Speaker 1: Doctor John. Welcome back to you project, my friend. How
Speaker 1: are you too?
Speaker 2: Great? Thank you for having me back. And your patient
Speaker 2: should be getting on well.
Speaker 1: We had a few techers, everybody, a few tech issues.
Speaker 1: I think it was I think it was our fault
Speaker 1: on this end.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so.
Speaker 1: It's taken a while, but the very patient doctor John
Speaker 1: has joined us. Are you are you over here at
Speaker 1: the moment? Are you in Are you in Australia?
Speaker 2: I am in Sydney.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how's it going great?
Speaker 2: We just had a presentation over the weekend, the Breakthrough Experience,
Speaker 2: which is one of my signature programs. So I'm very
Speaker 2: inspired that we got to do that.
Speaker 1: What are the other than because of course the States,
Speaker 1: and of course you're going to say Australia, But other
Speaker 1: than Australia in the US, where do you feel Where
Speaker 1: do you feel most at home? You know?
Speaker 2: I you know, I live on a ship, so I'm
Speaker 2: moving around. I'm sailing around the world all the time.
Speaker 2: So I've spoken in one hundred and sixty one countries.
Speaker 2: So I do programs in India and Leisia and Singapore
Speaker 2: and Africa, I mean all over place. That's amazing, that's amazing. Countries.
Speaker 1: Now I wanted to talk to you today about a
Speaker 1: little bit about the evolution of all the transformation of
Speaker 1: personal development, like the way that personal development is rolled out,
Speaker 1: and self help or human behavior or behavior of psychology
Speaker 1: or know, human performance. It's kind of gone through all
Speaker 1: these iterations and now where it seems like we're in
Speaker 1: the online iteration. You and I are having a chat online.
Speaker 1: Every second thing is like Instagram, it's Facebook, it's TikTok,
Speaker 1: it's what do you make of the you know, from
Speaker 1: Dale Carnegie in nineteen thirty six and the Stoics in
Speaker 1: five hundred BC and all the people in between two
Speaker 1: you and me just wheeling it out in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: How do you see this kind of evolution?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess you know. There was a term in
Speaker 2: Aristotle's time called teleology, and he talked about the tellos. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was the most meaningful and purposeful end in mind
Speaker 2: or goal that somebody could pursue. And along with teleology
Speaker 2: there was technology. And technology came from technoo, which meant
Speaker 2: means to an end. So teleology was the end in
Speaker 2: mine and technology was the means to the end of mine. Wow.
Speaker 2: Course technology has evolved enormously more recent years. So when
Speaker 2: I first started in my speaking career fifty two years ago,
Speaker 2: you know, you sat in a field you had people
Speaker 2: gather around, or you were in a hotel room, or
Speaker 2: you were in some conference room or you know, theater
Speaker 2: or whatever, and people gathered you had to they sage
Speaker 2: on the stage mentality. Now, you know, you could be
Speaker 2: in your car or so I don't drive, but I
Speaker 2: could have a driver drive me somewhere and I could
Speaker 2: be doing a live conference in another country coming in
Speaker 2: on a screen. So I'm very grateful that there's technology,
Speaker 2: but I really do love the one on one interaction
Speaker 2: to and I think the technology gives us access to
Speaker 2: people we've never reached. But at the same time, it
Speaker 2: doesn't allow you to get that one on one contact
Speaker 2: as much the same way as it does when you're
Speaker 2: right there live. But I'm grateful for whatever, any vehicle
Speaker 2: I have to be able to share a message because
Speaker 2: that's my dream. I'm sure you have a love to
Speaker 2: bring out your message. Anything, you know, anything that allows
Speaker 2: us to reach people, I'm grateful for. But there are
Speaker 2: technological challenges Because I'm not the tech savvy guy. I'm
Speaker 2: more the research right, travel teach guy, and I have
Speaker 2: to have the tech guys with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I may too. Mine happens to be a tech girl.
Speaker 1: But I think we're in the sign bite. I think
Speaker 1: you and I very much the we're optimal in that
Speaker 1: three dimensional space where we can you know, say, in
Speaker 1: touch and feel and interact and connect and give someone
Speaker 1: a hug.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I last night I finished my program and
Speaker 2: I think I gave everybody a hug. We all got
Speaker 2: to give a hug. So the hugs on zoom are
Speaker 2: not quite the same. Well, we can at least reach people.
Speaker 2: I was doing a live presentation, I think I was
Speaker 2: on my ship and I was zooming in and there
Speaker 2: was a guy from Matta gashcar Wow middle of a
Speaker 2: field with his own private satellite, and I was thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, there's no ad reached that guy if it
Speaker 2: wasn't for the technology. So I'm very grateful for that,
Speaker 2: and the same in Almighty Kazakhstan, I mean places you
Speaker 2: wouldn't normally. I mean I've been there live, but I
Speaker 2: wouldn't normally reach some of those people in Mongolians and
Speaker 2: the Antarctic Palmer Institute there and reach them live, they
Speaker 2: call him from there. I would reach them there easily
Speaker 2: without technology, So I'm grateful for it, but I still
Speaker 2: like interacting with people like too.
Speaker 1: I tell this story, Yeah, I'm with you. I think
Speaker 1: it's bloody amazing. I mean, we wouldn't be doing this
Speaker 1: today if not for this technology. And I'm running a
Speaker 1: ten week mentor and group at the moment, which happens
Speaker 1: on Monday nights, so tonight's my night, and I've got
Speaker 1: people from all over the world as well. And it's like,
Speaker 1: how is it that I sit in my office at
Speaker 1: home in bare feet and a pair of shorts i'd
Speaker 1: address as well as you, doc, And I get this
Speaker 1: opportunity to interact with all of these people that most
Speaker 1: of whom I will never meet in person, but nonetheless
Speaker 1: build a bit of a relationship over ten weeks. And yeah,
Speaker 1: there's definitely there's definitely pros and cons. I was going
Speaker 1: to ask you, do you remember the very very early days,
Speaker 1: like when I did my first paid speaking gig. I'm
Speaker 1: sixty one, I was twenty six. I was twenty six,
Speaker 1: and I was talking to a bunch of blokes who
Speaker 1: worked in a what you would call a lumberyard, a
Speaker 1: timber yard and I was talking to them in what
Speaker 1: they call the smokeo room, which is like the lunch room.
Speaker 1: And the reason I was because I was working one
Speaker 1: on one with the bloke who owned the guy who
Speaker 1: owned the business, and I spoke to them for thirty
Speaker 1: minutes and got paid fifty dollars and I was terrible.
Speaker 1: I was so bad. Do you remember the first time
Speaker 1: that you spoke for money, like where somebody paid you
Speaker 1: to be in front of a group.
Speaker 2: Well, the very first presentation for money was actually a
Speaker 2: tutoring process at the University of Houston right when I
Speaker 2: turned twenty, and I can I share a kind of
Speaker 2: a left field story that came out of that. I
Speaker 2: was doing these little tutorings on pretty well any class
Speaker 2: that I had already passed and did well in. I
Speaker 2: was giving tutoring on those classes. I think they paid
Speaker 2: you five bucks an hour or something like that, and
Speaker 2: you got five bucks and it gave me some we'll
Speaker 2: spend money, and it gave me, you know something. It
Speaker 2: wasn't major, but I would sometimes do a few hours
Speaker 2: a day doing tutoring because I did a lot of
Speaker 2: free talks before that. And then I started do in
Speaker 2: the in I started doing yoga in this field between
Speaker 2: the buildings under these trees, and people people thought I
Speaker 2: was kind of a strange looking character, you know, doing
Speaker 2: yoga out in this field. It wasn't common in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy five. It wasn't as possibility, and they gather and
Speaker 2: I would have one hundred and twenty five, one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty sometimes four hundred people a day gather around
Speaker 2: and ask questions. And I didn't get paid for that.
Speaker 2: I just did that while I was doing my yoga wow.
Speaker 2: And when it rained, there were so many people that
Speaker 2: regularly came that when it rained, we went to the
Speaker 2: cafeteria and there's an area of the cafeteria that wasn't
Speaker 2: as busy. And I just kept doing it. But where
Speaker 2: I spoke at the University of Houston under these trees
Speaker 2: later had to be reclaimed to build a building. And
Speaker 2: I was teaching a Breakthrough Experience program, one of my
Speaker 2: signature programs about thirty six years ago, and there was
Speaker 2: a gentleman named Monty Pendleton there who was the one
Speaker 2: who developed the film that you put on windows. If
Speaker 2: you look out you see clearly, if you look in,
Speaker 2: you see a mirror of color. He's the inventions. So
Speaker 2: he was an independently wealthy elderly man that attended my program.
Speaker 2: He went on to work with a god mister Scherer,
Speaker 2: and they quitted the Bower School of Entrepreneurship at the
Speaker 2: University of Houston and built the building over where I
Speaker 2: was speaking. Now, as a result of him come to
Speaker 2: the seminar, I found out that he, as a result
Speaker 2: of that seminar, was inspired to create a mentorship program,
Speaker 2: an education program for entrepreneurs. He met with mister Sherr
Speaker 2: and they decided to raise funds and build this new
Speaker 2: University Educational Center, which is a big building, like six
Speaker 2: stories seven stories and big. Well, they built it on
Speaker 2: the spot that I was teaching, and they had me
Speaker 2: because I inspired him, they had me speak at the opening. Wow,
Speaker 2: now I was inspired. I didn't know why. I didn't
Speaker 2: know they were I didn't know anything about it. I
Speaker 2: just he said, come and you're here to speak, and
Speaker 2: they're paying me. Well. When I spoke, I was brought
Speaker 2: to tears by the story about how they came to
Speaker 2: build the school as a result of the class that
Speaker 2: I gave. And then what they didn't know is that
Speaker 2: it is directly over the spot that I used to
Speaker 2: do my daily talks.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 2: So what an inspiring, tear jerky, amazing synchronicity that occurred.
Speaker 2: They built an entrepreneur school right where I used to
Speaker 2: do my talks to help people achieve more in their life.
Speaker 2: It was it was a very touching moment for me.
Speaker 1: And when you were doing those talks outside under the trees,
Speaker 1: which started off as yoga and morphed into I don't know,
Speaker 1: let's talk about life, the meaning of life and purpose
Speaker 1: and who you are and why you are the way
Speaker 1: you are or whatever. Was there any forethought or planning
Speaker 1: or structure or was that you freestyling?
Speaker 2: Was that you just? Was that you just? It was
Speaker 2: a freestyle. One of my favorite presentations is freestyle Q
Speaker 2: and A. I love those. And it allowed me to
Speaker 2: diversify because I'm polymathic. I've diversified to my studies very
Speaker 2: quite a bit, and so I love that because I
Speaker 2: never knew what it was going to be thrown at me.
Speaker 2: And these are you know, students predominantly students, occasionally faculty,
Speaker 2: but mainly students that were anywhere from eighteen to forty
Speaker 2: or so and they would just stop. And I guess,
Speaker 2: whenever you see a crowd, people gather around, what's going
Speaker 2: on over there kind of thing. But people stayed and
Speaker 2: they would ask questions, and it became a daily thing.
Speaker 2: Unless it was extremely wet or we went in the
Speaker 2: cafeteria or extremely cold, we were there. And that was
Speaker 2: really a catalyst to help me develop a confidence in
Speaker 2: front of a larger crowd and to field questions and
Speaker 2: to just be spontaneous. But a lot of it was
Speaker 2: about achievement and goals because right about that time, I
Speaker 2: was starting to attend classes by Jim Rohan, you know,
Speaker 2: and a guy named Ed Tullison and zig Ziggler and
Speaker 2: these characters or at Night and Yale W. Clement Stone,
Speaker 2: you know, and tremendous Jones zig Ziggler. I was attending
Speaker 2: those classes, so I was sharing what I was learning, Yes,
Speaker 2: about achievement. So when it turned out to be the
Speaker 2: Entrepreneur's School, it was really about how to achieve and
Speaker 2: how to go after your dreams and how to make
Speaker 2: it viable, which really was set. It was almost like
Speaker 2: that land was designed for that. It kind of it
Speaker 2: was really kind of a synchronosity there just I don't
Speaker 2: know how to describe it. Beautiful, beautiful, heart opening, synchronousity
Speaker 2: of life.
Speaker 1: Here's a weird question for you, doc speaking of you,
Speaker 1: Lock asked, here's Mike you and let's see the I.
Speaker 1: When you're talking, when you're in the zone, when you're
Speaker 1: in that state of flow, there's no plan. It's just
Speaker 1: it's organic, singuitive. That's you and a bunch of people.
Speaker 1: Is that that what's coming out, that wisdom, that insight,
Speaker 1: that teaching. Is that coming from you or through you?
Speaker 2: You know? That's been a debate. Is it a priory?
Speaker 2: Is it a posterriory? Is it deducted or inducted? Is
Speaker 2: it from the soul innately? Is it from the senses,
Speaker 2: you know, extrinsic. I don't know if I can answer that.
Speaker 2: I think it's a little of both. Right. Daniel said
Speaker 2: that there were categories like space and time that allowed
Speaker 2: you to organize inductive information through your senses.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I can't prove or disprove because I don't think
Speaker 2: I ever said anything that was really not within some
Speaker 2: sort of experience of reading or studying or interacting with people.
Speaker 2: But I did feel that there were times and I
Speaker 2: really really was synchronously present, and it really came pouring
Speaker 2: out of me without me doing any thinking. It just
Speaker 2: kind of came pouring through. I don't know if I
Speaker 2: can say that that's a prior because the language and
Speaker 2: words I used had to be learned somewhere. But I
Speaker 2: definitely have been in the flow. I think I've had
Speaker 2: tears eureka gamma synchronicity moments where the cortex is really firing.
Speaker 2: But I don't know if that's coming from some universal
Speaker 2: source or whether it's my particular source. I think it's
Speaker 2: more particular. I'd have to say this probably because of
Speaker 2: my learning, because I really didn't even have much of
Speaker 2: a vocabulary until I turned eighteen. I didn't read until
Speaker 2: I was eighteen. Yeah, so then I started memorizing dictionaries,
Speaker 2: I memor I memorized twenty thousand words in two years.
Speaker 2: I was a nutcase.
Speaker 1: And that was that just ANX exercise in discipline and
Speaker 1: cognitive improvement.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if you know much remember the story,
Speaker 2: but when I was a year and a half, I
Speaker 2: had to go to a speech pathologist because I couldn't
Speaker 2: pronounce words properly. Yeah, and then I got to first grade,
Speaker 2: my teacher said, I'm afraid to my parents, I'm afraid
Speaker 2: your son's never going to be able to read or
Speaker 2: write or communicate effectively. And then I dropped out of
Speaker 2: school and I was a street kid, and I believed that.
Speaker 2: And then I met a gentleman when I was seventeen
Speaker 2: named Paul Bragg, who, one night, in one message at
Speaker 2: a presentation that I happened to attend. The way he
Speaker 2: spoke made me believe that maybe someday, somehow, with work,
Speaker 2: I could overcome my learning problems and learn how to
Speaker 2: speak and pronounce words and someday be intelligent read because
Speaker 2: I didn't really read, and when I listened to him,
Speaker 2: I made this concerted effort to try to do it.
Speaker 2: So I went back from Hawaii, where I was living,
Speaker 2: to Texas, where my parents were, and I took a
Speaker 2: ged and I guessed, I guess, and somehow I passed.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to do it. I just I
Speaker 2: literally would close my eyes and just guess. I figured
Speaker 2: out nothing to lose because I'm you know, I don't
Speaker 2: get a high school degree that way. I don't have
Speaker 2: a high school degree. But I passed. And then I
Speaker 2: tried to go to school. And when I tried to
Speaker 2: go to take a class in English and history, I
Speaker 2: assumed I was going to guess and pass. Like I
Speaker 2: did that big test. I got a twenty seven and
Speaker 2: I had the lowest grade, and I was absolute humiliated.
Speaker 2: And all I could hear is my first grade teacher
Speaker 2: saying he'll never read, write, or communicate effectively. And I
Speaker 2: remember crying on the way home, trying to drive home
Speaker 2: and my eyes were all blurry, and then curling up
Speaker 2: in a fetal position underneath this Bible stand at my parents'
Speaker 2: house and just really and thinking. This idea about being
Speaker 2: you know, learning and being intelligent, I think is just
Speaker 2: a delusion. I'm gonna have to go back and ride
Speaker 2: waves because I was a surfer at the time. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to go back in the North Shore and
Speaker 2: ride waves. My mom came home and saw me crying
Speaker 2: on the floor, and she said, what happens, son, I said,
Speaker 2: I really blew the test. I got a twenty seven.
Speaker 2: You needed to seventy two to pass. And she said
Speaker 2: something to me at that moment that only a mother
Speaker 2: could probably say. She said, Son, whether you become a
Speaker 2: great teacher and educator, travel the world like you dream,
Speaker 2: whether return to Hawaiian ride giant waves, which you've done,
Speaker 2: or you return to the streets and panhandle, which you've
Speaker 2: also done. Because I was a street kid, she says,
Speaker 2: I just want to let you know your father and
Speaker 2: I are going to love you no matter what you do. Wow.
Speaker 2: When she said that, my hand went into a fist.
Speaker 2: I remember this determination fist, And I said to myself,
Speaker 2: and I looked up and I saw the vision that
Speaker 2: I experienced the night I was with this teacher, Paul Bragg,
Speaker 2: And I said to myself, I'm going to master this
Speaker 2: thing called reading, study and learning. I'm going to mask
Speaker 2: this sing called teaching and philosophy. And I'm going to
Speaker 2: do whatever it takes. I'm going to travel whatever distance.
Speaker 2: I'm going to pay whatever price to give my service
Speaker 2: of love across the planet. I'm not going to let
Speaker 2: any human beings stop me now. And I hugged my
Speaker 2: mom and I went in the room. I got a
Speaker 2: Funk and Wagner's Dictionary. If you buy twenty dollars worth
Speaker 2: of food at Kroger, you get a dictionary. And I
Speaker 2: got this dictionary, and I made a commitment to memorize
Speaker 2: the words of the dictionary. And I started at the
Speaker 2: beginning and I did twenty thirty words a day. In
Speaker 2: in order to do those thirty words, I would write
Speaker 2: the word out, spelling it twenty times, thirty words twenty times.
Speaker 2: I would pronounce it twenty times. I would put it
Speaker 2: in a sentence and read the sentence twenty times, try
Speaker 2: to get meaning it. And I would then be tested
Speaker 2: at the end of the day by my mom on
Speaker 2: those thirty words. And if I didn't do it, I
Speaker 2: had to do it until we got them all right.
Speaker 2: And I did that day after day after day for
Speaker 2: two years until I had twenty thousand words. And I
Speaker 2: went from the very bottom of the class failing to
Speaker 2: the top of the class.
Speaker 1: It's amising and would I like not that it matters
Speaker 1: either way, but today, would I have said that you
Speaker 1: were dyslexic? What would if you were that kid in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, what kidgeenhallmart I have popped you in?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they would have said dyslexia. They just said learning disabled.
Speaker 2: And when I tried to read, pronunciation wasn't coming across words.
Speaker 2: Letters were reversed and I had a speech impediment. I really,
Speaker 2: I literally one half. I wasn't making sounds properly. So
Speaker 2: it was in those days. This is nineteen fifty six, No,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty, pardon me, nineteen sixty. If you didn't do
Speaker 2: well in the normal reading, they put you in this
Speaker 2: remedial reading, and if you didn't do well there, they
Speaker 2: put a dunge cap on you. So I, myself and
Speaker 2: Darryl Dalrymple had to wear a dunge.
Speaker 1: Cat shout out to Darryl.
Speaker 2: Oh, my god. Yeah. I always wanted to know what
Speaker 2: happened to Darryl. I've never been able to find him
Speaker 2: on any social media. I always wonder what happened to
Speaker 2: Darryl because he was Hey. I think he really did
Speaker 2: have even more extreme challenges than I did, but not
Speaker 2: I couldn't read properly and spell properly and speak properly
Speaker 2: at the time, and my parents took that and said, well,
Speaker 2: you're going to have to do sports. So I ended
Speaker 2: up That's why I ended up leaving home and going surfing.
Speaker 1: Isn't it amazing, John?
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 1: I mean I know that that they were not particularly
Speaker 1: in some ways enlightened. In some ways, Tho'll vary in Laton,
Speaker 1: but in terms of academia and education and understanding emotional
Speaker 1: and intelligence and the impact that word's going to have
Speaker 1: on kids. Imagine an adult making a decision to go,
Speaker 1: we're going to get this kid who's clearly got learning
Speaker 1: challenges and then put this thing on his head to
Speaker 1: identify him as stupid. Who is making that decision?
Speaker 2: Well, I think they thought that I was being defiant
Speaker 2: and disobedient. Oh really, yeah, I think that's what they
Speaker 2: thought if you because you know, there was a more
Speaker 2: of an authoritarian era of education in those days, and
Speaker 2: so you did what the teacher said that was just
Speaker 2: and if you didn't, well then you were punished. And
Speaker 2: I don't think I think the teacher, Missus McLaughlin, who
Speaker 2: was in her seventies at the time, she came from
Speaker 2: that era. Now, I think she realized it wasn't going
Speaker 2: to work with me, and that's why she asked my
Speaker 2: parents to come to the school and she sat me
Speaker 2: down in this little semicircle reading thing with my mom
Speaker 2: and dad and she said to him, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: afraid your son is got learning difficulty. My parents knew
Speaker 2: that because they knew I was not developing. There properly.
Speaker 2: But so they just thought, well, what do we do,
Speaker 2: and she suggests he likes to run. I was born
Speaker 2: also with an arm and leg deformity, so I had
Speaker 2: to wear braces on my left side, like a forest
Speaker 2: gup kind of thing on my left arm and leg,
Speaker 2: and so I didn't get out of those until I
Speaker 2: was four. And then my dad said, you can come
Speaker 2: out of them as long as you keep your leg straight.
Speaker 2: If you put your leg crooked again, you're gonna have
Speaker 2: to go back into it. Well, I made sure my
Speaker 2: leg was straight. I didn't want to wear those because
Speaker 2: that was not something you wanted to wear. And because
Speaker 2: of that, I wanted to prove to my dad, when
Speaker 2: you've been constrained, you really want to be free, you
Speaker 2: really want to run. And so I became a really
Speaker 2: good runner. And then I learned how to throw a
Speaker 2: ball really well. And I somehow knew how to stand
Speaker 2: on a surfboard since I was nine. So I played
Speaker 2: ball for a while. But when we moved from Houston,
Speaker 2: Texas to Richmond, Texas, it was so chaotic there, and
Speaker 2: if you struck somebody out in a baseball game, you
Speaker 2: got hit by a gang The next day and you
Speaker 2: got you know, you got beaten or something by a gang.
Speaker 2: And so I said, I'm going into sports where I
Speaker 2: don't have to rely on other people. I'm just going
Speaker 2: to go and surf. And so I left it, and
Speaker 2: I left home at thirteen, and I hitched ike to
Speaker 2: California and then down to Mexico. I illegally entered into Mexico,
Speaker 2: kind of like Donald Trump's issues. And then I finally founded.
Speaker 2: I panhandled enough money to fly to Hawaii. I lived
Speaker 2: under a bridge. I lived in a under apart bench
Speaker 2: and a bathroom and abandoned car. I just kept social climbing.
Speaker 2: All I wanted to do is surf at that time
Speaker 2: until I nearly died at seventeen. And then I met
Speaker 2: this Paul brad guy.
Speaker 1: This is such a massive story. We made four hours.
Speaker 1: So did you leave? Did you leave? No, you didn't
Speaker 1: leave home at thirteen with mom and dad's blessing. Did
Speaker 1: you like, did you just did you run away? Like
Speaker 1: tell us about that, Like nobody's sending their thirty and
Speaker 1: you're all going, all right, all the best, champ, knock
Speaker 1: yourself out.
Speaker 2: Well, I had unique parents, and I'm going to I'll
Speaker 2: have to preface this. My dad when I when I
Speaker 2: found out and six years old, seven years old, that
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to be able to do well, my
Speaker 2: dad said, whether we're going to have to make him
Speaker 2: capable of being street smart and kind of entrepreneurial. My dad,
Speaker 2: they both cared I had great parents, they just didn't
Speaker 2: know they didn't have the knowledge and resources they have today.
Speaker 2: So my dad said, we're going to have to make
Speaker 2: him understand how the world works. So I ended up
Speaker 2: working in my dad maybe do all these chores and
Speaker 2: all the world taught me how to do landscaping and
Speaker 2: mowing and all this stuff. So I ended up having
Speaker 2: my own company when I was nine. I had nine employees,
Speaker 2: three groups of three doing yards, and I was renting
Speaker 2: out equipment through the neighborhood to help me with that.
Speaker 2: And I made forty five dollars after everybody got paid,
Speaker 2: including my dad a day. That's like four hundred dollars
Speaker 2: or five hundred dollars a Day's.
Speaker 1: That I mean forty five dollars a day back then
Speaker 1: for anyone, I mean for anyone is a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Do you know I still my dad charged me for
Speaker 2: the equipment.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: And then because he says, this is the real world, son,
Speaker 2: I'm going to teach you the real world, because if
Speaker 2: you're going to go out there and be a yardman,
Speaker 2: then you need to know what to take to make
Speaker 2: a business out of it. And he charged me for that.
Speaker 2: And then he said, you know, you keep buying things
Speaker 2: with your money instead of saving it. You need to
Speaker 2: learn how to save or otherwise you'll be working for
Speaker 2: your money as a slave all your life. And so
Speaker 2: he bought me this coin collection set and this big
Speaker 2: piggy bank. I still have that piggy bank in my
Speaker 2: office in the drawer. I've never opened it since nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty three. It's filled with coins. Wow. My dad wanted
Speaker 2: me to think long term, so I keep it as
Speaker 2: a metaphor in my office to think long term. Now
Speaker 2: here's what it was cool. He charged me, you know,
Speaker 2: the rental use of the equipment because I was having
Speaker 2: to wear and tear it. He had a depreciation schedule it.
Speaker 2: But my dad said, now that you learned to save,
Speaker 2: and now that you're balancing your savings and your purchases,
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you one step closer to freedom.
Speaker 2: And every time he talked to me, it was usually
Speaker 2: costing And I said, what's that, Dad? He says, from
Speaker 2: now on, you're going to buy your freedom. You're going
Speaker 2: to pay seven dollars and fifty cents a week, a
Speaker 2: little over a dollar a day, a dollar and fifteen
Speaker 2: cents a day to live at the house. That'll be
Speaker 2: for your clothing, food, and rent. But you're free to
Speaker 2: get up at five in the morning as long as
Speaker 2: you're home at nine pm. You're free to do anything
Speaker 2: you choose to do. But you're going to be accountable
Speaker 2: for whatever you do and relationship to others. But I
Speaker 2: want you to know you bought your freedom now that
Speaker 2: you're paying for your food, clothing, and rent. So I
Speaker 2: paid basically a dollar a day to live at home
Speaker 2: when I was nine, and I'm telling you that would
Speaker 2: be considered kind of a child unfairness. Today, I am
Speaker 2: so grateful my dad did that. He made me an
Speaker 2: entrepreneur and I learned how to survive. I rode my bicycle.
Speaker 2: I bought a bicycle. I rode my bicycle thirty five
Speaker 2: miles in different directions to explore. By the time I
Speaker 2: was twelve, I was hopping trains to different cities by
Speaker 2: the time I was thirteen, I was hitchhiking to different cities.
Speaker 2: At fourteen, I hitchhike to California and down in New
Speaker 2: Mexico and lived in Mexico for part of the summer,
Speaker 2: and then later I went over I to La and
Speaker 2: off to I panhandled enough money on the beaches because
Speaker 2: I was it was easier for panhandling from the girls
Speaker 2: on the beaches than it was working at the time,
Speaker 2: and I made enough money to go and fly to
Speaker 2: Hawaiian and I lived in Hawaiian.
Speaker 1: Excuse my ignorance. What is panhandled mean? It's not a
Speaker 1: term we use.
Speaker 2: Well. Panhandling is at Hunting Beach, California, which is sort
Speaker 2: of the surf center. You walk up and down the
Speaker 2: beach and you ask girls, the prettiest girls on the
Speaker 2: beach if they happened to have a quarter, right, and
Speaker 2: they would give you a quarter and I'd have to
Speaker 2: go change it into dollar bills because they jingle after
Speaker 2: a while. But then I'd meet the girls and chat
Speaker 2: with the girls and now sometimes get a little lunch
Speaker 2: and stuff and that. So that was my way of socializing, engaging, entertaining,
Speaker 2: meeting girls. So that was it was a. I can't
Speaker 2: complain that was That was nineteen sixty eight. That was
Speaker 2: a pretty good era.
Speaker 1: You know, what I think is really ironic about your story,
Speaker 1: or part of your story, is that not only were
Speaker 1: you not stupid, you were brilliant. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this to make you good, I mean feel good. I
Speaker 1: mean if I was your next door neighbor and I
Speaker 1: was just observing you living over the fence, and I
Speaker 1: was watching this kid next door doing all this stuff,
Speaker 1: coming and going, you know, running this team of nine
Speaker 1: people doing all the things, you know, I would go,
Speaker 1: this kid is an entrepreneur, he's a genius. He understands
Speaker 1: human behavior like this is one. I actually did a
Speaker 1: podcast yesterday, doc which isn't up yet, but it's called
Speaker 1: I think it's called something like the Slipperiness of Intelligence,
Speaker 1: and it's so funny how we you know, it's changed
Speaker 1: a little bit, but for so many years, people basically
Speaker 1: did a certain kind of test and then they were
Speaker 1: given a number, and based on the number, you were
Speaker 1: somewhere between pretty stupid or really highly intelligent. And that
Speaker 1: was because you scored one forty, has scored one twenty,
Speaker 1: or you scored seventy two. Well, you're a complete dummy.
Speaker 1: You could probably hardly cook a piece of toast, right,
Speaker 1: and so all of this ironically stupid ideology around what
Speaker 1: intelligence is, you know, but I'm thinking about not only
Speaker 1: were you not dumb, like you were the opposite of it.
Speaker 1: And I know you don't want to say that because
Speaker 1: it sounds arrogant, but you must looking back think. Excuse
Speaker 1: my language, dock. I know you don't swear.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I was a pretty fucking smart kid.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't think of it that way. I just
Speaker 2: thought I wanted to earn money. I went to my dad,
Speaker 2: I said, I I want to earn some money to
Speaker 2: buy a baseball glove and bat. Yeah, you said, did
Speaker 2: you mow the art yes. Did you trim the sidewalk yes.
Speaker 2: Did you sweep the garage out and the driveway yes.
Speaker 2: Did you clip the hedges yes? Did you weed the
Speaker 2: firebed yes? Did you tighten the shale on the side
Speaker 2: the house yes? Did you shine my shoes yes? You know.
Speaker 2: Everything that he needed to get done I had done.
Speaker 2: He said that you're gonna have to if you want
Speaker 2: to earn money. I can't give you money without work.
Speaker 2: So if if you're gonna have to do that. You're
Speaker 2: gonna have to go to the neighbors. So he's the
Speaker 2: one that initiated me to go to the neighbors. I had.
Speaker 2: All I had was a drive to try to earn
Speaker 2: some money because I wanted to buy a baseball glove
Speaker 2: and bat and sport equipment, so arrive with that. So
Speaker 2: I can't say I was any sort of genius. I
Speaker 2: just had a desire to make money. And so I
Speaker 2: went down to the Zoobra well. I went to the
Speaker 2: Evans house two doors down, and their house was a
Speaker 2: little bit unruly, and I knew I could clean it
Speaker 2: up really nice. I said, if I was to to
Speaker 2: straighten out and mow and edge and clean out in
Speaker 2: the sidewalk and the hedges and everything else, would you
Speaker 2: like some to do that? And she said how much?
Speaker 2: I said, I it's no idea. I didn't even know
Speaker 2: where to pick. I just picked a number out of
Speaker 2: there and it worked, just guessed and she said that
Speaker 2: sounds fair to me. And I got stung by bees.
Speaker 2: I was blistered from the sun. I had blisters on
Speaker 2: my hands, but I did it, and I did a
Speaker 2: great job, and a lot of people in the neighborhood said, well,
Speaker 2: whoever that kid is, how much is he charging? And
Speaker 2: that took off and I started doing it, and then
Speaker 2: I couldn't do them all. And one day a kid
Speaker 2: was coming up riding his bicycle, just walking his bicycle
Speaker 2: next to me. Well, I was pushing the lawnmower, and
Speaker 2: I got this crazy idea and I thought, how would
Speaker 2: you like to make some money? He goes, yeah, he said,
Speaker 2: I'll give you fifty cents if you push this lawnmower
Speaker 2: around this yard. And those days there weren't automatic lawnmowers.
Speaker 2: You had to kind of push him. And he was like,
Speaker 2: fifty cents, it's pretty good. That's a lot of money
Speaker 2: for the kid back then. He took his fifty cents
Speaker 2: for mowing and edging, and it was twenty five cents
Speaker 2: for raking and collecting, you know, cuttings and putting them
Speaker 2: in out at the front. You didn't have bags in
Speaker 2: those days. You just stacked them in the front right
Speaker 2: and the garbage people would take it away. And so
Speaker 2: I got kids that was eager to get fifty cents
Speaker 2: in a quarter, and they were loving it, and mainly
Speaker 2: because they could they could make a little money, and
Speaker 2: they could hang out with me, and they could hang
Speaker 2: out with their friends, and it was really kind of fun.
Speaker 2: And that I got so many job opportunities that I
Speaker 2: got three groups of those people doing it. And I
Speaker 2: had to borrow the zoobrods and the Malas equipment. And
Speaker 2: they contact my dad how much you're charging him? And
Speaker 2: he told them and so they did the same thing.
Speaker 2: So it was a standard across the board. And I
Speaker 2: went to work and I had no problem. Had to
Speaker 2: work ethic because I wanted what the economics was buying.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be able to have. I bought me
Speaker 2: a golf club set, you know, a whole set. I
Speaker 2: bought me a bicycle. I bought all the sports stuff
Speaker 2: that I wanted and that's really wanted. And I did
Speaker 2: a coin collection set, and I started collecting money. My
Speaker 2: dad said, when this bank fills up, we'll drop it
Speaker 2: off the bank and you'll put it in deposit and
Speaker 2: you'll earn interest on it. But I ended up keeping
Speaker 2: that little piggy bank. And I'm telling you, if you
Speaker 2: look in the piggy bank, they're nineteen oh one and
Speaker 2: nineteen oh five nickels and buffalo Nichols and pennies in
Speaker 2: there that it's probably worth I don't even know how much,
Speaker 2: But I have a coin collection set that's from nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty three, and some of those coins were already fifty
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 1: Now I know that we know that you're a polymath.
Speaker 1: We know that you know a lot of things about
Speaker 1: a lot of things, and we know you've got probably
Speaker 1: got an idetic memory, and you you're a voracious consumer
Speaker 1: of you know, information, inspiration, theology, philosophy, psychology, all of it.
Speaker 1: But also like you've just got to like your life
Speaker 1: in itself has been a massive lesson. So when you're teaching,
Speaker 1: not so much talking to a bloke on a podcast,
Speaker 1: but when you're teaching and you're in front of a
Speaker 1: group and you're trying to, I guess for one of
Speaker 1: a better term, help them to help themselves. Right, how
Speaker 1: much of what you're sharing is something that is essentially
Speaker 1: acquired knowledge through research and kind of more formal learning,
Speaker 1: And how much is through you know, just doing decades
Speaker 1: of life, just solving problems day after day and figuring
Speaker 1: stuff out. How much how much comes from just is
Speaker 1: drawn from your life and your experience and your insights
Speaker 1: and how much is through the insights that others have
Speaker 1: given you by their books or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a great question. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I can answer that with absolute clarity and certainty on
Speaker 2: what that ratio is. It varies because of what I'm
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm on a roll and I'm downloading information on
Speaker 2: a topic that I've read, and sometimes I'm sharing stories
Speaker 2: that I think will accomplish it. It depends on what
Speaker 2: I think and who they are and what I think
Speaker 2: will help them get the job done. I mean, if
Speaker 2: telling my story will be of help, I'll tell my
Speaker 2: story or tell somebody else's story that inspires. But sometimes
Speaker 2: it's just information. Depends on the topic of the program
Speaker 2: I get to do. So I don't know what that
Speaker 2: ratio is. It kind of like a moving target. It
Speaker 2: fluctuates a bit.
Speaker 1: A bit of both. What was the name of that
Speaker 1: guy that you intersected with when you were seventeen? Who
Speaker 1: was it you were telling me there was someone that
Speaker 1: you met when you were seventeen, Yes, what was his name?
Speaker 2: His name was Paul C. Bragg brags them neo acids.
Speaker 2: You may remember, yeah, right, he was the health enthusiast
Speaker 2: that helped open up a thousand health food stores across
Speaker 2: America and tried to create a health culture. Jack Lane
Speaker 2: was a derivative him, even though Trump was a student
Speaker 2: of his.
Speaker 1: Wow, Wow, isn't it Like? I think perhaps, like when
Speaker 1: we're talking about it, it's obvious, but I think when
Speaker 1: we're not focused on it, like in general terms, I
Speaker 1: think we underestimate the impact, the potential positive impact and
Speaker 1: value over the long term of having one person who
Speaker 1: comes into your life that says, hey, you're all right,
Speaker 1: Like when you're actually you know, somebody that gets you
Speaker 1: and you get them and they see you. They don't
Speaker 1: see the lack of this or the lack of that,
Speaker 1: they see your potential. That's that's a gift, right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting. I was sitting at it. Well, I
Speaker 2: nearly died. I was writing a big line in care
Speaker 2: where I nearly died and I had sinide strychnine poisoning
Speaker 2: from something I'd eaten. Why. I was led by a
Speaker 2: lady who found me nearly dead, took me to a
Speaker 2: health food store and got me some carrot juice and
Speaker 2: got me some food. Now, I'm very grateful for that lady.
Speaker 2: I've never been able to see that lady ever again.
Speaker 2: But I'm grateful for that lady because she's the one
Speaker 2: that helped me recover and to me, health is store.
Speaker 2: And at the healthy store, sit next to me at
Speaker 2: this little health bar was an albino African albina looked
Speaker 2: like Jimmy Hendricks but white. Wow. And he was sitting
Speaker 2: there and he looked at me and he saw my
Speaker 2: hands with the spasms, kind of like like Joe Cocker,
Speaker 2: and he said, you need take a yoga class, man
Speaker 2: and have mind over mind over body. This African guy.
Speaker 2: And if he had this said that, I might have
Speaker 2: not noticed the word yoga on a door as I
Speaker 2: was leaving it, and it had a special guest speaker,
Speaker 2: Paul C. Bragg at a yoga class. And I saw
Speaker 2: the word yoga. I can help that. And I didn't
Speaker 2: really pay attention to the name who he was, but
Speaker 2: I just I'm going to go to that yoga class
Speaker 2: because of that guy. I kind of felt that there
Speaker 2: was a meaning of why he said that, and I
Speaker 2: was led to the this yoga class and that's where
Speaker 2: I met Paul Bragg. That's that my life changed. November eighteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two at that class. The night I met him,
Speaker 2: my life trajectory changed big time.
Speaker 1: And I bet, I bet it feels amazing. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've had this many times when people come up
Speaker 1: to you and say, you know what, Doc, I was
Speaker 1: at an event that you did ten years ago, twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, twenty five years ago, and you said you
Speaker 1: said this thing, or we spoke and I'm not you,
Speaker 1: I'm not in your ballpark. But I've had this happen
Speaker 1: quite a lot of times, where people will go, you
Speaker 1: said something at a workshop or a seminar, and then
Speaker 1: I went and did this. How good is it when
Speaker 1: someone comes back to you and they did the work,
Speaker 1: but the moment in time with you was a turning
Speaker 1: point for them. It was a catalyst. It was like
Speaker 1: there was something happened for them and that kind of
Speaker 1: led into something life changing.
Speaker 2: I am blessed to have that. I mean regularly, but
Speaker 2: I just got to share with you. It's interesting you
Speaker 2: asked that, so I got to share one many years ago.
Speaker 2: I'm going to guess eighteen years ago, probably right now.
Speaker 2: I did a presentation in Los Angeles. I think I
Speaker 2: was at the Fairmont No Marina the marina went on
Speaker 2: the beach in Cinemati and there was a lovely lady
Speaker 2: there in her six year old son and I had
Speaker 2: She had already heard me before, and she wanted me
Speaker 2: to tell him the statement that I used to say
Speaker 2: to myself that Paul Bragg gave me. I told Paul
Speaker 2: Bragg that I didn't know how to read, and I
Speaker 2: don't know how to write, and I don't know how
Speaker 2: to speak properly, but I dream about being a teacher
Speaker 2: like him. And he said, that's not a problem. Say
Speaker 2: to yourself every single day that I am a genius
Speaker 2: and I apply my wisdom, and you say that every
Speaker 2: single day, never miss a day for the rest of
Speaker 2: your life. I have never missed a day, not one
Speaker 2: day from statement. So I shared that statement at a talk.
Speaker 2: The mother brought his son there six and she said,
Speaker 2: could you share that statement with my son so he
Speaker 2: can do that same. So at six years old, he
Speaker 2: started saying, I'm a genius and I apply my wisdom. Well, Friday,
Speaker 2: let me see if I can draw this. Wow. Friday, Yeah,
Speaker 2: gentlemen graduated at Harvard with three degrees and honors, and
Speaker 2: said that to me.
Speaker 1: The docks holding and for those who are just listening
Speaker 1: to the docs holding up a photo of a young
Speaker 1: man graduating.
Speaker 2: Ah, but that's incredible and he is considered ingenius today. Wow.
Speaker 2: Two wow, tears jerker. Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yeah, and that's that's why you do it right,
Speaker 1: exactly right there, that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Can I show one more thing I am The
Speaker 2: night I met Paul Bragg, we want.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear moving forward, we want less of
Speaker 1: me and more of you, So just go wherever you want.
Speaker 2: He he inspired me that night, No doubt. That guy
Speaker 2: inspired me. He inspired so many people. Yeah, he passed on.
Speaker 2: You know when I eventually came back to Texas started
Speaker 2: school and I never saw him again. Wow. But I
Speaker 2: was speaking in two thousand and eight in Honolulu, Well
Speaker 2: that's not true. In Waikiki and at the Higatt Regency
Speaker 2: right across from Wikiki Beach. Yeah, and I was speaking
Speaker 2: there doing my signature program, the Break to Experience, for
Speaker 2: about eighty people. And in the back of the room,
Speaker 2: right before I'm about to take a break, it walks
Speaker 2: this four foot seven lady with a hat on that's
Speaker 2: dressed in pink, right, and she's in the back and
Speaker 2: I watched her walk in I'm going I wonder who
Speaker 2: that is. I kind of thought it was dark in
Speaker 2: the back, and it's light where I was. And as
Speaker 2: I was just finishing and starting to take a break,
Speaker 2: people came up to me and asked questions. You know
Speaker 2: how they do when you're teacher. Yep. And finally this
Speaker 2: lady walked up to the front and looked up to
Speaker 2: me and grabbed my hand and she said, I'm Patricia Bragg.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, you remind me of my father.
Speaker 1: Wow, wow, I bet how are you with that?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: You did you? Did you have any sense of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, just you didn't know. I didn't expect that coming.
Speaker 2: But I got tear one of those you know, when
Speaker 2: you get everybody probably has learned to their own experience
Speaker 2: when they get those aha eureka, gamma synchronisity moments. Mmm,
Speaker 2: this kind of a resilient auto autonomic regulation in the brain,
Speaker 2: and you're just poised and present. You get this kind
Speaker 2: of knowing that there's a moment of authenticity in your
Speaker 2: life and a special meeting, and you get tears in
Speaker 2: your eyes and to follow it, obey it. It's a
Speaker 2: message for you, That's what it was like, because I
Speaker 2: just knew when she said that, because I mentioned Paul
Speaker 2: Braggett many many many talks because he inspired me. But
Speaker 2: I didn't expect her. So we went to lunch with
Speaker 2: that lady. On the following day, my daughter and she
Speaker 2: contacted my daughter and she said, you know, I took
Speaker 2: over my dad's business and carried on his legacy. And
Speaker 2: she said, just in case your dad, you know, wants
Speaker 2: to have a legacy. It's really inspiring and my daughter
Speaker 2: is carrying on the legacy now because of that.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: That would be like I would imagine for you in
Speaker 1: that moment when she said, you remind me of my
Speaker 1: dad and then you put that together, that's like the
Speaker 1: ultimate compliment, right it was.
Speaker 2: It was one of the more honorable moments because she
Speaker 2: really meant it with tears. Yeah, she said, Mommy, my father,
Speaker 2: the way you speak and your desire to share and
Speaker 2: to make some difference, which is what I love doing.
Speaker 2: And that's she said until she passed. She passed just
Speaker 2: recently nineties.
Speaker 1: So just another question or two, Doc, I thank you
Speaker 1: for being so vulnerable, and I love your stories, I
Speaker 1: love your journey, I love your wisdom. It's I'd love
Speaker 1: to get you on more than once every two years.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can work something out, But I wanted to
Speaker 1: know so for people who are listening, who are opening
Speaker 1: the door, their own learning, growing, evolving door in a
Speaker 1: world where there is literally, well not literally but metaphorically,
Speaker 1: an ocean of information and personal development and self help
Speaker 1: and you know, alleged wisdom and real science and pseudo science,
Speaker 1: and you know, any advice for people on knowing what
Speaker 1: or who to pay attention to is that for somebody
Speaker 1: who just goes, I'm overwhelmed. I don't know where to start.
Speaker 1: Do you have any wisdom on who or what should
Speaker 1: I listen to or pay attention to?
Speaker 2: Well, I've said on the movie The Secret many years ago,
Speaker 2: when the voice in the vision on the inside is
Speaker 2: louder and more profound than all opinions on the outside,
Speaker 2: you begin to master your life. Wow. Wow. So, but
Speaker 2: there is some interesting things that I've been blessed to uncover.
Speaker 2: There's a you know, Xeno, the Greek philosopher, and probably
Speaker 2: prior before him, is noted as the developer of the
Speaker 2: dialectic where you take a proposition and have an opinion
Speaker 2: and you propose it with the statement, and then somebody
Speaker 2: comes in and proposes an anti proposition, thesis anti thesis.
Speaker 2: There are two arguments trying to persuade the other one,
Speaker 2: not as a debate, we're both of too rigid to
Speaker 2: learn from each other, but in a dialectic where they
Speaker 2: both are learning from each other and gradually creating a
Speaker 2: synthesis and integration of them. And almost every field of inquiry,
Speaker 2: and I've been blessed to study three hundred different disciplines
Speaker 2: in every field of inquiry. If you look at the
Speaker 2: historical evolution of that, there has been a dialectic. Will
Speaker 2: Durant found this in his work on the History of Civilization,
Speaker 2: The History of Philosophy, Story of Philosophy. He showed the
Speaker 2: dialectic was one of the synthesis of opposites. Herakleidas said
Speaker 2: that there's a unity of opposites and then there's Later
Speaker 2: in under Chaos theory, they found out that there was
Speaker 2: a thing called a law varistic escalation that anybody who's
Speaker 2: an ideologue, who has an ideology that projects that as
Speaker 2: a proposition and trying to create order according to their
Speaker 2: value system, an equal opposite value system which will be
Speaker 2: perceived chaos by them, but will be perceived order by
Speaker 2: the opposite will arise kind of like a pro life,
Speaker 2: pro abortion pro goons antigonis pro Trump anti Trump thing,
Speaker 2: and these are if there are people at the bottom
Speaker 2: that debate and argue and rigidly fight and they don't
Speaker 2: get anywhere, but each has a bit of the truth
Speaker 2: in it. It's each is the conspiracy of each other.
Speaker 2: And then as you've got come up from the amigla's
Speaker 2: valent assignment hippocampic stored, you know, survival mentality of absolutisms
Speaker 2: and extremisms where there's nothing but debates and fights and
Speaker 2: you don't get anywhere to gradually through the singular cortex
Speaker 2: up into the media prefonal cortex. You're going towards reason,
Speaker 2: gradually moving to a point where you're able to handle
Speaker 2: the synthesis and synchronousity of these opposites. And the dialectic
Speaker 2: was designed to gradually learn from each other receptively and
Speaker 2: add together until you end up getting a pure synthesis,
Speaker 2: as Hegel would describe. And when you get the synthesis,
Speaker 2: you get closer to an objective fact, you might say,
Speaker 2: instead of just a bias subjective distorted opinion, which is
Speaker 2: noted for survival thinking. And I believe that if you're
Speaker 2: pursuing any field of inquiry and a discipline and trying
Speaker 2: to find the logos in that individuology, the real reason
Speaker 2: and pattern of the master plan of its application in life,
Speaker 2: if you keep your eyes open for pairs of opposites,
Speaker 2: they will guide you right into the center and you
Speaker 2: will have a higher probability, at least a probability that
Speaker 2: you might be able to be less biased and more
Speaker 2: objective in the pursuit. And the synthesis is confirmed in
Speaker 2: that state of authenticity in the brain, and that's been
Speaker 2: the greatest guide in learning. I'm sure you've had moments
Speaker 2: so you've just got a tear in your eye and
Speaker 2: you knew that you knew there was something solid there.
Speaker 2: Now pursue it. And I think the way the brain
Speaker 2: is set up that it tries to help us become
Speaker 2: most authentic. Coin to Scientific American I think twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two September October, I believe there was a fantastic article
Speaker 2: on the ventral media prefunnal cortex on its spontaneous action
Speaker 2: potentials and its ability to integrate knowledge and create an
Speaker 2: identity that you're going to call you a self from
Speaker 2: all the different personas that you've incorporated into your life,
Speaker 2: and it gives you a more authentic you. And it's
Speaker 2: a more authentic confirmation because it's more objective than it
Speaker 2: is subjective, and that is it's not a perfect it's
Speaker 2: just the approximation is closer to the unity. One in
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety seven, in his book on psychology, said that
Speaker 2: the ability to see simultaneous opposites and not be swayed
Speaker 2: by one side and opposing of another liberates the mind
Speaker 2: from the intrusive space and time occupation of intrusive thoughts,
Speaker 2: which creates the insomnia of judgment. And this I think
Speaker 2: we all innately intuitively have a sense. Some are more
Speaker 2: aware of it than others to guide them and their
Speaker 2: knowledge so they're not swayed and gullible to one side
Speaker 2: or overly skeptical to the other, and they instead of
Speaker 2: an in group out group biased, they're able to see
Speaker 2: both equally and embrace them. This transcends the racial prejudice
Speaker 2: and biased interpretations that create the opposites which are drawn
Speaker 2: to you to try to make sure you get more
Speaker 2: liberated and they quilibrated instead of biased. So nature forces
Speaker 2: into these our state and life just by the resistance
Speaker 2: we get when you when you present something in the universities,
Speaker 2: you're going to be attacked by all the pairs of
Speaker 2: opposites and they're going to tear it apart, and they're
Speaker 2: going to praise it, they're going to repriment it. And
Speaker 2: maximum growth and development occurs at the border of praise
Speaker 2: and reprimand. And so when you can embrace the two
Speaker 2: sides together and embrace that as an act of love,
Speaker 2: that's what love really is.
Speaker 1: I love that. It's it's to me. It's like, there's
Speaker 1: this thing that happens in Australian culture, probably happens everywhere.
Speaker 1: But where people say pick a side, they say pick
Speaker 1: a side, mate, right, I'm like, they like, get up,
Speaker 1: get off the fence.
Speaker 2: I go.
Speaker 1: I love the fence because I can see all the
Speaker 1: sides and the moment that I commit to, the moment
Speaker 1: that I join your club or your thought cult or
Speaker 1: your ideology. Now I'm not allowed to think any way
Speaker 1: other than your way. Now I'm in an echo chamber.
Speaker 1: Now I'm in the middle of confirmation bias. I can't.
Speaker 1: Critical thinking goes out the window. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: stay up here on the fence where I can observe.
Speaker 1: And and you know, it's like.
Speaker 2: I was speaking, I was speaking. My background is also
Speaker 2: in chiropractic. I was a health professional, and I was
Speaker 2: asked to speak at a conference, uh where there was
Speaker 2: about two thousand people maybe, and half of them were
Speaker 2: from the ICA, the International Chiropractic Association and half of
Speaker 2: the ACA American Chiropractical Association. And they literally sat on
Speaker 2: opposite sides of an aisle. Hilarious and and and the
Speaker 2: three speakers were the two presidents of the organization and me,
Speaker 2: and so they had the ic A stand up and
Speaker 2: Greg Gregory, Yeah, Gregory, I remember his name is Gregory.
Speaker 2: He spoke up first, and he was biased on his
Speaker 2: side and kind of condemning the other one. So he
Speaker 2: had biased to his information out to the other one.
Speaker 2: The other one got in there like a debate, like
Speaker 2: Christopher Hitchins and his anti thesis brother. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you've ever seen him in debate, but he's an atheist.
Speaker 2: His brother is a theist and they go together and
Speaker 2: have fun debating. It's really quey, yes, then they had
Speaker 2: they had it finalized by me, and I showed the
Speaker 2: benefits of both of them. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guard you with it.
Speaker 2: I entded the conference where you need a vitalistic and
Speaker 2: mechanistic You need the pair of opposites, the unity of
Speaker 2: oppos It's maximum growth and development occurs at the unity
Speaker 2: of oppos It's like ker Clyde has said, two thy
Speaker 2: six hundred years ago, and we have been passing up
Speaker 2: the wisdom of the ages and aging because of our
Speaker 2: misunderstanding of the magnificence of the unity of opposites.
Speaker 1: And so at the end I got a standing ovation
Speaker 1: and they.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well well done you. I mean, that's yeah
Speaker 1: for you to be I'm going to bring that. The
Speaker 1: guy thought, well, that's a very relevant, very relevant moment
Speaker 1: to share that insight right that.
Speaker 2: The guy from the ACA, Ken Lutikey was his name.
Speaker 2: He got up and said, doctor d Martini, Wow, that
Speaker 2: was a profound message you gave. May I say one
Speaker 2: final thing, and and and and you could see it
Speaker 2: was humble and then he said this, it was just phenomenal.
Speaker 2: He got up and he said he was teary eyed
Speaker 2: like I get sometimes. Yeah, he said, forty years ago,
Speaker 2: I started my career as a politician in the field hellfield,
Speaker 2: and I everything that I heard from my from the ICA,
Speaker 2: I was from voting M and without even realizing it,
Speaker 2: slowly but surely, I ended up on the other side. MM.
Speaker 2: And he said, I realized that the gentleman that I'm
Speaker 2: supposedly in challenge with is my childhood that I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm not loving about myself and he said, he said,
Speaker 2: I only hope that I can pass on some wisdom
Speaker 2: and we can dialogue and pass on some wisdom so
Speaker 2: he doesn't have to end up where I am and
Speaker 2: have another young man do the same. Maybe for the
Speaker 2: profession you can unify he was. He was that his
Speaker 2: wisdom was honored and both sides stood up for him
Speaker 2: too because of his way ahead of that.
Speaker 1: Well, good for him, and you like the the en
Speaker 1: Mass marriage Guardance counsel A right there, you just pull
Speaker 1: two warring parties together. Hey, Doc, I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 1: You've got stuff to do. I realize that you're in Australia.
Speaker 1: You're sharing the love and the wisdom. How do people
Speaker 1: find you and connect with you? And can you just
Speaker 1: direct people where you'd like them to go.
Speaker 2: Well, that's where to get something about from me is
Speaker 2: simply doctor DeMartini dot com. Dr demotini dot com. There's
Speaker 2: a on there, the website. You could you could probably
Speaker 2: spend the rest of your life on there because there's
Speaker 2: so much on there. But just doctor demartinia dot com.
Speaker 2: They can find out what I'm doing, where I'm doing.
Speaker 2: That's the easiest way, probably perfect.
Speaker 1: We'll put all of that in our show notes everyone,
Speaker 1: so you can. You can find the dock there. We'll
Speaker 1: say goodbye af Fair, but thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being on the new project. We appreciate you and your
Speaker 1: wisdom and your your generosity. It is great to see
Speaker 1: you again. Yes, thank you, Craig anytime.
Speaker 2: Thank you,