#1909 From Humble Beginnings - Dr. John Demartini

Every second thing is like Instagram, it's Facebook, it's TikTok, it's what do you make of the you know, from Dale Carnegie in nineteen thirty six and the Stoics in five hundred BC and all the people in between two you and me just wheeling it out in twenty twenty five. How do you see this kind of evolution?

Course technology has evolved enormously more recent years. So when I first started in my speaking career fifty two years ago, you know, you sat in a field you had people gather around, or you were in a hotel room, or you were in some conference room or you know, theater or whatever, and people gathered you had to they sage

on the stage mentality. Now, you know, you could be in your car or so I don't drive, but I could have a driver drive me somewhere and I could be doing a live conference in another country coming in on a screen. So I'm very grateful that there's technology, but I really do love the one on one interaction to and I think the technology gives us access to people we've never reached. But at the same time, it doesn't allow you to get that one on one contact as much the same way as it does when you're

right there live. But I'm grateful for whatever, any vehicle I have to be able to share a message because that's my dream. I'm sure you have a love to bring out your message. Anything, you know, anything that allows us to reach people, I'm grateful for. But there are technological challenges Because I'm not the tech savvy guy. I'm more the research right, travel teach guy, and I have to have the tech guys with me.

wasn't for the technology. So I'm very grateful for that, and the same in Almighty Kazakhstan, I mean places you wouldn't normally. I mean I've been there live, but I wouldn't normally reach some of those people in Mongolians and the Antarctic Palmer Institute there and reach them live, they call him from there. I would reach them there easily without technology, So I'm grateful for it, but I still like interacting with people like too.

people from all over the world as well. And it's like, how is it that I sit in my office at home in bare feet and a pair of shorts i'd address as well as you, doc, And I get this opportunity to interact with all of these people that most of whom I will never meet in person, but nonetheless build a bit of a relationship over ten weeks. And yeah, there's definitely there's definitely pros and cons. I was going to ask you, do you remember the very very early days,

like when I did my first paid speaking gig. I'm sixty one, I was twenty six. I was twenty six, and I was talking to a bunch of blokes who worked in a what you would call a lumberyard, a timber yard and I was talking to them in what they call the smokeo room, which is like the lunch room. And the reason I was because I was working one on one with the bloke who owned the guy who owned the business, and I spoke to them for thirty minutes and got paid fifty dollars and I was terrible.

I was so bad. Do you remember the first time that you spoke for money, like where somebody paid you to be in front of a group.

spend money, and it gave me, you know something. It wasn't major, but I would sometimes do a few hours a day doing tutoring because I did a lot of free talks before that. And then I started do in the in I started doing yoga in this field between the buildings under these trees, and people people thought I was kind of a strange looking character, you know, doing yoga out in this field. It wasn't common in nineteen

seventy five. It wasn't as possibility, and they gather and I would have one hundred and twenty five, one hundred and fifty sometimes four hundred people a day gather around and ask questions. And I didn't get paid for that. I just did that while I was doing my yoga wow. And when it rained, there were so many people that regularly came that when it rained, we went to the cafeteria and there's an area of the cafeteria that wasn't

as busy. And I just kept doing it. But where I spoke at the University of Houston under these trees later had to be reclaimed to build a building. And I was teaching a Breakthrough Experience program, one of my signature programs about thirty six years ago, and there was a gentleman named Monty Pendleton there who was the one who developed the film that you put on windows. If you look out you see clearly, if you look in,

you see a mirror of color. He's the inventions. So he was an independently wealthy elderly man that attended my program. He went on to work with a god mister Scherer, and they quitted the Bower School of Entrepreneurship at the University of Houston and built the building over where I was speaking. Now, as a result of him come to the seminar, I found out that he, as a result of that seminar, was inspired to create a mentorship program,

an education program for entrepreneurs. He met with mister Sherr and they decided to raise funds and build this new University Educational Center, which is a big building, like six stories seven stories and big. Well, they built it on the spot that I was teaching, and they had me because I inspired him, they had me speak at the opening. Wow, now I was inspired. I didn't know why. I didn't know they were I didn't know anything about it. I just he said, come and you're here to speak, and

they're paying me. Well. When I spoke, I was brought to tears by the story about how they came to build the school as a result of the class that I gave. And then what they didn't know is that it is directly over the spot that I used to do my daily talks.

or so and they would just stop. And I guess, whenever you see a crowd, people gather around, what's going on over there kind of thing. But people stayed and they would ask questions, and it became a daily thing. Unless it was extremely wet or we went in the cafeteria or extremely cold, we were there. And that was really a catalyst to help me develop a confidence in front of a larger crowd and to field questions and

to just be spontaneous. But a lot of it was about achievement and goals because right about that time, I was starting to attend classes by Jim Rohan, you know, and a guy named Ed Tullison and zig Ziggler and these characters or at Night and Yale W. Clement Stone, you know, and tremendous Jones zig Ziggler. I was attending those classes, so I was sharing what I was learning, Yes,

about achievement. So when it turned out to be the Entrepreneur's School, it was really about how to achieve and how to go after your dreams and how to make it viable, which really was set. It was almost like that land was designed for that. It kind of it was really kind of a synchronosity there just I don't know how to describe it. Beautiful, beautiful, heart opening, synchronousity of life.

definitely have been in the flow. I think I've had tears eureka gamma synchronicity moments where the cortex is really firing. But I don't know if that's coming from some universal source or whether it's my particular source. I think it's more particular. I'd have to say this probably because of my learning, because I really didn't even have much of a vocabulary until I turned eighteen. I didn't read until

I was eighteen. Yeah, so then I started memorizing dictionaries, I memor I memorized twenty thousand words in two years. I was a nutcase.

And then I met a gentleman when I was seventeen named Paul Bragg, who, one night, in one message at a presentation that I happened to attend. The way he spoke made me believe that maybe someday, somehow, with work, I could overcome my learning problems and learn how to speak and pronounce words and someday be intelligent read because I didn't really read, and when I listened to him, I made this concerted effort to try to do it.

So I went back from Hawaii, where I was living, to Texas, where my parents were, and I took a ged and I guessed, I guess, and somehow I passed. I don't know how to do it. I just I literally would close my eyes and just guess. I figured out nothing to lose because I'm you know, I don't get a high school degree that way. I don't have a high school degree. But I passed. And then I tried to go to school. And when I tried to go to take a class in English and history, I

assumed I was going to guess and pass. Like I did that big test. I got a twenty seven and I had the lowest grade, and I was absolute humiliated. And all I could hear is my first grade teacher saying he'll never read, write, or communicate effectively. And I remember crying on the way home, trying to drive home and my eyes were all blurry, and then curling up in a fetal position underneath this Bible stand at my parents'

house and just really and thinking. This idea about being you know, learning and being intelligent, I think is just a delusion. I'm gonna have to go back and ride waves because I was a surfer at the time. I'm gonna have to go back in the North Shore and ride waves. My mom came home and saw me crying on the floor, and she said, what happens, son, I said, I really blew the test. I got a twenty seven. You needed to seventy two to pass. And she said something to me at that moment that only a mother

could probably say. She said, Son, whether you become a great teacher and educator, travel the world like you dream, whether return to Hawaiian ride giant waves, which you've done, or you return to the streets and panhandle, which you've also done. Because I was a street kid, she says, I just want to let you know your father and I are going to love you no matter what you do. Wow. When she said that, my hand went into a fist.

I remember this determination fist, And I said to myself, and I looked up and I saw the vision that I experienced the night I was with this teacher, Paul Bragg, And I said to myself, I'm going to master this thing called reading, study and learning. I'm going to mask this sing called teaching and philosophy. And I'm going to do whatever it takes. I'm going to travel whatever distance. I'm going to pay whatever price to give my service of love across the planet. I'm not going to let

any human beings stop me now. And I hugged my mom and I went in the room. I got a Funk and Wagner's Dictionary. If you buy twenty dollars worth of food at Kroger, you get a dictionary. And I got this dictionary, and I made a commitment to memorize the words of the dictionary. And I started at the beginning and I did twenty thirty words a day. In in order to do those thirty words, I would write the word out, spelling it twenty times, thirty words twenty times.

I would pronounce it twenty times. I would put it in a sentence and read the sentence twenty times, try to get meaning it. And I would then be tested at the end of the day by my mom on those thirty words. And if I didn't do it, I had to do it until we got them all right. And I did that day after day after day for two years until I had twenty thousand words. And I went from the very bottom of the class failing to the top of the class.

put a dunge cap on you. So I, myself and Darryl Dalrymple had to wear a dunge.

that era. Now, I think she realized it wasn't going to work with me, and that's why she asked my parents to come to the school and she sat me down in this little semicircle reading thing with my mom and dad and she said to him, you know, I'm afraid your son is got learning difficulty. My parents knew that because they knew I was not developing. There properly. But so they just thought, well, what do we do,

and she suggests he likes to run. I was born also with an arm and leg deformity, so I had to wear braces on my left side, like a forest gup kind of thing on my left arm and leg, and so I didn't get out of those until I was four. And then my dad said, you can come out of them as long as you keep your leg straight. If you put your leg crooked again, you're gonna have to go back into it. Well, I made sure my leg was straight. I didn't want to wear those because

that was not something you wanted to wear. And because of that, I wanted to prove to my dad, when you've been constrained, you really want to be free, you really want to run. And so I became a really good runner. And then I learned how to throw a ball really well. And I somehow knew how to stand on a surfboard since I was nine. So I played

ball for a while. But when we moved from Houston, Texas to Richmond, Texas, it was so chaotic there, and if you struck somebody out in a baseball game, you got hit by a gang The next day and you got you know, you got beaten or something by a gang. And so I said, I'm going into sports where I don't have to rely on other people. I'm just going to go and surf. And so I left it, and I left home at thirteen, and I hitched ike to California and then down to Mexico. I illegally entered into Mexico,

kind of like Donald Trump's issues. And then I finally founded. I panhandled enough money to fly to Hawaii. I lived under a bridge. I lived in a under apart bench and a bathroom and abandoned car. I just kept social climbing. All I wanted to do is surf at that time until I nearly died at seventeen. And then I met this Paul brad guy.

him understand how the world works. So I ended up working in my dad maybe do all these chores and all the world taught me how to do landscaping and mowing and all this stuff. So I ended up having my own company when I was nine. I had nine employees, three groups of three doing yards, and I was renting out equipment through the neighborhood to help me with that. And I made forty five dollars after everybody got paid,

including my dad a day. That's like four hundred dollars or five hundred dollars a Day's.

piggy bank. I still have that piggy bank in my office in the drawer. I've never opened it since nineteen sixty three. It's filled with coins. Wow. My dad wanted me to think long term, so I keep it as a metaphor in my office to think long term. Now here's what it was cool. He charged me, you know, the rental use of the equipment because I was having to wear and tear it. He had a depreciation schedule it.

But my dad said, now that you learned to save, and now that you're balancing your savings and your purchases, I'm going to give you one step closer to freedom. And every time he talked to me, it was usually costing And I said, what's that, Dad? He says, from now on, you're going to buy your freedom. You're going to pay seven dollars and fifty cents a week, a little over a dollar a day, a dollar and fifteen cents a day to live at the house. That'll be

for your clothing, food, and rent. But you're free to get up at five in the morning as long as you're home at nine pm. You're free to do anything you choose to do. But you're going to be accountable for whatever you do and relationship to others. But I want you to know you bought your freedom now that you're paying for your food, clothing, and rent. So I paid basically a dollar a day to live at home when I was nine, and I'm telling you that would

be considered kind of a child unfairness. Today, I am so grateful my dad did that. He made me an entrepreneur and I learned how to survive. I rode my bicycle. I bought a bicycle. I rode my bicycle thirty five miles in different directions to explore. By the time I was twelve, I was hopping trains to different cities by the time I was thirteen, I was hitchhiking to different cities.

At fourteen, I hitchhike to California and down in New Mexico and lived in Mexico for part of the summer, and then later I went over I to La and off to I panhandled enough money on the beaches because I was it was easier for panhandling from the girls on the beaches than it was working at the time, and I made enough money to go and fly to Hawaiian and I lived in Hawaiian.

meeting girls. So that was it was a. I can't complain that was That was nineteen sixty eight. That was a pretty good era.

this kid is an entrepreneur, he's a genius. He understands human behavior like this is one. I actually did a podcast yesterday, doc which isn't up yet, but it's called I think it's called something like the Slipperiness of Intelligence, and it's so funny how we you know, it's changed a little bit, but for so many years, people basically did a certain kind of test and then they were given a number, and based on the number, you were

somewhere between pretty stupid or really highly intelligent. And that was because you scored one forty, has scored one twenty, or you scored seventy two. Well, you're a complete dummy. You could probably hardly cook a piece of toast, right, and so all of this ironically stupid ideology around what intelligence is, you know, but I'm thinking about not only were you not dumb, like you were the opposite of it. And I know you don't want to say that because

it sounds arrogant, but you must looking back think. Excuse my language, dock. I know you don't swear.

He said that you're gonna have to if you want to earn money. I can't give you money without work. So if if you're gonna have to do that. You're gonna have to go to the neighbors. So he's the one that initiated me to go to the neighbors. I had. All I had was a drive to try to earn some money because I wanted to buy a baseball glove and bat and sport equipment, so arrive with that. So I can't say I was any sort of genius. I just had a desire to make money. And so I

went down to the Zoobra well. I went to the Evans house two doors down, and their house was a little bit unruly, and I knew I could clean it up really nice. I said, if I was to to straighten out and mow and edge and clean out in the sidewalk and the hedges and everything else, would you like some to do that? And she said how much? I said, I it's no idea. I didn't even know where to pick. I just picked a number out of there and it worked, just guessed and she said that

sounds fair to me. And I got stung by bees. I was blistered from the sun. I had blisters on my hands, but I did it, and I did a great job, and a lot of people in the neighborhood said, well, whoever that kid is, how much is he charging? And that took off and I started doing it, and then I couldn't do them all. And one day a kid was coming up riding his bicycle, just walking his bicycle next to me. Well, I was pushing the lawnmower, and I got this crazy idea and I thought, how would

you like to make some money? He goes, yeah, he said, I'll give you fifty cents if you push this lawnmower around this yard. And those days there weren't automatic lawnmowers. You had to kind of push him. And he was like, fifty cents, it's pretty good. That's a lot of money for the kid back then. He took his fifty cents for mowing and edging, and it was twenty five cents for raking and collecting, you know, cuttings and putting them in out at the front. You didn't have bags in

those days. You just stacked them in the front right and the garbage people would take it away. And so I got kids that was eager to get fifty cents in a quarter, and they were loving it, and mainly because they could they could make a little money, and they could hang out with me, and they could hang out with their friends, and it was really kind of fun. And that I got so many job opportunities that I got three groups of those people doing it. And I

had to borrow the zoobrods and the Malas equipment. And they contact my dad how much you're charging him? And he told them and so they did the same thing. So it was a standard across the board. And I went to work and I had no problem. Had to work ethic because I wanted what the economics was buying. I wanted to be able to have. I bought me a golf club set, you know, a whole set. I bought me a bicycle. I bought all the sports stuff that I wanted and that's really wanted. And I did

a coin collection set, and I started collecting money. My dad said, when this bank fills up, we'll drop it off the bank and you'll put it in deposit and you'll earn interest on it. But I ended up keeping

that little piggy bank. And I'm telling you, if you look in the piggy bank, they're nineteen oh one and nineteen oh five nickels and buffalo Nichols and pennies in there that it's probably worth I don't even know how much, But I have a coin collection set that's from nineteen sixty three, and some of those coins were already fifty years old.

in itself has been a massive lesson. So when you're teaching, not so much talking to a bloke on a podcast, but when you're teaching and you're in front of a group and you're trying to, I guess for one of

a better term, help them to help themselves. Right, how much of what you're sharing is something that is essentially acquired knowledge through research and kind of more formal learning, And how much is through you know, just doing decades of life, just solving problems day after day and figuring stuff out. How much how much comes from just is drawn from your life and your experience and your insights and how much is through the insights that others have given you by their books or whatever.

story or tell somebody else's story that inspires. But sometimes it's just information. Depends on the topic of the program I get to do. So I don't know what that ratio is. It kind of like a moving target. It fluctuates a bit.

they see your potential. That's that's a gift, right.

But I'm grateful for that lady because she's the one that helped me recover and to me, health is store. And at the healthy store, sit next to me at this little health bar was an albino African albina looked like Jimmy Hendricks but white. Wow. And he was sitting there and he looked at me and he saw my hands with the spasms, kind of like like Joe Cocker, and he said, you need take a yoga class, man and have mind over mind over body. This African guy.

And if he had this said that, I might have not noticed the word yoga on a door as I was leaving it, and it had a special guest speaker, Paul C. Bragg at a yoga class. And I saw the word yoga. I can help that. And I didn't really pay attention to the name who he was, but I just I'm going to go to that yoga class because of that guy. I kind of felt that there was a meaning of why he said that, and I was led to the this yoga class and that's where

I met Paul Bragg. That's that my life changed. November eighteenth, nineteen seventy two at that class. The night I met him, my life trajectory changed big time.

I went and did this. How good is it when someone comes back to you and they did the work, but the moment in time with you was a turning point for them. It was a catalyst. It was like there was something happened for them and that kind of led into something life changing.

to myself that Paul Bragg gave me. I told Paul Bragg that I didn't know how to read, and I don't know how to write, and I don't know how to speak properly, but I dream about being a teacher like him. And he said, that's not a problem. Say to yourself every single day that I am a genius and I apply my wisdom, and you say that every single day, never miss a day for the rest of your life. I have never missed a day, not one day from statement. So I shared that statement at a talk.

The mother brought his son there six and she said, could you share that statement with my son so he can do that same. So at six years old, he started saying, I'm a genius and I apply my wisdom. Well, Friday, let me see if I can draw this. Wow. Friday, Yeah, gentlemen graduated at Harvard with three degrees and honors, and said that to me.

about eighty people. And in the back of the room, right before I'm about to take a break, it walks this four foot seven lady with a hat on that's dressed in pink, right, and she's in the back and I watched her walk in I'm going I wonder who that is. I kind of thought it was dark in the back, and it's light where I was. And as I was just finishing and starting to take a break, people came up to me and asked questions. You know

how they do when you're teacher. Yep. And finally this lady walked up to the front and looked up to me and grabbed my hand and she said, I'm Patricia Bragg. Oh wow, you remind me of my father.

your eyes and to follow it, obey it. It's a message for you, That's what it was like, because I just knew when she said that, because I mentioned Paul Braggett many many many talks because he inspired me. But I didn't expect her. So we went to lunch with that lady. On the following day, my daughter and she contacted my daughter and she said, you know, I took over my dad's business and carried on his legacy. And she said, just in case your dad, you know, wants

to have a legacy. It's really inspiring and my daughter is carrying on the legacy now because of that.

Maybe we can work something out, But I wanted to know so for people who are listening, who are opening the door, their own learning, growing, evolving door in a world where there is literally, well not literally but metaphorically, an ocean of information and personal development and self help and you know, alleged wisdom and real science and pseudo science, and you know, any advice for people on knowing what or who to pay attention to is that for somebody

who just goes, I'm overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. Do you have any wisdom on who or what should I listen to or pay attention to?

There's a you know, Xeno, the Greek philosopher, and probably prior before him, is noted as the developer of the dialectic where you take a proposition and have an opinion and you propose it with the statement, and then somebody comes in and proposes an anti proposition, thesis anti thesis.

There are two arguments trying to persuade the other one, not as a debate, we're both of too rigid to learn from each other, but in a dialectic where they both are learning from each other and gradually creating a synthesis and integration of them. And almost every field of inquiry, and I've been blessed to study three hundred different disciplines in every field of inquiry. If you look at the

historical evolution of that, there has been a dialectic. Will Durant found this in his work on the History of Civilization, The History of Philosophy, Story of Philosophy. He showed the

dialectic was one of the synthesis of opposites. Herakleidas said that there's a unity of opposites and then there's Later in under Chaos theory, they found out that there was a thing called a law varistic escalation that anybody who's an ideologue, who has an ideology that projects that as a proposition and trying to create order according to their value system, an equal opposite value system which will be perceived chaos by them, but will be perceived order by

the opposite will arise kind of like a pro life, pro abortion pro goons antigonis pro Trump anti Trump thing, and these are if there are people at the bottom that debate and argue and rigidly fight and they don't get anywhere, but each has a bit of the truth in it. It's each is the conspiracy of each other.

And then as you've got come up from the amigla's valent assignment hippocampic stored, you know, survival mentality of absolutisms and extremisms where there's nothing but debates and fights and you don't get anywhere to gradually through the singular cortex up into the media prefonal cortex. You're going towards reason, gradually moving to a point where you're able to handle

the synthesis and synchronousity of these opposites. And the dialectic was designed to gradually learn from each other receptively and add together until you end up getting a pure synthesis, as Hegel would describe. And when you get the synthesis, you get closer to an objective fact, you might say, instead of just a bias subjective distorted opinion, which is

noted for survival thinking. And I believe that if you're pursuing any field of inquiry and a discipline and trying to find the logos in that individuology, the real reason and pattern of the master plan of its application in life, if you keep your eyes open for pairs of opposites, they will guide you right into the center and you will have a higher probability, at least a probability that you might be able to be less biased and more

objective in the pursuit. And the synthesis is confirmed in that state of authenticity in the brain, and that's been the greatest guide in learning. I'm sure you've had moments so you've just got a tear in your eye and you knew that you knew there was something solid there. Now pursue it. And I think the way the brain is set up that it tries to help us become

most authentic. Coin to Scientific American I think twenty twenty two September October, I believe there was a fantastic article on the ventral media prefunnal cortex on its spontaneous action potentials and its ability to integrate knowledge and create an identity that you're going to call you a self from all the different personas that you've incorporated into your life,

and it gives you a more authentic you. And it's a more authentic confirmation because it's more objective than it is subjective, and that is it's not a perfect it's just the approximation is closer to the unity. One in eighteen ninety seven, in his book on psychology, said that the ability to see simultaneous opposites and not be swayed by one side and opposing of another liberates the mind from the intrusive space and time occupation of intrusive thoughts,

which creates the insomnia of judgment. And this I think we all innately intuitively have a sense. Some are more aware of it than others to guide them and their knowledge so they're not swayed and gullible to one side or overly skeptical to the other, and they instead of an in group out group biased, they're able to see both equally and embrace them. This transcends the racial prejudice and biased interpretations that create the opposites which are drawn to you to try to make sure you get more

liberated and they quilibrated instead of biased. So nature forces into these our state and life just by the resistance we get when you when you present something in the universities, you're going to be attacked by all the pairs of opposites and they're going to tear it apart, and they're going to praise it, they're going to repriment it. And maximum growth and development occurs at the border of praise

and reprimand. And so when you can embrace the two sides together and embrace that as an act of love, that's what love really is.

opposite sides of an aisle. Hilarious and and and the three speakers were the two presidents of the organization and me, and so they had the ic A stand up and Greg Gregory, Yeah, Gregory, I remember his name is Gregory. He spoke up first, and he was biased on his side and kind of condemning the other one. So he had biased to his information out to the other one. The other one got in there like a debate, like

Christopher Hitchins and his anti thesis brother. I don't know if you've ever seen him in debate, but he's an atheist. His brother is a theist and they go together and have fun debating. It's really quey, yes, then they had they had it finalized by me, and I showed the benefits of both of them. Wow.

like I get sometimes. Yeah, he said, forty years ago, I started my career as a politician in the field hellfield, and I everything that I heard from my from the ICA, I was from voting M and without even realizing it, slowly but surely, I ended up on the other side. MM. And he said, I realized that the gentleman that I'm supposedly in challenge with is my childhood that I'm not.

I'm not loving about myself and he said, he said, I only hope that I can pass on some wisdom and we can dialogue and pass on some wisdom so he doesn't have to end up where I am and have another young man do the same. Maybe for the profession you can unify he was. He was that his wisdom was honored and both sides stood up for him too because of his way ahead of that.