Exploring Visionary Leadership with Dr. John Demartini on Leadership Talks Podcast

Martin Rowinski (00:02.1)
Welcome to another episode of Leadership Talks, the podcast where we delve into the minds of some of the world’s most inspirational and effective leaders, thinkers, and visionaries. I’m your host, Martin Rowinski, co -founder and CEO of Boardsi. And today we have the privilege of exploring the profound insights of Dr. John DiMartini, a globally renowned expert in human behavior, leadership innovation,

and personal and professional development. Welcome Dr. John Demartini.

Dr John Demartini (00:37.984)
Thank you for having me. I was looking forward to it.

Martin Rowinski (00:41.358)
I’m excited and I got a little bit of a introduction to add to listeners that might not know who you are. Dr. Demartini is not just a thought leader. He’s a transformative force in the realms of business, education and personal growth. With his unique blend of wisdom that intersects science and philosophy, Dr. Demartini has dedicated his life to understanding and teaching the principles

that underline human potential and achievement. His mythologies and frameworks have empowered individuals and organizations worldwide, helping them to achieve new heights of success and fulfillment. And in today’s episode, titled charting the course of legacy, Dr. John Demartini on visionary leadership and life mastery will dive into the essence.

We’ll dive into the essence of what makes truly effective leader in the modern world. And I know Dr. Demartini that you do travel a lot and right now you’re you’ve been traveling. I think you were in Africa and I believe you’re in India right now. Is that correct?

Dr John Demartini (01:55.744)
I’m in Chennai, India for another day and then I’m off to Mumbai and then I head off to Dubai and then finally Cape Town. So I’ll be moving around this week.

Martin Rowinski (02:06.99)
Yeah, so you’re making a difference worldwide.

Dr John Demartini (02:10.848)
I keep, I’m a traveling guy.

Martin Rowinski (02:11.726)
I was, uh…

I know that you in your early days, I like to dive into your journey a little bit. I know just a little bit to say that I know you’ve had your challenges in life at 17, learning disability and you were a high school dropout, I believe. And yet you met one person that changed your life.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Dr John Demartini (02:46.494)
Yeah, I was, when I was born I had my arm and leg turned in and had to wear braces on my left side of my body. I also had a speech impediment and had to go to a speech pathologist from about one and a half to four, wearing buttons and strings in my mouth to practice these exercises. First grade I was told by my first grade teacher in front of my parents, I’m afraid that your son’s not going to be able to read or write, probably won’t communicate effectively, probably won’t go very far, mount too much.

That was sort of the thing. And believe it or not, in the 1950s, got to wear a dunce cap. Dunce cap. And I ended up making through elementary school with the help of the smartest kids by asking them questions. And I’m known for my questions today. So I guess that was part of the perfection of it all. And I think, you know, I would say anything you can’t say thank you for is baggage, anything you can say thank you for is fuel in life.

Martin Rowinski (03:22.702)
Oh my gosh.

Dr John Demartini (03:43.84)
All of the things that were the challenges became the things that I got to later excel at. So I’m very grateful that I had those starting points. So yes, it was challenging at the time, but I look back now and I go, perfect. Nothing to change about it. I made it through elementary school with the help of the smartest kids by asking questions. I feed their egos by asking, what did you get out of the class? And what did you get out of that reading and stuff? And they would give me information. If I heard it, I could make some sense. I wasn’t able to read and pronounce things, but I could hear it.

That worked great till I was 12. My parents moved from Houston, Texas to Richmond, Texas, which was outside of the town. And it was a low socioeconomic and there wasn’t any smart kids there. And I ended up not having somebody to help me and I started failing and I dropped out of school. So I left home when I was 13, hit the streets. And 14, I ended up hitchhiking across from Texas to California, down into Mexico with a surfboard.

Martin Rowinski (04:26.894)
Ha ha ha!

Dr John Demartini (04:43.872)
Cause I could stand on a surfboard. Texas wasn’t the surf capital, so I went to California. And then 15, I made my way over to the North shore of Oahu, where the big waves were. And I lived there till I was 18. I nearly died right at 17, right before 18. And in the recovery of that, I was led to a little health food store and then to eventually a yoga class where I listened to a speaker who inspired me one night in one hour,

Martin Rowinski (04:46.894)
You

Dr John Demartini (05:14.016)
to believe that someday I could learn how to read and become intelligent and speak properly. And he gave me, I guess you could say, a hope that that was possible. Cause I didn’t really like being, you know, illiterate kind of thing. I just didn’t, I just couldn’t do it. And that night my life changed and I saw a dream, a vision that night, I had a dream that night of overcoming my learning problems, learning how to speak properly, learning how to read properly, learning how to,

you know, learn. And with the help of my mom, memorizing 30 words a day in a dictionary and pronounce them, I had to write the word 20 times, 30 words a day, 20 times. I had to pronounce them multiple times, like 30 times. I had to go through and, I mean, I just really spent hours growing vocabulary and speaking properly.

It was like, there was no option. I’m going to figure out how to do this. And then I started to excel. And then I started to be able to read. And so at 18, reading began and speaking began. And here it is 51 plus years later, 51 and a half years later almost. And I’ve been blessed to do what I dreamed about doing that night and that’s to travel the world.

go to every country around the world and speak and read. So every single day I read, I write, I speak every single day of my life. That’s the thing. There’s nothing more that I love doing more than those three things. And I travel the world, full time travel. I live on a ship that travels the world or I’m flying somewhere in a jet somewhere in the world. And I want to go to every country. I’m only 20 countries away from completing every country in the world.

And I just, I’ve been blessed to read now 30 ,829 books. I’ve been blessed to speak around average 300 times a year at least and write, God knows, nearly 300 books now. So everything I was told I would never be able to do is the very thing I got later Excel at. So I’m so grateful. I wish I could have told the teacher, thank you. You set the void that later became the most valuable thing in my life.

Martin Rowinski (07:38.464)
Absolutely. And all came from one person that told you you could, which built your dream and your vision and you stuck to it.

Dr John Demartini (07:44.288)
So he inspired me one night. I had a dream that night that someday I would do the same thing for other people. So that’s what I do every day. I try to share a message that hopefully inspires somebody that gives them the opportunity to go out and do what they really want to do in life. That’s the tearjerker for me every day.

Martin Rowinski (08:06.638)
That is, that’s awesome. I don’t even know what to say, but, uh, I mean, we all have, I think most successful people are successful because of the challenges and the fact that they can stay focused. I’m sure, you know, a lot more about that than me, but, uh, just from my personal journey as well, you know, I’ve had my challenges and I look by it, look back at him just like you, and I wouldn’t change anything. You know, I’ve, I’ve been told many things that, uh, I would never, uh, uh,

Dr John Demartini (08:31.456)
Yeah, nobody’s changed.

Martin Rowinski (08:36.398)
with my accent, I would never do this kinds of a thing. And yet here I am, you know, talking to great people, meeting great people and learning from them and hoping same thing that you hope, you know, somebody hears this message and if just one person gets touched, I’m happy. So that’s awesome. Incredible. So speaking a little bit about science and philosophy behind success.

Can you talk a little bit about that, the insights in achieving personal and professional mastery?

Dr John Demartini (09:13.024)
At 18, and as 18 years old, I was sitting at my parents’ house, sitting in a lotus position, in a yoga position, watching Kung Fu with David Carradine. And, uh,

Martin Rowinski (09:23.95)
I remembered that I watched this. Yeah, it a great show.

Dr John Demartini (09:30.08)
And he had this Shaolin master. And when he talked to it, it was like, I said, I want to be a master. So I set a goal when I was 18 years old, I want to master my life. I didn’t know what that meant. It just sounded cool. And I then, I divided life into seven areas. At the time I felt that each individual had a pursuit of growing their mind.

Martin Rowinski (09:45.198)
You

Dr John Demartini (09:57.344)
their mental faculties to be able to create original ideas that serve human beings. They had a desire to be of contribution and business, to be able to have sustainable fair exchange and transactions that made a difference in the world. They had a desire to, you know, become financially where the wealth is now take care of you, you’re not working for money, it’s working for you, financial independence. Wanted to have a global family. I had a dream to have a global family that we lived all over the world, that didn’t live in any one place.

I had a desire to have social influence, meet the most amazing people, anybody that had global influence I want to hang out with and influence and also hang out with and meet. And then I wanted to be physically vital. I’m 70 this year and I still keep incredible schedule. Most people don’t think I’m 70. And I hope right now. Well, doing something you love every day does help.

Martin Rowinski (10:43.246)
You don’t look 70, that’s for sure.

Martin Rowinski (10:52.398)
I agree.

Dr John Demartini (10:52.96)
And then I wanted to do something inspiring. I wanted to create an inspiring movement where people were inspired by their life. So I wrote that down at age 18. And I made a commitment that I would explore anything and everything in any field possible that would allow that to become reality. Not just for myself, but because I realized, it wasn’t too long before I realized that if I help other people get what they want to get in life, I get what I want to get in life.

I can’t be altruistic and sacrifice. I can’t be narcissistic and sacrifice them for me. I want to have sustainable fair exchange and equity within myself to others and equanimity within myself. So I set out to master that. And that’s led me to every imaginable field, 300 different disciplines from engineering to physics to mathematics, cosmology, geology, you name it, I’ve covered it. Anything to do with psychology and physiology, neurology, you know, endocrinology, anything.

any field, quantum physics, that has allowed me to help in that area I’ve devoured. And I just started speaking. And my first student was a 375 pound Afro American woman that wanted me to teach her yoga. And the second student was a Persian man that wanted me to teach him meditation, because that’s all I knew at the time. And then slowly but surely a body of people started gathering,

Martin Rowinski (12:02.958)
Hahaha!

Dr John Demartini (12:16.704)
and asking questions because I started doing greater and greater in school. And by the time I was at the University of Houston, I was gathering 100, 125, 150, 400 people a day under the trees doing dialogues and conversations on life and philosophy and things. And then I just continued to do talks every single day. And I pretty well do that still to this day. And you know, the idea that I could read was an unbelievable,

amazing thing for me. The idea that I could speak properly and articulate was an amazing thing to be able to, for me. And the idea that I could make some sort of difference and communicate where people can understand, that was like a dream. And to travel the world. So I basically prioritized my life and delegated everything else away and found a way of doing exactly what I love to do and try to exemplify that. Einstein said when I was 18, I read one of his books,

with the help of a dictionary and encyclopedia and God knows what, I learn that the greatest teacher is exemplification. So my job is to exemplify what I want to teach. That’s it. That’s my focus. So if I’m not living an extraordinary life, I’m not going to be able to do the same as impacting others. So that’s what I do. I try to live it. And people don’t understand that. They go, you know, why do you do this? You don’t need to do this and all kinds of stuff. But,

Martin Rowinski (13:18.638)
haha

Dr John Demartini (13:45.568)
They don’t understand that when you find something you feel is your mission and calling in life and you get to do that every day, it’s so inspiring. And you don’t want to distract yourself from that, do something. Everybody projects their values onto you and tries to get you to do what they think is important. And I just say thank you for your input, but just know that I have my own inner voice and my voice and the vision on the inside is more important to me than all the opinions on the outside.

Martin Rowinski (14:12.558)
You’re living your dream. Now you’re speaking on stage, obviously. But when was the last time you did a lesson under a tree?

Dr John Demartini (14:22.336)
Well, that happens periodically, believe it or not. Sometimes I’ll get on the tree and just start gathering. And I don’t care where it is. You’d be surprised how many people will gather if you start doing a presentation, they’ll gather around. So I have done that still. But I also am about to do, I’m from Mumbai, I’m in Chennai right now. I just did, let’s see, four, six days straight. This is the seventh day.

Martin Rowinski (14:24.846)
It does, okay.

Martin Rowinski (14:37.486)
Okay.

Dr John Demartini (14:47.136)
And then now I go to Mumbai for Changemakers, which will be thousands of people in Mumbai. I’m doing the keynote for it. And then I fly the next day to Cape Town and I’m doing some filming for Mindvalley and also doing some programs of mine. I’m on my ship. I live on a ship. So, so I’ll be there. Right now I’m off the ship cause I’m, I’m headed to do the Changemakers.

Martin Rowinski (15:07.278)
Yeah, absolutely. And you’re here with me. So yeah, you got to have good internet.

Dr John Demartini (15:13.834)
Well, you’re helping me do exactly my dream. That’s why, thank you. Thank you. Because, you know, I hopefully, you know, people that do podcasts, they kind of, you know, have a value on finding guests and things like that. So hopefully I can be of value to them, but you’re helping me fulfill my dream that I started at 17. So thank you.

Martin Rowinski (15:31.758)
I love it. Glad to be part of it. So speaking of principles, how can leaders apply these principles to inspire and guide their teams towards innovation and ultimately success?

Dr John Demartini (15:51.424)
Every human being, regardless of age or gender or culture, lives moment by moment with a set of priorities, a set of values, things that are most to least important in life. And that set of values is completely fingerprint specific, voice print specific, snowflake specific. Whatever’s highest on that value is intrinsic.

and they spontaneously are inspired to take action on it without having to be extrinsically motivated in any form. My case, it’s teaching. I’m sure your case is probably getting on that, behind that microphone and doing what you can to make a difference in people’s life. That’s probably something nobody has to remind you to do. Nobody has to motivate you to do. You love doing it, it’s inspiring to you. I’m making that assumption. So finding out what that highest value, which Aristotle called the telos,

Martin Rowinski (16:32.94)
Nope.

Dr John Demartini (16:42.88)
is the most meaningful, the most purposeful, the most inspiring, the most fulfilling thing a human being can do. And that is where they epistemologically excel with knowledge. That is where they ontologically feel is their identity, their calling. And that’s where they teleologically feel is their purpose and mission, their metier for their life. And so I identify what those values are in people.

and help them prioritize their life. Cause if you don’t fill your day with high priority actions that inspire you, it’s going to fill up with low priority distractions that don’t. And that’s where you require extrinsic motivation to keep you going. And so people that are not living congruently with what they value most need external motivation to keep them going. And you can’t compete in the world markets needing motivation. If you’re not driven from within and you need to be motivated from now, you haven’t found your calling yet.

So if people want to excel, it’s finding out what truly is, what their life demonstrates is the spontaneous inspiration that calls them and direct their energies on that. And then package that in a way that serves ever greater numbers of people in a sustainable fair exchange manner. So you’re abundantly rewarded for doing what you can’t wait to get up in the morning and tap dance to work to do. So people can’t wait to get that. And in that state of mind,

in that sustainable fair exchange, you magnetize people who are called to be around somebody who’s authentic, because that’s when you’re authentic. And you draw people, the natural people, the people places, things that is an events of opportunity keep surrounding you. And you wake up your natural born leader. Everybody has a leader inside when they live congruently with what they value most.

And they automatically maximize their ability to learn and to innovate. Cause it’s when we’re pursuing challenges that inspire us that innovation, genius, and original thinking and creativity and genius is maximized. And so doing something that you absolutely love to do, that’s a challenge that the people in the world have a need for and going and pursuing it and it’s calling for you, that’s where greatness and innovation come from. When you pursue challenges that inspire you, you don’t attract challenges that don’t.

Dr John Demartini (18:53.152)
When you pursue challenges that inspire you, you wake up your innovation. I was speaking to the United Nations on innovation and that was the topic. And people were around, you know, trying to keep up with me with notes, because I get going. And I got a lot of thank yous for making them realize that if they prioritize their life, it automatically emerges. And you now wake up the creative mind and you end up cutting edge ideas.

Martin Rowinski (19:04.686)
Heheheheh

Dr John Demartini (19:20.864)
You’re not a borrowed visionary, you become an unborrowed visionary. You’re not subordinating to other people. You’re standing on the shoulders of giants and acknowledging that whatever you perceive and greatness around you is a reflection of what you already have. You don’t have to go and try to develop it. It’s an awakening of realizing that you have it already, and you’re just here to bring it to the world. So I could go for hours on this topic. You’re warming up.

Martin Rowinski (19:41.694)
Well, that’s it. It almost with me resonates in a way in my book, which is how I obviously got a chance to meet you now. Same publisher with Felicia in my book, The Corporate Matchmaker. There’s a part in there that I write about mission, vision and values, which obviously a lot of companies talk about developing it. How do you develop it? But you don’t hear a lot of talk about

a personal vision, mission and values. And I talk about having that as a person and then making sure that whatever whether it’s a job, whether it’s you’re an entrepreneur, whether you’re already a leader, but making sure that your personal vision, mission and values are in line with what the company wants to do, because you’re going to be like you said, you’re going to want to wake up and get the work done, you’re going to love doing what you do.

Dr John Demartini (20:31.168)
That’s it.

Dr John Demartini (20:37.824)
You’ll be engaged. You’ll be engaged.

Martin Rowinski (20:38.03)
you will be engaged and you will want to uplift the company and the life and the lives around you. So I you just put it in a different way, but I love the fact that it matches up.

Dr John Demartini (20:51.36)
Yeah. You know, Peter Lynch, Peter Lynch from Fidelity Magellan Fund back in the 90s, wrote a book, went up on Wall Street. And he said something after he does his technical and quantitative analysis on what stocks to look at. He goes and visits the company’s headquarters and he looks for some things when he’s there. He’s looking for people who are grateful for their job.

loving what they do, inspired by the vision, enthusiastically working, certain about their skills and present with who they’re working with. And if they does that, he knows that that company is going up in value and he will invest in it. And that’s a sign of congruency between their actions and their job, the job description and their highest values. And that’s a sign that they can’t wait to get up in the morning. That’s good old theory Y in McGregor’s 1960 direction. That’s when they really can’t wait to contribute.

I would say people who live by their highest values are philanthropic. People who don’t, they become debauchress and they want to escape. And I don’t want to escape from life. I want to contribute to life. And I think people who find out what their mentee area is and follow their vision and mission, and it’s really congruent, they automatically make contribution and make a difference in the world.

Martin Rowinski (22:05.678)
I love it. That is well said. So obviously overcoming challenges and adversity are not something easy and not everybody is good at it. Do you have any strategies for maintaining resilience and focus in the face of a challenge?

Dr John Demartini (22:27.012)
Yeah, one of my newest books is on the resilient mind, just came out. And anytime, see many people pursue fantasies. When you’re living in your lower values, your blood glucose in oxygen goes into your amygdala. Your amygdala is a survival state. It’s a survival center and it’s kind of like an animal brain. And it basically wants to avoid predator and seek prey, avoid challenge, seek ease, seek support.

And so it looks for pleasure and wants to avoid pain. It looks for the easy path and immediate gratification, and it has impulses and instincts running instead of a longterm mission. And so anytime you’re not doing something with time and your value, you get into a polarized mind state and you try to separate the positives and negatives and avoid one and seek the other. And you’re not able to integrate them and embrace the pains and pleasures in a pursuit of a great cause. And so as a result of it, you’re trying to get one side and the other side comes with it like a magnet, and then you got distress.

But when you’re living by your highest values, the blood glucose noxious goes into the medium free frontal cortex and the forebrain and activates the objective and reasoning center and allows you to see simultaneous opposites and not separate things, but see that the prey has drawbacks because you can overeat and the predator has benefits because it keeps you fit. And so you then balance out your perception and you embrace the pain and pleasure in the pursuit of a cause.

Martin Rowinski (23:44.014)
I’m sorry.

Dr John Demartini (23:50.88)
And when you’re pursuing challenges that inspire you, you innovate and you also do creative strategic planning, you mitigate the risk and you pursue a true objective, not a fantasy. And many people are going after fantasies and getting smacked by distresses and then questioning themselves. And you’re designed to, to get you back onto what is truly most important to you. And many people compare themselves to others, inject the values of others into their life.

cloud the clarity of their own highest value and then pursue something that’s not really important. And the unfulfillment that comes puts them in their amygdala for immediate gratification to compensate. And debauchery is the result instead of philanthropy. But the moment they reprioritize and get congruent again and reactivate exactly what you said, the mission, the vision and the real objectives, the primary objectives in life, the one thing that they feel called to do, their lives transform and the universe now works in their behalf and they see things on the way.

And when people see things that there’s a challenge, it’s not a challenge, it’s a feedback mechanism guiding them to authenticity. And so if you ask, whatever’s happening, how’s it helping me fulfill my mission? You’ll transform whatever’s in the way to on the way. And instead of being a victim of history, you’ll be a master of destiny and you will be unstoppable. You’ll do incremental momentum building achievements. You know, piggy banks become piggy banks when you do that.

Martin Rowinski (25:12.654)
I love it. That makes a lot of sense. And again, we’re falling back into the mission and vision. But when it comes to teams and being a leader, specifically, can you talk about any specific techniques for unlocking the collective genius and the potential of a team? Obviously a lot tougher when it comes to having a team and not just yourself.

Dr John Demartini (25:43.648)
Whenever you are not living in your highest value and you go into the amygdala, you get addicted to pride and fantasies that other people are supposed to follow you and be led by you. When you’re back in your executive center and you’re authentic, you realize that you surround yourself with people that are greater than you, which takes you. And your job is to surround yourself with people that are fully engaged in doing what it is that need to be delegated in their specialties. And if you surround yourself with people that are greater than you in their fields,

you will end up rising because everybody’s doing something they’re engaged in and innovating and creating. And you’re getting to be the leader by actually helping them lead. But many people think that they’ve got to be the leader and they’ve got to be the one that’s the smartest and they’ve got to be the one that’s this and that holds everything back. And so they hire people that are kind of yes people instead of innovators, and then they hold themselves back. So the key is to be exemplified.

Any part of you that’s not exemplifying the authentic you is going to create a symptom through the people you hire to let you know that you’re not being an exemplification of the authenticity that you’re trying to tell them to be. And we’re not here to point our finger at them without looking back at ourselves. So a real leader starts within. The word government is one who can govern their mind is, means government is one who can govern their mind. That’s what government was supposed to be. But we don’t always have that. We get worded into people that,

Martin Rowinski (27:02.958)
Hehehehe

Dr John Demartini (27:06.432)
feed people fantasies instead of actually lead and actually are willing to be heroes and villains in the pursuit of something great in the world. But I’m a firm believer that, you know, first you’re going to be ridiculed, violently opposed and self evident if you stay with something because you’re going to be a change maker, you’re going to be a disruptor being authentic. And that takes courage and most people are afraid to do it. It’s easier to walk on coals and hot coals, you know, than it is to be authentic. And authentic is where it’s at.

And you can meet, and when I meet a real, really authentic person, you can tell there’s something about them. Their life is just, it’s what they do. And I met a gentleman on my ship, there was a gentleman that came on to perform. He started performing a piano at age three. By nine he was a concert pianist going all over the world doing performances. He’s now 80. He came and did a performance. Not one person had a dry eye in there. Not one person. Everybody was in tears listening to him.

Martin Rowinski (27:55.628)
Wow.

Dr John Demartini (28:02.496)
He got lost in it and you were into another surreal place when he was playing. And I went to lunch with him and dinner with him and asked him, I said, how many hours of practice do you think you put into this throughout these years? He averaged, he told me this, I was blown away. 13 hours a day. 77 hours. 13 hours a day. He says, I have 8 ,000 masterpieces of music from some of the greatest classics, memorized verbatim and I can recite and do any one of them without even looking at any music.

Martin Rowinski (28:17.004)
Oh my gosh.

Martin Rowinski (28:31.566)
13 hours a day, every day.

Dr John Demartini (28:32.736)
Now that’s every day. And we had four grand pianos on my ship. There’s different places for the grand piano. And what’s interesting, if he’s not on one, he’s on the other one. And he’s just, he lives in it. And I said, are you married? He says, I was married, but I told my wife, I said, I love you. You deserve to have somebody that’s there. I’m a pianist. And he cried. He says, I love my wife, but she deserves better than that.

And I’m a pianist and I have dedicated my life to piano since I was three. And I knew I was to be a pianist. I don’t try to be something else. And he says, my wife loves me, I love her, but we’re not together because I’m traveling full time around the world doing piano. He’s 80.

Martin Rowinski (29:17.966)
Wow. And still traveling. Living his dream. Yeah. So in this fast, I mean, it just seems like every day it’s becoming faster, changing world of technology. I mean, everyone’s talking about AI now and how that’s changing everything. How do you think leaders can stay ahead of the curve and lead with foresight?

Dr John Demartini (29:21.696)
Still doing it.

Dr John Demartini (29:47.008)
If they concentrate, you know, when I was a little kid, I used to have a magnifying glass. And I’m not going to tell you what I did with it, but the poor crickets lost their legs sometimes.

Martin Rowinski (29:55.276)
I was just about to say prayer, same thing I did. Not proud of it.

Dr John Demartini (30:03.712)
And what it does is it takes diffuse light and concentrates it into something powerful. And that’s when people allow themselves to diffuse themselves and scatter themselves, trying to please everybody on the outside and subordinating to that, as Emerson said, envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide. But if they concentrate on what they love to do it and do it in a way that meets the needs of others,

You’re not subordinating to others and sacrificing others. You’re inspired to provide a value to others. And you concentrate and find that one thing, as Keller says, and become the greatest at that. Not the greatest in relationship to other people, but the greatest in your mind until you feel you’re here mastering it. You won’t be stopped. You won’t have to be worried about competition.

because nobody can compete with the true you. They can only compete with the false you, the imposters and facades and personas that you wear when you try to compare yourself to others. By the law of contrast, as Wilhelm once said, if you compare yourself to others and put them above you, you’ll minimize yourself and then you’ll try to live in their values, which will be futile. If you try to exaggerate yourself and resent others and look down on them and minimize them, you’ll try to exaggerate yourself and try to get them to live in your values. Anytime you have judgment,

you’re trying to get others to live in your values or you’re trying to live in theirs and both of which are futile, you disperse your energy into a dissipative, entropic structure that doesn’t allow you to negantropically focus on something that is really empowering that brings life to a company or life to life. And so it’s key is to prioritize and to give yourself permission to delegate anything that’s lower in priority and prioritize and actively dedicate to something that’s really the most important. And that’s why I only teach research, write and travel.

Everything else is delegate. I haven’t driven a car in 33 years. I haven’t cooked. I’ve got cooks. I got cleaners. I got concierge. I got drivers. I got everything else is delegate. And people say, well, that’s because you’re independently wealthy and you can afford that. And I said, no, I became independently wealthy because I did it.

Martin Rowinski (32:09.39)
And now you’re focused on the three things. And speaking of being focused and living your dream and you’re definitely leaving a legacy. And I think a lot of leaders would love to do that. Do you have any advice for leaders looking to leave a lasting mark not only on their organization, but the world like you’re doing? I mean, any advice?

Dr John Demartini (32:13.792)
That’s it.

Dr John Demartini (32:36.864)
Yeah. Again, I’m going to keep the same answer because I’ve been doing that. I’ve been studying values for 46 years and teaching 51 now. And what’s interesting is if we concentrate on our highest values, every time we go after something, we tend to increase it because we’re disciplined, reliable and focused there. And we tend to achieve. And every time we achieve, we expand our space and time horizons. And the magnitude of space and time in our inner most dominant thought will determine the level of conscious evolution we’ve attained.

Martin Rowinski (32:39.79)
Hahaha!

Dr John Demartini (33:04.288)
As Seneca said, we measure an individual by their most distant ends. How big a space and time horizon do they have in their vision? And what’s interesting in the second our space and time horizons get bigger than our life and we start to look at what we can do to leave a mark, we leave our legacy. But we won’t do that if we’re looking for media gratification. We won’t do that if we’re thinking that we’re more important in the world and not a reflection of it. We’ll do it when we realize that there’s equanimity within ourselves and authenticity and equity between ourselves and others. And then we liberate,

all the gravitational baggage of emotions that we have that are futile trying to change us or others, and allow ourselves and others to shine and be who they are. And that liberates us and allows us to surround ourselves with people that absolutely are inspired to do what they love to do. And there’s no reason why we can’t surround ourselves with people like that, because we can inspire that and exemplify it. And it draws people like that into our life.

Martin Rowinski (33:58.702)
Incredible. I have some fun questions for you. If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why? I personally hate this question.

Dr John Demartini (34:10.752)
Okay. I didn’t hear the question. Try it again, cause it cut out for a second.

Martin Rowinski (34:14.094)
No problem. If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?

Dr John Demartini (34:21.12)
You know, me finding out the significance of being myself and that every sign and symptom that goes on in your physiology, psychology, sociology, and in your business is a feedback towards authenticity and a feedback to sustainable fair exchange. The discovery of that is the superpower, as far as I’m concerned. And the willingness to live that way is a superpower.

Martin Rowinski (34:43.63)
Love it. Which historical figure would you love to have dinner with and what’s the one question you’d definitely ask them?

Dr John Demartini (34:55.392)
Well, when I first moved back from Hawaii and I hadn’t learned yet to read, Paul Bragg, the guy that inspired me that night, told me to say to myself, cause I told him I didn’t know how to read and I had learning problems and speech problems. And he said, say to yourself that I’m a genius and I apply my wisdom and say that every single day, never miss a day in your life and similarly the cells of your body will tingle with the world. So I’ve never missed a day of saying that statement to myself. Every morning I get up, I say that.

And I asked my mom, what exactly is a genus? She said, people like Albert Einstein and Da Vinci. I said, well then start getting me whatever you can find on those guys. So Einstein, I think I’ve read everything that’s been out on him. And he inspired me. He died in 1955. I was born in 1954, so there’s a little overlap there. And I’d say that I would love to have had a conversation with him.

particularly today, because I’ve studied cosmology, I’ve studied, you know, many areas of physics. And I would love to have a conversation with him on my models of gravity, the finding ways of integrating gravity and quantum theories together. I’d love to have a conversation, have dinner with him on that.

Martin Rowinski (36:07.726)
That would be pretty incredible. I agree to that. So out of the 30 ,000 books that you have read, plus probably if you were to be stranded on an island, what three books would you bring?

Dr John Demartini (36:26.784)
and the two by Mortimer Adler called Syntopic and Volumes 1 and 2. Syntopic and S -Y -N -T -O -P -I -C -O -N, Syntopic and Volumes 1 and 2. They’re large books, they’re thin paper, but they are the two first books, you might say, of The Great Ideas by Britannica and the Great Ideas series. And what it is is The Greatest Minds,

sharing the greatest ideas on the most important topics of human experience over the last 2 ,700 years in the Western world. And it’s a summary of that. And it’s like a PhD on life. And I’ve read that book, those two books many times, and I still enjoy reading those. And I would encourage people if they want to read a great set of books, those two books. Now I could add more books, but I would say those two right there are two of, some of the finest books I think a person can read.

Martin Rowinski (37:21.934)
keep you busy enough on the island, huh?

Dr John Demartini (37:25.92)
keep me busy on the island. I started reading them at age 21, I’m now nearly 70. So I still read them and pretty well know those books. They’re about 800 or 900 pages each. There’s two of them. And they are just fabulous, highly condensed, extremely well sought and you know, thought through books. And I think that anybody who goes through there has like a PhD on basic life.

Martin Rowinski (37:51.534)
Well, you got one guy that’s going to be reading him here soon. So thank you. Now, I know on your website, which is drdemartini .com, you have a free gift. Awaken your astronomical vision. Can you talk a little bit about that just for a minute?

Dr John Demartini (37:57.76)
Yeah.

Dr John Demartini (38:16.32)
Well, that presentation was a live presentation at a planetarium that I did to a YEPO organization in South Africa. And these are individuals that have, you know, small to moderate size companies, you know, 10 million to a hundred million, that kind of thing. And they’re willing to grow and expand their outreach and their influence. And so my presentation was live to them. And it is,

Bits and pieces of what we’ve discussed tonight, but it’s about how to awaken an ever expanding vision of service and to make more effective and efficient actions. So you keep drawing in comparative advantages in the marketplace with your resources and services. So it’s a great little, I guess you could say audio.

program for anybody that wants to scale up a business or scale up their life for that matter. So that’s what the gift is. And I’m, I feel certain that whoever’s listening to it, it’s probably going to listen to it more than once. Cause almost everybody I know has listened to it, turned it and listened to it. I think I’m going to listen to it six times. Cause it’s got to get in there.

Martin Rowinski (39:28.25)
Awesome. Well, we’ll definitely have the link to your website, obviously, in in the description of the podcast, it will be on YouTube and everything. As we’re wrapping this up, is there anything else you’d like to add?

Dr John Demartini (39:47.616)
Well, first of all, thank you for having me on your show. And thank you for asking the questions that are meaningful to me and hopefully to people who are listening, I believe they are. And just know that whoever is out there, don’t compare yourself to any other human being. Compare your daily actions to what you value most, what is the most deeply meaningful to you.

you know, opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth and that which circulates the most usually has the least value. Lots of people will automatically project their values onto you and try to distract you to do what, get you to do what they think is important. And if you’re not willing to pay for that advice, it’s not always wise to listen to it. Sometimes it is, but most of the time your intuition will whisper to you if it is. But just give yourself permission to shine, not shrink.

and to go after what it is that’s really true. And don’t let, as some have said, don’t let the subordination to outer authorities interfere with the inner authority that you have within. In the movie, The Secret, many years ago, I said, when the voice and the vision on the inside is louder than all opinions on the outside, you begin to master your life. So give yourself permission to do something extraordinary and know that no matter what you’ve done,

It’s ultimately on the way, not in the way, if you look at it through the eyes of feedback and don’t get addicted to the fantasy of success or the nightmare of failure. Both of those are feedback systems. Sometimes when you think you’re successful, you’re being arrogant and you do depurposing things to humble you. And when you go into failure, you tend to go repurposing things to higher priority things. Both of them are just as valued as the other. Neither one of them is right or wrong or good or bad or anything. They’re just feedback systems.

to the authentic you where the most magnificent contribution to the planet is going to come from. So no comparisons on the outside. Just compare yourself to your own highest priority and see how congruent you can become every day.

Martin Rowinski (41:44.75)
What a closing statement. Thank you so much, Dr. John Demartini. It was an absolute pleasure having you on the show, and I can’t wait for this to go live and spread all over the world.

Dr John Demartini (42:01.504)
Thank you, I really appreciate the opportunity to be with you.

Martin Rowinski (42:03.754)
Absolutely. Till next time.