amygdala, our little animal center, where we get impulsive about fantasies of the future and instinctual from fears of the past, we’re not in our most powerful state. And so I would say that anytime I have an emotion, that’s not, thank you. I love you. I’m inspired. I’m grateful. I’m, I’m certain about my mission and I’m present with it. And I’m not, if I’m not prior to I’m in that emotional state and the emotional state is if I run that story and keep that thing going, I’m just going to get stuck. Yeah. So I stopped the story. I have people that come to my breakthrough experience over the last few weeks and those seven breakthroughs the last few weeks.

And I just say, stop the story. We want the executive center to function. And I get them over that. I get them focused on much priority. And I go, I’m back into resilience. Resilience is the ability to handle. See if we’re addicted to a fantasy and we’re frightened of a nightmare. We’re going to fear the loss of this and feel the gain of this. And we’re going to be distracted by fear. I’m going to be angry, but the second we get focused on mission. If you don’t fill your day with high priority actions that inspire you, it fills up from low priority distractions. That don’t, if you don’t fill your day with that, which inspires you, it fills up with that, which you despise, you. It’s a law. You can’t avoid that law.

So it’s a matter of whether you’re going to take command of your life and be master of your fate captain of your ship and start sailing your ship in the direction of your own horizon. Or are you going to let the world on the outside dictate I showed on the movie the secret many years ago when the voice and the vision on the inside is louder than all those opinions on the outside. Turn the TV off, get the sensation out yet the things that try to grab your amygdala off and go find out what your heart is directing you to do and what you can do. That makes a contribution on the planet because there’s never a lack of income to people who serve people’s needs. And a musician serves massive numbers of mates and all their teams and every ancillary business, it puts on those performances everybody’s needed and they’re not, it’s not going to not be needed.

They’re going to still be needed, but let’s upgrade the skills and let’s prepare for the greatest performances of the future and use this time. And if we do, there’s going to be creativity and there’s no reason why that can’t be going on right now.

Nichola Burton: And it’s also an opportunity to upgrade the mechanisms of the industry as well. Isn’t it? You had no idea how you were going to put everything online and you did it in two days.

Dr John Demartini: In two days, I was on doing the breakthrough experience two days.

Nichola Burton: I guess the challenge for these guys is the mechanism for the digital format has been structured so that if they run a digital format as compared to a live it’s like a 98% revenue loss. So it’s an opportunity for us to, I guess, recreate that whole mechanism as a result of the need worldwide, because they never had to deal with it before.

Dr John Demartini: I’m reaching people in Mongolia. You know, places in Madagascar are on places of Kazakhstan. I’m reaching people worldwide right now that I didn’t have, who didn’t take the time to fly to London or didn’t fly to India, didn’t fly to the other cities I was going to, and now I’m reaching more people and we’re having larger numbers.

And so I’ve learned how to do it. I’m sitting in a chair. I’m not walking around necessarily, or I’m standing a bit, but, but I, anybody who does not stress is the inability to adapt to a changing environment and distress can erode you in age. But you stress, which means pursuing challenges that inspire you. And by tackling the challenges and inspire you, you come up with creative innovations and genius. I was, I was flying on a plane one time from Australia to Los Angeles. And there was a gentleman on the plane who was kind of down and I started a chat with them and try to lift them up a bit. And he was a famous musician. I’m not going to give his name, but I will say he’s a very famous musician in the, in the seventies and eighties, he was like at the top. And I didn’t know, but his entire band is in the first class with me.

So I’m sitting there talking to him any, any started to open up. And he says, I’ve been kind of down. A friend of mine died and I’ve been funk. And I haven’t come up with new music. I haven’t come up with this. And I said, do you mind if I give you feedback? You don’t know who I am. But I started talking to him in probably 20, 30 minutes. I had him starting to think of it differently. And then I said, what are you grateful for? And he goes, man, that’s a good question. I haven’t been focused on that at all. I said, what are you grateful for right now? And looked over. And he goes, my guys, I said, great, who else you’re grateful for?

And I just started thinking, what else are you grateful for? And I made him go through a list, 21 things he was grateful for. And it started lifting his spirits a bit. I said, if you’re not in gratitude, you’re not going to be in the creative mode. Whenever you’re comparing yourself, depression is a comparison of your current reality for fantasy, about how life’s supposed to be instead of what it is, what it is, is what it is. Embrace it, find out how you can use it to your greatest advantage. So I sat down, I made him go through things he is grateful for. I took this biggest thing that he was upset about. And, you know, I have this grief process. I can help people dissolve. I did it right there on the spot, on the person that died. Wow. And I cleared that in about 20 minutes.

William James said the greatest discovery of our generations of human beings can alter their lives by altering their perceptions. And we have control over our perceptions decisions and actions aligned. That’s it? Nothing else. If we take command and balance out our perceptions, prioritize our decisions and take actions on priority.

Our life changes that moment. Not days, weeks, months, years, we start building incremental momentum towards something of novel origination and creating original ideas that serve humanity is the most fulfilling thing we can do to make a difference in people’s lives. If we’re focused on ourselves, we’re going to wallow in our pity party. If we focus on our mission and focus on the people and focus on what we’re going to do to serve them. If, if everybody in the industry we think in, how am I going to serve those people? The second week back on the game, the whole industry starts moving with creative, new ideas for new technologies. There’s no doubt in my mind that you can go and now do a live performance and you could be doing a television production. You could be doing an online global production and you could have a million people watching a freaking production today and they pay different fees according to where they’re coming from.

Gratitude is simply a ratio of perceptions. If you’re infatuated with somebody and you perceive consciously the upsides and you’re unconscious of the downsides, they run you. They occupy space and time remind and run you. And now you have a fantasy. And that usually has a fatal attraction like Glenn close to Mike Douglas. But if you present something, then you’re assuming you’re conscious of the downsides and unconsciously upsides. And now it runs you two, both of them occupy your mind and make you it’s hard to sleep. But if you balance them by looking for the downsides on the fantasy and looking for the upsides and the so-called resentment and balance it out, nothing out there runs you. You are centric, not eccentric.

And when your heart runs you, your heart intelligence and your wisdom, the love of wisdom of wisdom of love, his philosophy of that opens doorways. But the amygdala and the animal is an impulse instinct. Avoid predators, seek prey stuck with no much, not much evolution there, but human beings have the capacity to transcend that. The thing that distinguishes us from the other animals is the ability to extract meaning out of our bench and find the mean and find the center out of all the polarities of perception that create emotion. And we have that capacity and actually knowing the art of asking quality questions, the quality of your life, spatially, quiet, the questions you ask.

You say, how specifically is what’s happening to me right now? How’s it helping me fulfill my mission? And what is the highest priority action I can do right now to move in the direction of that fulfillment and what exactly right now is true. And let me start with what’s true instead of what we running stories about what isn’t, so there’s all kinds of things we can be doing right now. And I believe that this industry is in the Slingshot effect. And if it’s wise, it won’t let its rubber band break. It will soar higher and farther. Cause I guarantee that’s what’s going to happen because there’s going to be a lot of people.

I imagine what the size of these audiences are going to be when people finally get back out that’s right. And they’re going to be so ready to go and see something live. It’ll be blowing minds, but let’s use the technology that’s being. There’s a, there’s a higher purpose of why this happened. It’s teaching us how to use technology globally in addition to locally. So let’s put the local and the global together.

When Mick Jagger’s creating a song, the guy that was talking about it said, what if, what would happen if the rolling stones could have their biggest album that they’d ever credited in the history of rock and roll on their 50 something years of doing rock and roll, would that be phenomenal? Well, you know what? I bet you, they pull it off. That’s what they’re working on. They’re using a time to create a masterpiece masters, focus on masterpieces, the masses, they get stuck in the illusions of gain and loss, but the masters always live in a world of transformation and creativity.