Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the 1% Man Podcast. I have here my good friend Dr. John here with me. How are you doing today, Doctor?
[00:00:07] Speaker B: I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Yeah, you are so welcome. So where in the world are you currently?
[00:00:12] Speaker B: I am in Santa Monica, California, Los Angeles area, doing presentations here and just at my little break.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Okay, great. Changing lives, none the usual, but hey, before we begin, I want to ask you three questions so myself and the viewers get to know you better. Is that all right?
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Certainly.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Okay, perfect. Hey, question number one if you could speak to your 18 year old self, what advice would you give him and why?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: I would say congratulations on finding out your mission, and thank you for staying focused on it for 51 years.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Wow. So at 18, you found out your mission.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Actually 17, but I was already started pretty well, clearly pursuing what was meaningful to me at 18. But right before my 18th birthday, I got really clear about what I wanted to do.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: So what was that?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to research on human behavior. I wanted to have the broadest, most in depth knowledge on human behavior that I could build in my life, and I wanted to share whatever research showed to help people live more extraordinary lives. And I wanted to travel the world and teach, which I'm doing to this day.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Yes, you are. So I love that for you. All right, question number two if you could be an expert in another field besides currently what you're an expert in, which is teaching human behavior, taking all the knowledge that you currently have right now and putting it into another field, what would it be and why?
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Well, I've studied 300 different disciplines, and all of them all revolve around the same field. So regardless of whether I study geology or chemistry or mathematics or astronomy or physics or whatever field it is, I've basically asked, how is it involved in the evolution of human consciousness and how do we maximize human awareness and potential? So I would just continue to expand in more fields and more information around that field.
I have no desire whatsoever to do something other than what I'm doing. I'm really loving what I'm doing. And so I would just add that field in and expand my awareness and teach that information in. So I'm writing a textbook on neurology. I'm doing neurology as it relates to human behavior. I've done one on astrophysics and cosmology as it relates to the evolution of human consciousness and the universe. So any area of life that I could expand into, I would still relate it back to the same cause, so I wouldn't go off on some tangent. I had no desire to do that. I would just keep expanding what I'm doing and keep broadening it and keep in depth, more in depth about what I'm doing.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: No, I love that. And that actually kind of goes in topic with what we're going to be talking about today in terms of identity and how to shift your identity no matter what your circumstances. I think a lot of people always look kind of like for me, for example, I remember growing up, we used to say, oh, I'm a black man. There are certain things I can't do. But the limitations that we put ourselves because of our minds and our own physical circumstance, what we see around us, how do we overcome that? That's what I want to talk about today. But one more last question is what is one value you believe all men should adopt to make it a better place for everyone?
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Well, every human being has a unique set of priorities, a set of values that are literally unique to them. It's a snowflake specific, retinal pattern specific, voice print specific to them.
So authenticity and integrity to live by the highest priority of whatever that highest value in their life is. That's it. So give themselves permission to live authentically according to what their identity revolves around, which is their highest value, their teleological purpose, their ontological identity, and their epistemological pursuit of expanded knowledge is an expression of what they value most and that's unique to them. So being honoring their own uniqueness and walking their own individual unique pathway is what I would advise. Stick to what's true for them.
Be integral to what's really deeply meaningful and empowering to them because there's no universal value system been found, but there is uniqueness in each individual and people want to make a difference and be authentic and love for who they are. So I'd say stick to what they are. Don't be second at being somebody else. Be first at being you.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Man, we could just play that back, run that back if people would understand that.
I think to me that's so powerful because so many times we've always get told, emulate who you want to be like, right? Like, look at somebody that you see in the marketplace or doing something that you want to do and then follow their path, right? But essentially what you're saying is, hey, you know what? No. Be you, but at the highest level, be yourself. And that's going to bring you the massive success and what you're looking for out of life. Am I getting that correctly?
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Yes. Envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide is a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Trying to be somebody you're not instead of being who you are is foolish. Now, that doesn't mean you can't go and learn by staying on the shoulders of giants. But don't do it because you're subordinating to them. Don't do it because you think they have something you don't. Go and discover whatever you see in them inside what's inside you.
I went to the Oxford Dictionary 39 years ago and I went through every known human behavioral trait I could find. I found 4628 traits in that dictionary, and I identified every one of them in me. I didn't miss anything. There was nothing missing in me. I always say, at the level of my most authentic self, nothing's missing. At the level of my senses, things appear to be missing. The things that appear to be missing are the things I'm too proud or too humble to admit that I have that I see in other people. And as long as we compare ourselves to other people, by the law of contrast, we're going to exaggerate, minimize ourselves instead of be ourself. If we put people on a pit in a pedestal, we'll minimize ourself. If we put people in a pit, we'll exaggerate ourselves. I don't want to exaggerate or minimize myself. I want to be myself. And so by contrasting and comparing, we distract ourselves from our authenticity. But by going in and reflecting and finding out whatever we see in them, where do we have it in our own form, in our own value system? We stand on their shoulders, on the shoulders of giants, and we go in further. So I'm not interested in minimizing and trying to be somebody I'm not. I'm interested in being myself and find out where I already have already present everything I see in them. And I've been doing that and teaching people how to do that for decades. And it's liberating because there's nothing missing in you. People go around and think there's something missing. I had a young boy who was his mom abandoned him. His father died, and he was an orphan. And so he was raised by a foster family eventually. And he was thinking he was abandoned and neglected and was unwanted. And he ran that story, and he was going to therapist, and therapists were keeping him stuck in that model.
And somebody brought him to me, and I said, So I heard that your father and mom were not around. And said, yeah, I was this. And he started running. Astray I said, you know how to go on the Internet? He goes, yeah. Can you do it on your phone? Yeah, let's look something up. And I looked up 700 of the most famous people in history that started out just like he did Sir Isaac Newton. His father died when he was born, and his mother left him when he was a child, and he was sort of orphaned for a while. And he became the guy that created principia and one of the greatest treaties in science and is now Sir Isaac Newton. Right? And I took 700 of the most powerful people on the planet that left marks on the world that started out just like he did. And I said, now you see that you're in that same category. He goes, wow, I've never been told that. I said, you are in the category of some of the most powerful people that have made the biggest difference on the planet you're special man. I said what happened is not a mistake, it's not a weakness, it's not something that's a flaw. You are a gifted individual that has great talents and this is how you were starting just like these great people started. That changed his whole scenario. Instead of running the story of being victim of history he became master of destiny at that moment and started to say I'm special, I've been given an opportunity of being an orphan and this is an opportunity like these great people. And he started studying the greatness. I told him go and feed your mind on all these great people that have started out just like you and go and realize that everything they have, you have. And I showed him how to own the traits of the greats and stand on their shoulders instead of in their shadows and gave him permission to do it. And he's done extraordinarily different pathway ever since that day. So we can sit there and go and look up to people and minimize ourselves that we can go in there and discover whatever we see in them is inside us. It was in Romans two, one in the New Testament. It says, whatever you judge in others, beware because you do the same things. And that's true both positively and negatively. We've done both. Whatever we're resentful to people, it's because it's reminding us of something we feel ashamed of. We've dissociated and got proud over and pretended like we don't do it. But the truth is, we've done the same thing. And the things we admire in people that we look up to, instead of hoping to be like that, we already done the same thing in our own form. Honor the form and acknowledge where you have it. Don't deny where your greatness is. And all of a sudden, this boy took off and did amazing things because he changed his perspective. We have control over our perceptions, decisions and actions in life. The circumstance out there, we can be victim of history anytime. But if we take whatever happens and ask how is it helping us fulfill a great mission? How is it helping us do something extraordinary? How is it helping awakening our most authentic self? And answer that question then no matter what happens, it's on the way, not in the way. And that's where resourceful tapping into the source in our being instead of sitting there and playing victims of the past. So I'm a firm believer in asking quality questions that liberate us from the illusions that we weigh ourselves down in baggage on and give ourselves permission to go out and do something extraordinary. So I'm a firm believer that don't compare ourselves to others. Compare find out where you have everything you see in them and stand on their shoulders.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: I've never heard someone say that before in that way right? I've always heard imitate or look at what they're doing.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Well, that's imposter. If you're trying to be an imposter. I don't promote impostor syndrome. I don't find that to be. I don't need to fake it till you make it. I would rather go and discover where it is. It's already there. It's not missing. I've taken hundreds of thousands of people through an exercise where they've admired somebody. I got to share another story. I was in South Africa and they had a thing. I had an Inspired Destiny, which is a program I do for teens. And they had schools all over South Africa from rural districts, basically winning an opportunity to spend the day. Okay, so we'd have this thing. So we had people bust in from all over South Africa. And there was a guy named Yusuf there. And he came in there and he was kind of quiet and kind of meek and he was dressed really poor. And he came from a township and he was impoverished, right? But he came there. And I said, Yusuf, I said, I asked you to bring somebody that you admired, a hero in your life that you looked up to. He said, yes, sir. I said, I want you to write down the five traits that you admire about them most. And he says, okay, I got them. He wrote them down. I said, Now I want you to go inside your life and find out where you're already demonstrating and you're already living and you already have those traits. And keep writing down where you've demonstrated until you see it as much as you see in the person that you've got as a hero. And about 2 hours later he finishes. So he worked and had to go and find it because his assumption was this guy's way up here and I'm down here and I need to someday work to this position. When he got through, he says, I have every one of those traits. I can see them all inside me now. I've realized that I've been minimizing myself because I've been comparing myself to other people and expecting it to be in their form, not my form, with my values. I'm trying to live in their values, which is futile. Anytime you try to live in other people's values, you have futility. You're here to live in your own. So the moment he got through, he came up to me and he says, Dr. Di Martini, I want to give you a gift. And I said, what's that? He said, It's an autograph by me because I'm going to do something extraordinary on the planet. Like this person that I was admiring. I said now we're going. I gave him a big hug and I told the story. And he came into me. I said, who is your hero? He said dr. Di Martini, it's you. I said me. So you picked, huh? He goes, yes, sir, I did. He said, Because you can influence people with your voice, and I want to be able to influence people with my speaking ability. And I said, well, then you found out where you have that ability? He says, yes, sir, I did. And you found out where you have the knowledge to do that? Yes, sir. You found out where you had all the talents that you admired to me? Yes, sir. Then stand up and speak and go and do a presentation in this group right now. And he got up and he did a presentation that brought tears to everybody in that room. I mean, they were brought to tears. His presentation was so profound, I was in tears, man. And I said, Yusuf, you now realize instead of playing small, you're now realizing you're standing on the shoulders of giants. You don't need to play minimizing. You don't need to be second to somebody. You don't need to be living underneath anybody. You have it. Nothing's missing in you. Youssef well, I was on a radio show the following day, and they said, Dr. Di Martini, tell us about what you're doing while you're here. And I told them about the story of meeting Yusuf, who's planning on doing something extraordinary. He's already got two books written now, and in the process of doing it, they said, well, Dr. DiMartini, can you get us the contact details of him? We'd like to have him on the show. So from being in a situation, playing small and looking up to somebody to now standing shoulders and speaking, getting a standing ovation in my class, to going on the radio and reaching 2 million people within three days is what happened to him when he started to realize nothing was missing in his life. That's what changes when you stand on the shoulders of giants. Instead of in their shadows. You give yourself permission to play in the same playing field of people that do extraordinary things. I want to help people see that. I don't want them to hope someday that they're going to be like somebody. I don't want them to be second. I want them to be first at being the magnificence of who they are.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Dr. DiMartini, can you tell us how men nowadays, the modern man, can do the same thing and step into that for himself? Because I think a lot of times society has this conveyor belt for men, right? Like, get a job, you know what I mean?
Have a boring life and just work this nine to five. And then you don't really get to explore your talents, right? You get to have two emotions, anger and horniness, but that's it. But how can men step outside of that and break that? Can you give us an example of how we can do that right now?
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Well, first of all, the educational system was never meant for great leaders. It was meant for drones. So if you sit there and get caught in the mediocrity, ernest Becker wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book called The Denial of Death. Fantastic book on whether or not you're going to conform and fit into the herd or be an individual hero. And it was basically dealing with the fear of death because people, when they fear death, they create an immortality concept. And the immortality is basically to do something leaves effect on a group or be somebody individually that leaves effect on a group. And most people fit in. Very few people stand out because they get ridiculed violently opposed until they become self evident leaders. So most people don't have the courage to be themselves. But how are you going to make a difference if you're fitting in? You're not going to make a difference. You're going to fit in and be just like everybody else. So you have to make a decision like, do you want to stand out or do you want to fit in? I've never met anybody that wanted to fit in. I've had everybody say, I want to stand out, make a difference in the world, but I don't find everybody doing it, and primarily because they're not prioritizing their life. If you're not filling your day with high priority actions that inspire you, that are authentic to what you're ontologically, dedicated to your day is going to fill up with low priority distractions and injected values of opportunists that are going to weigh you down. If you don't prioritize your life and go after challenges that are meaningful, that inspire you, you're going to fill up with challenges that don't. And you're going to automatically get infiltrated by people that are opportunists. They're going to surround you with what you should do, ought to do, supposed to do, got to do, have to do, must do, need to do, instead of what you'd really love to do in life. So you want to ask yourself, what is it I would absolutely love to do in life? How do I get handsomely paid to do that? What are the highest priority actions I can do today to make that happen and moving in that direction? What obstacles might I run into and how do I solve in advance? And how do I prepare for am I mitigating the risks? How do I take actions on it? What worked to what didn't work today? How do I do it more effective than efficiently tomorrow? And how did no matter what happened, how did it help me get one step closer to this objective? If you ask those seven questions, you start moving in a direction that's amazing. Instead of sitting there in muck and most people are sitting there comparing themselves to others, worrying about what people think about them. But nobody's dedicated to your life except you. If you're not dedicated to your life, nobody else is going to be around there as a genie making sure that your life is fulfilled. So it's up to you to prioritize your life. It's up to you to decide what it is you're committed to and make a mission out of your life. A human on a mission is way more powerful than a person that's sitting in just a temporary passion trying to please people all the time. You want to do something that's philanthropic, that makes a difference, but not at the forsaking of yourself, but at the contribution of self and other. And you want to exemplify what's possible for yourself because that inspires other people to go out and do more with their lives. And if we help other people get what they want to get in life, we get what we want to get in life. So find something. In my case, it's teaching. It's my highest value. It's what I love doing. I do it every single day, seven days a week, and I do it, and I do every podcast and radio and television, the newspaper, magazine, movies, whatever will allow me to get a message out there, I'm on it. And so when somebody's relentlessly pursuing something that's deeply meaningful that they can't wait to get up in the morning and do, people can't wait to get it. And when you do, you'll prosper, and then you'll demonstrate what's possible in his exemplification. The greatest teacher is exemplification.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Can you explain what exemplification is?
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Because I living authentically. Living authentically according to what it is, and walking your talk integrity.
I'm a teacher. I do it every day. I don't get distracted from that. You're not distracted from what you value most. It's when you're trying to live in the shoulds and ought tos and got tos and have tos and musts and needs of other people, and you're trying to do something. You keep getting distracted by what's really important to you, but you don't know that because you're trying to please and fit in instead of stand it out. But having the courage to stand out is more courageous than walking on coals or doing bungee jumps or all those outside extrinsic ways. Being authentic is the most courageous thing you can do. Be yourself.
The magnificence of who you are is far greater than any fantasies you'll impose on yourself. And many people envy other people and create a fantasy about who they're going to be instead of honoring who they are.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Man completely shut down the show. Like, yeah, I greatly appreciate this, by the way.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: I was just in Istanbul. I just flew in from Istanbul into La just Thursday, and I had a program.
My signature program is called The Breakthrough Experience, where I help people break through whatever they got in their life that's blocking them, and they think because it's just an illusion. And I had literally 300 people at this program, and 99 plus percent were women because a woman was hosting it. So it was a woman's conference almost.
And I thought, I'm 1%.
There's only a couple of men in this group. And I thought, I'm getting ready to do the 1% man show.
I'm the 1% in the room.
I got to share that with you. Okay.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
That is definitely amazing. That's definitely amazing. I love that.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Man.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: So I know our time is wrapping up, so I want to ask before we go, I like to give the guests the floor to share. Whether it's something that you carry with yourself, maybe it's a secret, maybe it's a value, whatever it is something that you want all of us to carry with us after we press pause and stop listening to this podcast right now and hearing your voice. What is that you want us to take away from this right now?
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't put people on pedestals or pits. Put them in your heart. And don't compare yourself to other people. Compare your daily actions to what you value most.
On my website, Drdmartine.com, there's a value determination process. It's free, it's private. I hope everybody goes there and just takes a few moments and goes and fills out 13 questions to help them discern what's really important. Because when you ask people what's important to them and what their values are, I guarantee I've been doing it 45 years. People will lie to themselves because they really don't know. They'll say, I want to be financially independent, but yet they spend money on immediate gratifying consumables that depreciate, and they'd ever get ahead financially. They say want to have a soulmate, but then they end up making sure that they undermine their relationships. So I'm not interested in what people say. I'm interested in what their life demonstrates. So there's a value determination process on the website that's free, it's complimentary, it's private, and it's gold. It will help somebody get more clear about what's really priority in their life, because if you're not filling your day with high priority actions that really inspire you, that are deeply meaningful to you, your day is going to fill up with low priority distractions. And if any area of your life that you don't empower, people are going to overpower you. If you don't empower yourself intellectually, you'll be told what to think. If you don't empower yourself in business, you'll be told what to do. If you don't empower yourself financially, be told what you're worth. If you don't empower yourself in your relationship, you'll do honeydew things around the house. If you don't empower yourself in social, you'll basically be worrying about rejection and be told the social media, the misinformation campaigns and social political systems. If you don't empower yourself physically, you'll be told what drugs to take and organs to remove. And if you don't empower yourself spiritually, you'll be caught in some antiquated geocentric Aristotlean construct of philosophical religious constructs. Instead of giving yourself permission to be a cosmic being and going out and doing something extraordinary and making a difference on the planet, I want people to help them do that. So give yourself permission to do that. And be authentic to yourself because that's the person that you can be the maximum at finding that one thing that's really highest on your value and giving yourself permission to pursue that and become great at. That the greatest at the one thing that's most meaningful to you. You will excel and you will prosper and you will serve. And that's really the most fulfilling thing you can do. Sustainable, fair exchange with as many people as you can. That's a fulfilling life. If you ask people what's the most fulfilling moment in your life, it's when they did something that was meaningful to them, that made a difference in other people's lives, and they said thank you and you get a tear in your eye.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
Oh, man. You guys heard it here first. Your legacy starts today.
