Transcript
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John Jantsch: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Dr. John Demartini. He is a world renowned specialist in human behavior, a researcher, author, and global educator. One of his most recent books is called The Values Factor: The Secret to Creating an Inspired and Fulfilling Life. Let’s talk about values. Shall we? Welcome, John.
John Demartini: Thank you for having me. Thank you. Appreciate the time.
John Jantsch: I read the official stuff that you do, but let’s give people a little bit of background. How’d you get here to where you are today?
John Demartini: Well, I started when I was 17 actually. I had a dream to travel the world and to teach and I set out to do that at age 17, almost 18. By God, I just didn’t give up on it and it just kept emerging..I had a learning problem as a child, I was told in first grade I would never be able to read, never be able to write, never be able to communicate, never amount to anything, never go very far in life. I was a high school dropout and was living on the streets for many years.
John Demartini: But then I met this amazing teacher named Paul Bragg when I was 17 that made me, during his talk for the first time in my life, I thought maybe I could overcome my learning problems, someday I can learn how to read and become intelligent. I’ll tell you what, that was the most inspiring night and the turning point in my life and I never gave up on it. I had to first learn how to pronounce words and spell and practice speech and things. I had a speech problem and I just never gave up on it. I just, and this is the thing I just love doing most.
John Jantsch: At 17, you were still not reading or even speaking well?
John Demartini: I didn’t read my first book till I was 18.
John Jantsch: Was it ultimately neurological or psychological?
John Demartini: Well, when I was very young, I had a speech impediment so I had to go to a speech pathologist very young. And then when I got into first grade, I had what they define now as dyslexia and apraxia. I wasn’t able to put it all together. The only way I made it through school is by asking smart kids question. When you really, really, really, really want to do something and there’s no turning back on it, you can turn your life around. That’s what happened to me. I just had such a desire to win.
John Demartini: I never thought I’d ever be intelligent. I had a desire to be intelligent and man, when I went out on the pursuit of that, it was a relentless pursuit that I had, with the help of my mother, I had to read 30 words a day and pronounce them and spell them properly and put them in a sentence and say it, and I couldn’t go to bed until I had 30 new words a day when I was 18. And my vocabulary grew and I eventually took a GED and a high school equivalency test and a college entrance exam. I went on and then I ended up being a scholar. I just never gave up on it. I’ve read now over 30,000 books and I just love reading, I just love learning.
John Jantsch: And you, people might’ve heard me introduce you is Dr. John Demartini, so you now have even achieved an advanced degree.
John Demartini: Yeah, I did 10 years of college, almost and yeah, I just want to be a teacher, a philosopher and healer. I full-time travel around the world today, researching and teaching and have students all over the world today, every country. I’ve been quite blessed. Been to 154 countries, in this January will 154.
John Jantsch: And you reside, you were telling me before we started recording, in a somewhat unique home.
John Demartini: I live on a ship called The World when I’m there, most of the time I’m traveling. But my residence for the last 18 years is on a condominium, probably condominium ship that travels all over the world and I get off and on as I travel. It’s just a place to write.
John Jantsch: I mentioned that the name of one of your core works is called The Values Factor. I wonder if you could define that term, values factor.
John Demartini: Well, every individual, regardless of gender or age or culture lives moment by a set of priorities, a set of values, things that are most important to least important in their life. In this hierarchy is a set of values that they hold, things that are most important to least important. This set of values is unique to them and it determines how they perceive, what they decide and how they act. Their perception, decisions or actions are dependent on these values and whatever’s highest on their value. They spontaneously are inspired intrinsically to pursue, and this is where they’ll excel and fulfill and expand.
John Demartini: Whatever’s low in their values, lower in the priorities, they’ll require extrinsic motivation to get them to do it. They’ll need a punishment if they don’t do it, reward if they do kind of thing in order to get them to do it. And this is not where they excel, this is where they hold back. Finding out what’s really truly, truly most important in people’s lives and structuring your life through prioritized action and delegation to pursue that is extraordinary in its capacity to build momentum and go on to greater achievement as an entrepreneur or as anybody in any field really. I’m fascinated by that and that’s what the values factor is. How do we get people to live congruently and align with what they value most so they can be inspired?
John Jantsch: Yeah. Let me make sure I’m hearing this right. You’re suggesting that people have these values, even if they haven’t really associated words or names with them, you’re saying that they make decisions based on them and part of the job is to figure out what they are?
John Demartini: Well, if you ask somebody what their values are, they’ll tell you social cliches and ideologies and idealisms that are injected and inculcated from individuals like mothers, fathers, preachers, teachers, conventions, traditions, and morays of the society that they’re subordinating and conforming to. But I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in what their life demonstrates. I look at it and I have 13 value determinants to help look objectively at what their value determinants are.
John Demartini: How do they fill their space? Because things are really important to them they fill their space with. How they spend their time? They find time, make time, and spend time on things that are truly valuable. What is it that energizes them? When they’re doing something behind their values, their energy goes up. When they’re not there, their energy goes down. Where is their money being spent? Look carefully at how they spend their money. It tells you what the priorities are.
John Demartini: Where are they most organized and ordered? Where are they most disciplined spontaneously? What is it that they think about, visualize and affirm inside, internally dialogue with themselves about how they want their life that shows evidence of coming true, not fantasies? And what do they converse with other people about most, about what they keep bringing the conversation to? What inspires them and brings a tear of inspiration to their eyes? What exactly is it that consistent, persistent goals that they’ve been pursuing that are actually coming true, not the ones that are fantasies that are self defeating? And what is the thing that they love studying about, reading about learning, about listening to? I look at those value determinants to get a clear understanding of what their life is truly demonstrating, not their fantasies about what they hope it will be.
John Jantsch: However, would you suggest also that there are a lot of people that 50%, 60%, 70%, 80% of their lives, they’re living outside of those things that you just described?
John Demartini: Exactly. Most people are comparing themselves to others, putting others on the pedestal, minimize themselves into the pit, living vicariously through other people, paying high dollars for other people’s brands instead of building a brand around themselves. And they’re basically doing what Emerson warned not to do, envying and imitating people, which is sort of a death sentence to their self worth and their empowerment. The key is to giving themselves permission to not subordinate to the world on the outside, but to let the voice and the vision on the inside direct their destiny and take command of their life. As Ernest Becker says, “Instead of conforming to the collective heroist, you want to be the individual hero within”. In the process of doing it, most people don’t give themselves permission to do that. They live in the shadows of others instead of on the shoulders of giants.
John Jantsch: If you’ve asked, and I know you have worked with a lot of folks trying to determine these, what gets in the way of people connecting with what their real values are? Certainly articulating what their true values are? What gets in the way of that?
John Demartini: Well, again, this subordination and injected values of others. If you walk in a mall and you see somebody you think is more intelligent than you, you’ll minimize yourself to them. Try to inject their values. You think they’re more successful than you. You think they’re more wealthy than you. You think they have a better relationship than you. You think that they have more social savvy than. You think that they’re a better fit. You’ll think they’re more spiritually aware. The moment you minimize yourself to them and put them on pedestals, you automatically inject their values into your life and cloud the clarity of your own calling, your own mission and your own highest priority. I’ve watched people, I asked thousands of people, sometimes in front of tens of thousand people, and I asked people, how many of you want to be financially independent?
John Demartini: And they all put their hands up, thousands of people. I said, how many of you are? And they all put their hands down most of them. I said that’s because you have a higher value on buying consumables that depreciate in value and you want the lifestyles of the rich and famous instead of actually buying true assets that put money in your pocket and build an accumulated appreciative wealth. And as long as you do, you’ll fantasize about wealth building, but you won’t have the values that will actually make you make the decisions that are actually accumulating over the long term values. You’re letting immediate gratification, consumerism of other people’s brands interfere with the long term mission and vision of building wealth so your money can work for you instead of you working for money all your life.
John Jantsch: All right, so I think we’ve defined the challenge. How do you help people define those in a way that’s actually going to be a guide for them?
John Demartini: Well, I developed this method, it’s being used around the world, it’s a value determination. I have it online for people if they’d like to go online. It’s complimentary. It’s free, it’s private. What it does is it’ll take them about 30 minutes of their time on my website, DrDemartini.com. And what they can do is just go in there and answer it and I’m almost certain the first time they answer it they’re going to write down a bunch of idealisms. They’re going to write down what they wish it would be and fantasize about it and what they used to be and what they hope it will be. But stop and make sure you’re as objective as possible and look at what your life demonstrates, because the integrity of your answers will be reflected there.
John Demartini: And if they do that again a week later, and about a month later they’ll see a pattern and they’ll get an idea of what they’re really life is showing. Because your life to shows your values. It dictate. Your life is revealing it. You can say all kinds of stuff, but I’m not interested in what people say, I’m interested with their living. Their actions speak louder than their words. I go in there and I have them do that. There’s 13 questions or value determinants, they’re free and online and they’ve helped thousands of people and I know that it can make a difference.
John Demartini: Universities are using it for guidance. Counseling corporations are using it. One company went up 1.47 billion dollars when they incorporated into the company. Uniqlo Corporation out of Japan. I’ve used it in governments. I’ve used it in healthcare. It’s a very useful tool to assist people in setting really congruent goals that they have an increasing probably achieving. Because many people set up fantasies for themselves and don’t realize they self-defeat that way.
John Jantsch: Well, is there anything wrong with aspirational values? I want to be kinder, for example. Might be something that somebody would say, “Well yeah, that’s a value to me, but gosh, I’m not doing it. Can I work on that?” Is there anything wrong with that type of value identification?
John Demartini: It’s not a moral construct. Because if I came up to you and I said to you, you’re always nice, you’re never a mean. You’re always kind, you’re never cruel. You’re always positive, you’re never negative. You always up, you’re never down. You’re always peaceful, never raffled. You’re always giving, never taking. Always generous, never stingy. Always considerate, never inconsiderate. Your bullshit meter would go off and your intuitive sense would say, “Wait a minute now. That’s not exactly true. I’m not always that way.” And if I went to the other side and I said, you’re always mean, you’re never nice. You’re always cruel, you’re never kind. You’re always one sided. Again, your bullshit meter would go off and your intuition would say “No, that’s not it”.
John Demartini: But if I said to you, sometimes you’re nice, sometimes you’re mean, sometimes you’re kind, sometimes you’re cruel, then you would immediately go, “Well yeah, that’s certainty”, because you have now an objective. Objectivity means even minded. To set a goal that is fantasy or one sided and pursue it can be self-defeating. But to embrace the reality that we have both sides in our life and not try to get rid of half of ourselves, to love ourselves is liberating at least and very poignant, as far as achievements, because you’re going to have both sides in your life.
John Demartini: When somebody comes up to you and is really, really, really supportive of your values, you can be quiet and nice and very kind to them. But if somebody comes up and says, “I’m sorry but your flight’s been canceled and we booked you in economy even though you paid first-class and you won’t be able to fly this week”, you’ll probably bring out the other side of yourself and you got to know that you have both sides and you have the capacity for both sides and know when to use both sides and love both sides if you want to have mastery in life.
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John Jantsch: You’re not really suggesting some sort of alignment that you’re trying to live, it’s more recognition of here is how you are living and that actually demonstrates, communicates who you are, what’s important to you?
John Demartini: No, what happens is when you’re living congruently in alignment with your highest values, you’re most objective and you’re most poised, you’re most present, you’re most purposeful, you’re more prioritized, you’re more objective. You can see both sides. Can you see right now, with the impeachment of Trump today with the Democrats and Republican, can you see very obviously that both sides are very biased?
John Demartini: Between Fox News supporting Donald and CNN supporting the Democrats, there’s a high degree of subjective bias, which is an amygdala response in the lower brain regions compared to an objective view that every human being has got two sides. We’re human beings. When you’re living congruently, you’re not trying to live in a fantasy of one sidedness, you’re embracing life as it is. And you’re embracing that in other people. The one you’re married to, they’re going to want to be loved for who they are. They’re not going to be loved for just this one side you expect them to be.
John Demartini: And if they’re expanding it, you’re expecting it, you’re going to be let down, you’re going to feel betrayed because you projected an unrealistic expectation on people. But when you expect them to live according to their values, you are more grounded in your expectations and the same thing for yourself. See, I’ve looked at myself and look, you did. I have both sides. I went through 4,628 traits in the Oxford Dictionary and I found out I had every one of them in my life.
John Demartini: And I found out that that was revealing because I’m not always a nice person. Sometimes I can be really assertive and aggressive at times and I’ve got to love all that. I can’t just try to get rid of half of myself and expect to love all myself. I think it’s wiser for us to appreciate people for who they are and not the fantasies we impose on them and on ourself. And that’s why the values factors is helpful to setting realistic expectations on people because you’re going to feel betrayed if you have a false expectation, fantasy projected all the time.
John Jantsch: Let’s go there and try to help me understand, how would a person who goes through the value determination then use that as a guide?
John Demartini: Well, once they determine what’s really that, let’s say the top three values. I’m a firm believer and I’ve been involved in this now 47 years. I’ve been teaching 47 years. And I’ve helped many, many thousands of people, millions of people pursue what they dream about. And whatever’s highest on the value, that is what they are most likely to be consistent, persistent and focused on. That’s where they’re spontaneous. That’s where it’s like a young boy who loves video games. You don’t need to remind me to do his video games. You may have to remind him to do his chores, his homework, and clean his room, but not as video games.
John Demartini: Once you find out what this highest value is, it’s wise to every single day to ask, what is the highest priority action I can do today that can help me fulfill what’s deeply most meaningful today, that makes a contribution to others on the greatest scale, that I can do that is deeply meaningful and transactional, so I could potentially have my vocation, vacation be the same and I can delegate the rest away and give job opportunities to other people to do the things they would love to do that I would like to delegate so I can liberate myself from things that depreciate me and get on with the things that are deeply meaningful and inspire me to make the biggest contribution in the world and to set an example for what’s possible for other human beings?
John Jantsch: I’m guessing because you work with organizations, you mentioned this corporation in Japan, is this something that you feel leaders can actually lead with to empower people by helping them understand this so that the whole team now maybe works better together?
John Demartini: Absolutely. No one goes to work for the sake of a company. That’s the fantasy people have, even in companies that have high reputations. They go to work to fulfill what they value most. And if they have a high value on children, if they can fulfill what they want for their children working there, there’ll be engaged. If they have a high value on business and they want to rise up in the corporate ladder, as long as they have a place to go and a way of getting there, there’ll be inspired. But nobody’s engaged in something unless they can see how the job duties that they’re doing daily is helping them fulfill what’s deeply most meaningful. And they’re not going to be engaged if they can’t see how the mission, vision, primary objectives the company is helping them fulfill what’s most meaningful.
John Demartini: I’ve developed training systems. I just got back from Japan training consultants and managers and leaders on how to master the hiring process, the inspiring of teams, the leadership, the management, negotiation, sales according to values and respect people to communicate in their values and consider those values when we’re articulating the mission and vision and the objectives we have for our teams.
John Demartini: When we do, amazing things happen in companies. Instead of autocracy and dictator or tyranny that creates revolutions and what do you call it? A social kind of constructs, though the unions and things, you end up caring about another human being to have a fair exchange, to help them with equitability, to do what they love and they help you do what you love. And I’m absolutely certain it works. I’ve been doing it a long time and it’s very inspiring to watch people become on line, engaged, doing something they love doing at work.
John Demartini: And I train people on how to hire people and screen people. I can screen somebody and know if they’re going to be productive before they ever get on the job. And if they’re going to be, as theory Y or X people as McGregor used to say, they’re going to need internal, if they’re going to be driven from within to do the job and be accountable are you going to have to micromanage people and put them uphill and have to remind them with external motivations all the time? That costs the company. But intrinsic drive is very, very powerful in engagement. I specialize in maximizing engagement companies really.
John Jantsch: Because you’ve been doing this for a long time, I’m sure that your knowledge and your experience has evolved, but do you see changes in generationally, in the workforce or in people’s challenges because of technology making this even harder? How has this evolved for you?
John Demartini: Well, the basic principles haven’t changed. Human beings want to fulfill what they value. I can go back to Aristotle and he talked about the voids determine the values of human beings in his time. And he found the highest value was called the Telos. And the study of that was Teleology, which is the most meaningful and purposeful thing an individual can do. It’s not new. I’ve gone down through the great philosophers and synthesize the works and summarize it and explored the brain and physiology of this.
John Demartini: I’m certain about the impact it has. I’ve got plenty of evidence for it. It’s just a matter of not … the technology is a way of expressing the same principles and they give us a way of doing it. We may have now instead of delegating through pieces of paper, we’ll delegate to a communication device and instead of prioritizing on a piece of paper, we’ll prioritize on a device and keeping metrics on a device. But still the principles are the same. I don’t think they’re going to change. I think that’s human behavior.
John Jantsch: Some of the works that you cited, even Emerson 150 years ago was saying some of these same things and you’re right, it’s certainly stood the test of time.
John Demartini: Well, that’s it. I’ve been very steeped in the Greek philosophers and all the philosophers through time. I’ve studied some of the greatest minds I’ve been able to get my hands on and I feel pretty certain that we can reproduce an effort. We can go in and take people that are uninspired and make them inspired. And their inspiration is not because of any external thing. Their inspiration is the second they feel that they can get what they’re really, really deeply inspired by to be fulfilled.
John Demartini: And they come online. As Drucker said many years ago, if we can care enough about a human being to find out what their naturally inspired that competitive advantage that Ricardo would describe in each individual, it’s always an expression of what they value most. And making sure we hire people that are matching the job description so they can maximize that expression, that’s honoring them.
John Demartini: It’s making our company. We win, they win. Not accepting less than that and making sure that we care about people. Equity between ourselves and others and equanimity within ourselves and our customers and our employees goes far. Because if we try to exaggerate ourselves and try to get them to be doing what we want as an autocrat, eventually we get humbled and we get fallen. I think we saw that today. At the same time, if we minimize ourselves, we’ll sacrifice our profits. But having fair exchange, sustainable fair exchange with equity and equanimity, has stood the test of time. And that’s the mastery of communication, our values in terms of other people’s values. That’s what communication really is in a loving relationship, a child relationship, a business, a customer, employee or vendors.
John Jantsch: Speaking with Dr. John Demartini. He is the author of The Values Factor. We’re going to have a link to his website for this determinator quiz. Tell people where they can find you and more about your work, John.
John Demartini: Well, if they would like to find out about what I’m doing, just my website, DrDemartini.com. D-E-M-A-R-T-I-N-I.com. DrDemartini.com. D-R. And on there, it’s just a plethora of educational information for people, hundreds of radios, television. I mean, I’ve done probably 8,000 interviews. There’s a vast amount of information that can keep people busy on there. Just learning and helping them in whatever areas. It may not be just business, it may be in their relationship or maybe health areas, but I’ve been interested in helping people maximize all seven areas of their life and that’s what my website’s for. Because any era of our life, we don’t empower people over powers.
John Demartini: If we don’t empower ourselves intellectually, we’ll be told what to think. We don’t empower ourselves in business, we’ll be told what to do. If we don’t empower ourselves financially, we’re told what we’re worth. If we don’t empower ourselves in our relationship, we’ll be trapped in something we feel uninspired by. If we don’t empower ourselves and social status, we’ll be told the propaganda, as we see on the media. If we don’t empower ourselves physically, we’ll be told what drugs are take and what organs remove. If we don’t empower ourselves spiritually, we may subordinate to something that may be dogmatic or an antiquated. We have to care enough about ourselves to walk authentically and integrally in what we value most and make a contribution to the people if we want to exemplify what’s possible for other people.
John Jantsch: Well, I suspect occasionally you get some pushback on some of your thoughts, but I say that they are more than just interesting. They are inspiring and I think you’re absolutely right. No matter where people come down, they need to make the decision for themselves.
John Demartini: Well, the thing is, if they don’t, somebody else does. And empowerment comes from within, not without.
John Jantsch: Well, thanks John for stopping by The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and I’m going to have the links for all the things we talked about and hopefully we will get to spend more time together.
John Demartini: I look forward to it and thank you so much for the opportunity to share and anytime I could be of service or it might fit into your podcast, let me know and I’ll be glad to help out in any way. Thank you so much.
