Give up happiness. That is Dr. John Demartini’s message. John is one of the most celebrated world-renowned specialists in human behavior and considered one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership and entrepreneurialism. John joins Ambassador of JOY, Barry Shore, to share why you need to let go of immediate happiness and lean in to frustration to find your true authentic self. Listen in and get invaluable insight on how to achieve happiness, find your purpose, and succeed in life!

—

Listen to the podcast here

Give Up Happiness With John Demartini

Good day, beautiful, bountiful, beloved immortal beings and good-looking people. Remember, you are good-looking because you are always looking for and finding the good. We have good and abundance in our cup runneth over with good because you will be one of the most transformational beings now sailing the planet. I didn’t say walking the planet, and you will know why when we meet John Demartini.

Consciously and conscientiously, you have tuned into the show. I’m going to urge you, you don’t have to write down whatever John is going to tell you and whatever we are going to discuss. Lean in and let the information and transformation flow around you, through you and in you, because everything will be available at the website, BarryShore.com. It’s bountiful, beautiful and beneficent. Pay attention and enjoy it.

Get ready to share with at least five of your friends because 348,613 people around the world are joining you. If we share it with the five people, we are going to touch over 1.5 million lives. You will know why when we finish this show. It is transformational. You understand that this show is here for only one reason. The only reason you tuned in, and it is a great reason. You tuned in purposely, consciously, and conscientiously because you care the most in the entire world about you.

Frustration is a gift. It’s the feedback to let you know that you’re not authentic. Share on X

That’s great because when you are the best you, you make the world a better place. You can build more bridges. You can create more harmony, joy, happiness, peace, and love in the world. Most of you, over 300,000 plus people every single week, have joined, and you bring your friends. I’m honored and humbled that you do that.

In this show, we discuss the three fundamentals of life, which number one is life. Your life has a purpose. Number two, when you lead a life with purpose, you can go MAD. In this case, MAD is a wonderful acronym that stands for Make A Difference. If you lead a purpose-driven life, you make a difference in the world. Number three is to unlock and uncover the power and the secrets of everyday simple words and terms.

This show is being carried over by that mystical, magical and mythical platform called the internet worldwide. Everybody can get access to this particular show. If you ask anybody, “What does WWW stand for?” There will be lots that will say it has to do with the internet. Factually speaking, they are correct but in the positive, purposeful, powerful and pleasant world, WWW stands for Whata Wonderful World, and whata is a word, W-H-A-T-A.

A tip of the hat and a big thank you to Louis Armstrong “Satchmo” for enabling that song, What A Wonderful World, to go viral and not just touch tens of millions or hundreds of millions but billions of people around the planet. Whenever you hear even the opening bars of that song, What A Wonderful World, what do you do right away? You can’t help but smile. Smile is one of the most important words you can internalize, utilize and leverage in your life. SMILE is a great acronym that stands for Seeing Miracles In Life Every Day.

Before COVID, and thank God, it’s going away. The panic and masquerade are over. I spoke to a group of 5,200 people in the audience, real people without masks and everything pre-COVID. I was telling the story about Barry Shore and talking about seeing miracles of life every day. People are raising their hands and saying, “Barry Shore, we haven’t seen any miracles.” I asked them, “Are you here? Can you hear? Can you see? Can you stand still? Can you walk?” I can be able to do that. You have water, drink, food to eat, and a place to sleep. You have family and friends. Every single one of those is a miracle.

What’s the simplest proof? One million people did not get out of bed this morning. If you are reading this, by definition, you are alive. If you are alive, you must live exuberantly. That’s the genius of life. LIFE stands for Living Inspirationally For Eternity. When we do this, the benefit is that we become happier, healthier, and wealthier. Who doesn’t want that?

Imagine the following. Standing up in the morning, hale and hearty, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and that evening, being in the hospital, totally and completely paralyzed. That was me, 144 days in the hospital. This was not a spinal injury or an automobile accident. It was a rare disease I had never even heard of the day before. I’m two years on a hospital bed in my own home. I can’t turn it over by myself. I’ve been in a wheelchair for over four years. I have braces on both my legs, my hips to my ankles, and that’s progress.

Thank God, now I’m able to be vertical ambulatory with the help of a 7-foot walking wand but I still can’t walk up a stair and a curb by myself. I have help 12 hours a day, 7 days a week but you hear my voice, positive, purposeful, powerful and pleasant. It’s all because of one word, SMILE, Seeing Miracles In Life Every Day. I’ve got to tell you a quick story. My niece came over to me and said, “Uncle Barry, can we spell smiel, S-M-I-E-L?” I asked her, “How come it sounds the same? Why not do that?” She said, “That stands for Seeing Miracles In Everyday Life.”

What was she doing? She was creating the world she wanted to live in. CREATE is a great acronym. It stands for Causing, Rethinking, Enabling All To Excel. We have a brain. Your brain has 100 billion brain cells. You have more than 120 trillion synapses connecting all those brain cells, and then, therefore, more than deciding what latte you want this morning. The ability to have neuro-linguistic programming to choose your thoughts and how you speak and act, that’s the genius of causing rethinking.

I have to warn you that your humble host does use a lot of four-letter words. I even use the four-letter FU word. I do it because of the shock value, and it’s fun. The four-letter words that we use because we live in a positive, purposeful, powerful, and pleasant world are love, life, hope, grow, free, gift, play, pray, swim, boat and ship. Those are four-letter words. The four-letter FU word is FUNN.

Giving yourself permission to be the authentic essence of your being is liberating from the illusions of the external world that distract you and allows the voice and the vision and the real heart from within to express itself. Share on X

Right away, people are raising their hands and saying, “Barry Shore, fun is only spelled with three letters.” It’s not in our world. In the world of positive, purposeful, powerful, and pleasant, fun is spelled FUNN. After the show, when you see your family and friends, you point your finger and have a smile on your face and say, “FU everybody.” Remember to add right away NN. “Where did you get that?” I said, “I listened to Barry Shore. He wants to teach the world to FUNN.”

It’s a great way to begin a conversation and say, “What did you learn?” You can tell them all the amazing things that we discussed here with our fabulous guests. Before we bring on Dr. John Demartini, I’m going to urge everybody to do the following. I want you to use the two most powerful words in the English language three times a day from now and the rest of your life. These two most powerful words will change you, your family, friends, and by definition, the entire world. That’s how powerful the energy is. These two words are thank you.

THANK stands for To Harmonize And Network Kindness. The Dalai Lama has been quoted saying when I run his writings, “Be kind whenever possible. It’s always possible.” Imagine you go back to the coffee shop with no mask and COVID is gone. You walked into the coffee shop and ordered a fancy latte for $5. You sit down, and somebody brings it to you. You say thank you.

You walked into a coffee shop and ordered a fancy latter for $5. You sit down, and a few minutes go by, and nobody brings it to you. You go to the counter and they say, “I’m sorry. We forgot. We are so busy. We will bring it to you.” You sit down, and a couple more minutes go by, somebody brings it to you, and you still say, thank you. You are walking out of the coffee shop. It’s raining out, and somebody holds the door open for you, you say thank you. You are walking out of the coffee shop. It’s raining, and somebody slams the door on you. You say thank you.

You are stuck in traffic. You are late for an appointment, and somebody cuts you off. You say thank you. You get up in the middle of the night, and you stub your toe, and it hurts. You say thank you for harmonizing in that work kindness. KIND is a great acronym that stands for Keep Inspiring Noble Deeds. I cannot think of anybody I would like to share with you and inspires noble deeds more than the wonderful, amazing, and fabulous Dr. John Demartini. John, would you be kind enough to say hello to 352,826 people around the world?

I’m getting to be with Barry, so it’s great to communicate with you and be with you. Thank you for that great warmup.

Thank you for being here, John. It’s a delight, privilege and honor. When was the last time that somebody said FU to you, and you smiled?

I have all kinds of other ways of transforming. I wish it’s never what happened to you. I transformed that in mind, a future understanding of conscious knowledge. Whatever it is, I turn it into an opportunity.

That’s exactly the reason that I have been soliciting John. I’m a solicitor in the most positive sense and he agreed. If I started reading all of the things about John Demartini, it would take too long. Let’s give a couple of fascinating and interesting data points but they are not what we will talk about because we talk about transformation. Remember, people read because they only care, and that’s good news. They care about themselves, and that’s great because the ability to transform oneself is the whole reason we are here. Isn’t that a part of the journey of life?

To awaken your authenticity and realize the magnificence of your real self brings tears of gratitude and presence to your being. I’m a firm believer that the magnificent you are, it’s far greater than any fantasies you will ever impose on yourself.

It’s so fun that you say that. In humility, John can’t say any of this but I can. He is world-renowned. He is a specialist in human behavior on his own. He worked on himself. The real genius of life is that one brings to the party called life, your own being. When you know that you are the absolute work in progress and process, that’s what makes everything so much fun.

He has devoted most of his life to not only reading over 30,000 books, articles, and journals that deal with the subject of awakening your authenticity but he lives it, and he has been doing so. He’s helping tens and hundreds of thousands of people around the world. That’s why I’m so honored that he is here. Some of the great videos that he has done are truly magnificent. We will jump right in and talk about the topic, which is to give up happiness. The reason John says give up happiness is that he says, “The corollary to that is because it makes you sad.” What is that all about?

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle differentiated hedonistic happiness from happiness of meaning. Many times, people, as the Buddha says, are striving for that, which is unobtainable, and trying to avoid that, which is unavoidable, which is a source of their suffering. Suppose you are pursuing true objectives that are highly valuable and deeply meaningful that inspire you spontaneously and something you can’t get out of your mind because you feel it’s your calling. Those are worth pursuing but many times, people subordinate themselves to other people.

Other people try to imitate other people, inject other people’s values, and set goals that are fantasies that they think will give them immediate gratification. Those are the ones that lead to disappointment and frustration. Frustration is a gift. It’s the frustration, self-deprecation, and feedback to let you know that you are not authentic. You are trying to live second at being somebody else instead of first being you. That’s why you want to make sure you are setting realistic goals with real objectives that have real meaning authentic to you, spontaneously inspiring, and not immediate gratifying whims that people think will give them immediate happiness.

Let’s unpack some of what you said because this is you. It flows through you. People are grasping, leaning and saying, “What did Demartini say?” I want to make this point. If I’m correct, you will say, “I will help move it.” When you talked about frustration as a gift, I wrote down here, frustration equals pain. In other words, remember when we do something that happens that causes pain, we say, “Wake up. I don’t want to do that again.”

Frustration is a gift because it causes pain. Pain allows you to re-evaluate and maybe even recalibrate what it is that you are doing and therefore say, “Am I me?” Waking up is not a simple thing. It does take time, energy and skill. It’s part of the skillsets you deliver as part of your lecture series, what you do and what you bring to the world. That’s the genius of what you have dedicated your life to. In other words, you were frustrated and you said, “I want to be Demartini. I’m going to part my hair in the middle. I’m only going to choose a few because I can’t do it because there isn’t any.”

I want to share with you something that might resonate with you. That is, you used the word self. In my world, I work with a lot of words and acronyms. You might like this a lot. We differentiate you, I, and people reading and seeking between two kinds of self, the lower self, and the higher self. In the lower self, SELF stands for Seeking Excitement, Losing Focus. That’s pretty much what you said. The higher SELF recognizes that you are a Soul Experiencing Life Fully.

Milton Ward wrote a book called The Brilliant Function of Pain. He showed cases of people who couldn’t feel pain. They’ve never got feedback from their physiology about who they were and what it does. I made all my patients read that underline the most important parts to appreciate that their physiology is homeostatic feedback, guiding them to their authentic self and the pain is a message. When you can understand it and appreciate its message as it’s guiding you, you are not sitting there trying to avoid it. You are trying to listen to it. When you listen to it, it calms down because you have listened.

Let’s go deeper. I’m in love at the moment. LOVE stands for Living On Vibrant Energy. You are vibrating around the world. You didn’t know that but you are. We’ve got hundreds of thousands of people. Most of them are under the age of 38 and people worldwide from China, India, throughout Africa and everywhere.

I believe that there is a Renaissance of people seeking because the world has created a dialectic at the moment that is squashing authenticity. People are trying to find that real self-awakening. I want to share with you an acronym for LISTEN. LISTEN stands for Locating Insightful, Sustainable, Transformative Energy Now.

You have a gift of gab and a gift of words. I love the way you said the dialectic. You have worked at it. That’s why I always say a gift is 20,000 hours of work. Zeno, the ancient Greek philosopher, was credited with the later post-Socratic and things. He was the Founder of the dialectic. A dialectic was two soulmates interacting with each other and eventually becoming one. Like quantum entanglement in Physics, the whole universe is entangled. The integration of it is pure love. Fulfillment is the realization that nothing is missing in you.

I was in Nepal with the Bumpa Lama. We were having a conversation about, “Nothing is missing.” Often, we were too proud or too humble to admit what we see in others is inside ourselves. We have deflective awareness instead of reflective awareness. We hold ourselves back from having true love and intimacy with parts of ourselves on the outside that reflect on the inside. When we dig deep and discover the magnificence of that reflection, the dialectic takes us into our hearts and allows the authenticity of the oneness of all people to shine.

Gratitude is the gateway of the heart that allows love to radiate out. Share on X

Everybody who is reading understands why I wanted to have this conversation with John. We’ve got hundreds of thousands of people reading this. You didn’t have to go to Nepal, and you’ve got me right here on the web. I want to mention something that I found so fascinating from John, and that is when he was talking about pursuing happiness. There’s nothing wrong on the foundational level of what the idea is. As you mentioned, when it becomes misunderstood, as it were, that becomes a goal.

That’s why what we do in our work, we speak about joy as the foundational piece. We extend with happiness, peace, and love because I find that those are the four elements. It’s much like in the ancient Greek world and all ancient worlds. There were four elements, whether it be called Earth, wind, fire, water or in the world now, using DNA and modern terms. They are all the same but there are still only four terms.

The genius is that you have focused on the two dynamics that truly motivate the human being. We are talking about a human being or human becoming. Those are love and gratitude. You already mentioned love once but I would like to go a little deeper. Let’s speak a little more about gratitude because they are in simpatico and synchronicity, as it were. There is no one without the other. In other words, if one is involved with love, by definition, there has to be gratitude. If you are in gratitude, love evolves. They can’t be separated. I would rather hear from you than from me.

I like to think that there are two types of gratitude. The superficial gratitude is when things support what you value and you go, “Thank you.” There’s a deep grace, gracias, mercy, and divine gratitude when you realize there’s a hidden order in the apparent chaos. When you realize that no matter what’s happening, it’s on the way, not in the way, when you realize that everything that’s going on is helping you become a master of destiny, not a victim of history and that you have governance over your perceptions, decisions, and actions, it can turn anything in your mortal body into something your mortal soul can love.

That liberates you from having gratitude in a gray state, which is automatically a synthesis of all opposites, which are love, wisdom, and presence because it’s not a memory or imagination anymore. Its presence is an entheos, the divine within, an inspiration, and a certainty about life. Your calling is clear. The voice and vision on the inside are louder than all opinions on the outside at that moment. The power of that is automatically a feeling of fulfillment, which is a confirmation of your authenticity.

If you are not feeling fulfilled, you are somehow trying to be somebody you are not. You are in an ontological becoming as a persona instead of the essence of your being. Giving yourself permission to be the authentic essence of your being is liberating from the illusions of the external world that distract you. It allows you the voice, vision, and real heart from within to express itself internationally, inter-globally or inter-cosmically. There’s no boundary on our real nature.

Make a note to yourself to reread this because it’s too wonderful. Share this with at least five friends and family. I believe that you and I are both either devotees or we certainly like each other a lot. A particular book that I find myself picking up time and time again is called The Road Less Traveled by Dr. Peck. The last 30, 40 or 50 pages of the book is very much about grace unfolding from oneself. That deep gratitude is the ability to live in grace because that’s what we call graceful living. When you are living in grace, then it becomes a flow.

The word flower I found to be much interesting because we pronounce it flower. If you remove the ER for the moment, what is the word? The word is flow, which is something that’s moving. A flower is that everything inside of a flower is flowing. It should be called a flower. That’s what it is. We have come to a flower differently. A flower is a flower. That’s what you are. John Demartini, you are a flower.

I believe that when you are authentic to what you value most, that’s where you have the most equanimity within your mind, between you and others. You are not too proud or too humble to admit what you see in them inside you. You realize they were reflective. That brings a state of grace because you have no desire to change you relative to them or them relative to you. You honor them as they Om Tat Sat.

At that moment, you have grace or gratitude. Gratitude is the gateway of the heart that allows love to radiate out to when to wash the mind to bring inspiration to mind and enthusiasm to the body. It brings you more certainty to the clarity of your mission and, in a sense, more empowerment and presence. When you touch people with your mind, thoughts, feelings, and experiences, they are mesmerized by the presence of authenticity that exemplifies authenticity to others.

I’m breathing in your words. They are wonderful. I have a bottle here, and I do this on my water bottles. I’m going to hold it up. Can you read what it says?

Love and gratitude. I wrote a book called Count Your Blessings: The Healing Power of Gratitude and Love. I was born on Thanksgiving Day. My mom put me to bed when I was four and she said, “Son, make sure you count your blessings because those who are grateful for what they have, get more to be grateful for.” Gratitude is a radiant, expansive state of experience. It radiates outward, which makes you expand, and you have a broader perspective.

Instead of seeing things as good and evil, you see things as neither good nor evil. You see things with the inner eye of the heart, and then you end up having nothing but love. All else was an illusion, and you get to realize that. That’s why gratitude is such an important component of our daily existence and why I keep a record of 30 volumes of it. I keep a record of what I’m grateful for every day.

Speaking about mothers, my sainted mother, thankfully for her smile and love, keeps me going regularly. She taught me this. I wasn’t 4 but I was 9 because I remember when she mentioned it to me, “Bearshie, the only math you never need to master is that which allows you to count your blessings.” I was very good at Math, and I could do quick things in it. That’s mom. Moms are pretty remarkable beings. Look what they did for you and me.

My mom said this to me when I was eighteen years old. When I failed a test in school, I was distraught. She said, “Whether you become a great teacher, where you go back to Hawaii and ride big waves like I did as a teenager or you return to the streets, which I lived on the streets when I was a child. I want to let you know that no matter what you do, your father and I are going to love you no matter what.” That moment was the moment I was taught real unconditional love. That inspired me to want to overcome my learning problems as a child. It allowed me to go and start memorizing a dictionary because the words you have in your mind will enable you to expand your awareness of the world around you.

Dr. John Demartini is sharing with us insights into why you don’t want to be happy. It makes you sad. He talked all about it. Now, we are going to go deeper into some other areas that make John different. We are going to talk about values and certain habits that can change your life. Before we do that, I want to go deeper into John. What do you mean you were a surf bum, and you rode giant waves and lived on the streets?

Let’s talk about living on the streets first because John doesn’t live on the streets anymore. He lives on one of the most magnificent ships that fly the ocean waves. It’s called The World. He lives shipboard. He doesn’t live down in the scullery. He lives magnificently, traveling around the world. It’s an amazing ship with wonderful people. John has come through with the understanding that he awakened his authenticity.

By definition, since he awakened his authenticity, he attracted or still attracts all of those things that other people call good, such as notoriety, money, and the ability to influence in the most positive sense. They became attracted to him because it’s a law. John, you might like this. LAW stands for Love And Wisdom. That’s what LAW is. The Law of Attraction is love and wisdom. Tell us a bit about what do you mean you lived on the streets?

If you give yourself permission to shine, not shrink, and make that difference… You would be amazed how people, places, things, ideas, and events, and synchronicities start increasing the possibilities of resonantly bringing to you… Share on X

When I was born, I had an arm and leg turned in. When I was a year and a half old, I had to wear braces on my arm and leg on the left side. I also found out that I had a speech impediment, and I had to go to a speech pathologist starting at 1.5. From 1.5 to about 4, I would put strings and buttons in my mouth, and I had to clunk around with braces on the left side. I’ve got out of those at four. I wanted to be free. It was a bit constraining for those years.

I’ve got to elementary school and found out that I couldn’t read. I had dyslexia, and I couldn’t write properly because my hand was backward. I had problems. I barely made it through school by asking the smartest kid questions. I’m known for questions because of that. When I’ve got to about age thirteen, I dropped out of school and started living on the streets. I picked up surfing in Texas, which wasn’t the surf capital in the world.

At fourteen, I hitchhiked to California and down into Mexico. At fifteen, I moved to Hawaii and lived under a bridge and then on a park bench. I have been in a bathroom and then an abandoned car. I kept social-climbing until I had a tent. I was a long-haired hippie surfer kid in the ’60s and right into the early ’70s to ’73. I nearly died at seventeen in 1972. That’s when I was blessed to recover from that experience to meet a teacher named Paul Bragg.

The Paul Bragg, 1 night, 1 hour with 1 message. He shifted the trajectory. He made me believe I could someday become intelligent and could learn how to read. He said to me and to the whole group that was there that, “We have a body, mind and soul. The mind must guide the body. The soul must direct the mind if you want to maximize your life. What we say to ourselves, what we see for ourselves, what we think about ourselves, how we feel about ourselves, and what we take actions daily determines our destiny.”

If you don’t decide, other people decide. If you don’t take command, they take command. It’s time to take command of your life. What is it would you love to do? That night, with his help in meditation, I wanted to overcome my learning problems. Someday I wanted to become intelligent. I wanted to learn how to teach and travel the world of teaching. That was the night my life changed. Here I am, years later, I do that every day of my life. I may be doing it online as I’m traveling and sailing or I may be doing it by flying but I do it seven days a week.

Let me make a note. First of all, that is a powerful testimony to Paul Bragg, who is an amazing being and to yourself. For waking up yourself, you awakened your authenticity. I would like to share with you what we say in our world, shift happens. The unfortunate thing is that most people don’t know how to pronounce that F in the shift. They drop that letter. I don’t know why it happens all the time that they end up with the other word. They think that’s what it is. Its shift happens.

With your permission, I would like to share one of the things that I have been blessed to share in my world with many thousands of people. It’s an acronym called SELF-TALK because that’s what it’s about. SELF-TALK is the most important speech you will ever hear. The higher self is, recognize you are a soul moving the mind and body. You are a soul experiencing life fully. TALK stands for Teaching Always Love And Kindness, especially to SELF. I will give that to you as my gift.

Paul Bragg gave me a little acronym and internal dialogue. After speaking that night, he said he gives a speech every morning at Fort DeRussy in Honolulu and Waikiki, “Come and join us.” Every morning for three weeks, I went and studied with this guy. I took advantage of it. He was leaving for California on the last day, and I didn’t know if I would ever see him again. I never did get to see him again. I walked up to him and said, “Sir, you said that whatever I decided that night would become my destiny.” He said, “That’s right, young man.” I said, “I saw that I would become a great teacher. I don’t even know how to read. I have never read a book from cover to cover. I had a speech impediment, and I can’t read.”

He said, “That’s not a problem. Is there any other problem?” I said, “No.” He said, “Every single day for the rest of your life, I want you to say one statement and don’t forget the statement. Do it every day. I want you to say, ‘I am a genius, and I apply my wisdom.'” He made me say it over and over again until my eyes closed, and I inculcated and felt it. He said, “You say that every single day. If you say it every single day, sooner or later, the cells of your body will tingle with it and so of the world.” I started saying that, and I have never missed a day in many years.

The genius listens to the inner voice, follows and obeys their inner vision, and doesn’t let the world on the outside interfere with the calling on the inside. Everyone who is reading out there has a genius inside. Everyone here has a purposeful, theological, and inspired calling with which you can be mad and make a difference. I believe that if you give yourself permission to shine, not shrink, and make that difference as a unique soul being and not conform to the herd so you can get heard. You would be amazed how people, places, things, ideas, events, and synchronicities start increasing the possibilities of resonantly bringing to you exactly what you need that’s on the way to help you make the way to do something extraordinary planet Earth.

I’m a firm believer that it’s innate within you. It’s not an option. It’s waiting and wanting to surface daily. Don’t let anybody’s opinion, label or any restriction about you from the outside. You listen to the soul within. When that soul speaks with tears of inspiration, it documents that because it’s guiding your way to the day that you can do something that you know is fulfilling in your life because tears of gratitude and grace will be part of your daily ritual.

John, let’s repeat it.

I am a genius and I apply my wisdom.

Have you ever heard the word wow? Do people, when they listen to you speak go, “Wow?” Now, you can tell them WOW stands for Words Of Wisdom.

I have WOW in my network because I’m a firm believer. When I was fourteen years old, I was hitchhiking from Houston, Texas, to LA to stay on Huntington Beach, California, a surf center. I met a man in El Paso, Texas, who saw me get confronted by three cowboys. I handled them by being a little bit strange like barking at them. I didn’t know what else to do. He was laughing, and he watched me bark at these guys because they were going to attack me. I started acting like a wild animal to get them back away. I pattern-interrupt them.

He was leaning on a lamppost laughing, and he came up to me afterward. He said, “You took care of the cowboy like a pro. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” I said, “I don’t drink coffee, sir.” “Can I buy you a Coca-Cola?” I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “There’s one right up the street.” We went up to this little malt shop, and we had this Coke with him. He said, “Did you finish your Coke?” I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “Come with me. I have something I want to teach you.”

I was a little hesitant about going. I had a duffle bag, surfboard, headband, and little sandals. I was walking with this elderly gentleman. We walked two blocks and another two blocks. We went up to the El Paso Downtown Library. He walks me up, and he has the lady at the information booth. He holds my surfboard and belongings. We go into the thing and up these steps, and he sits me down at a table. He says, “Young man, I’m going to go off and get something from the bookshelves. You stay right here.”

He comes back and puts two books on the table. He sits catty-cornered from me. He looks at me straight in the eye and says, “Young man, there are two things I want to teach you. You’ve got to promise me you will never forget these things.” I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “Number one, don’t ever judge a book by its cover. It will fool you. You may think I’m some old guy on the street but I’m one of the wealthiest men in the world. I’ve got everything that money can buy. I’ve got cars, ships, businesses and homes.”

Number two, he grabbed my right hand, and he stuck them on top of the books. It was Plato and Aristotle. He said, “You will learn how to read because there are only two things in your life they can never take away from you, and that is your love and wisdom. They can take away your possessions and anything but they can never take away your love and wisdom. You will gain the wisdom of love and the love of wisdom. Don’t ever forget that.” My cufflinks now are love and wisdom.

Are we in synchronicity? Is this not serendipity when I mentioned to you that LAW stands for Love And Wisdom?

Every signature I put on, mine is love and wisdom because that is the Law of the Universe. The tears of gratitude, inspiration, love, and presence are the most powerful guides to your destiny. I have been keeping records all these years whenever I get a tear of gratitude, whether I’m watching a movie, reading a book, listening to some music, meditating, speaking or whatever it may be. When I get tears of gratitude, I stop. I look at the content of what’s in my mind because it’s a confirmation to let me know I’m being authentic for a moment.

Capture those moments of excellence and inspiration and look at them. I guarantee you they will point you in the direction of your soul’s calling. They will liberate you from the distractions of your amygdala. They will take you into the executive center, where you are the master of your destiny, not a victim of any history. The universe is working on your behalf. There’s nothing in the way.

Everything that’s going on in this world is guiding you to do something magnificent and extraordinary. It’s to do something that is in fair, sustainable exchange with human beings. It’s a service that brings you deservedness. It gives you an opportunity to lead the way and, in a sense, have gratitude for a daily experience of who you are as a human being. It’s an amazing life we get to have.

There’s nothing more positive, purposeful, powerful, and pleasant than the essence of you being realized and bred into the world. My book is called The Joy of Living: How to Slay Stress and Be Happy. I mentioned this. It’s something called the butterfly effect. Scientists say that there’s a migration of butterflies from North America down to the Andes Mountains. Millions of butterflies are covering the Andes Mountains.

They say that when one butterfly flaps its wings in the Andes, it affects the airflow in Japan, it helps or causes a tsunami. Think about it. If a butterfly can do that, which is not a conscious being, imagine what a human being can do consciously and conscientiously by saying, “Thank you. I am a genius. I am fulfilling my wisdom. I am capable.”

Trivial pursuit does not even come close to the magnificent pursuit of our own nature. Share on X

Anytime we are honest with ourselves, we are rewarded by the expression of genius. Arthur Eddington, a physicist, said, “When the electron vibrates, the whole universe shakes. The electron vibrating is a response to the conscious intention.” You cannot have a well-directed, inner-called conscious intention without rippling effect across all human beings. That’s what lets them know to synchronize with your mission.

Margaret Mead said that, “The greatest discovery is that you never underestimate a small group of people for changing the world. It’s one individual with an inspiring vision with a ripple effect on a few that turned into many that eventually changed the world.” We don’t sometimes give ourselves permission or the belief and power that we have to make that difference but the truth is we do. If we prioritize our life and fill our day with the highest-priority actions, our day doesn’t fill up with low-priority distractions.

If we choose the challenges that serve the greatest number of people, we don’t attract the challenges we don’t want. The second we are purposeful and prioritized, we are empowered and present, and we end up having a purpose in life. Giving ourselves to be the most authentic individual and loving ourselves and other people simultaneously liberates us from any of the little trivial distractions. A trivial pursuit does not even come close to the magnificent pursuit of our own nature.

Thank you because you are bringing it from me to you. There’s a great word, which people mispronounce. They pronounce it atonement. It’s at one meant. When you recognize that you are at one meant in the universe and you are part of that vibration, you are the electrons moving around. There’s nothing that can stop it. It’s impossible because I’m possible. Nothing can stop that movement of those electronic energies called love, peace, happiness and joy. JOY stands for Journey Of You.

The hierarchy of your values dictates your destiny but your values evolve, so your destinies are tweaking. Your life’s journey is a summation of all your destinies. You have a calling inside, and it’s being refined, so you get the most out of life by serving the most in life. I’m a firm believer that fulfillment comes from both the sensory and motor cortex of the brain. The sensory cortex is rewarded but the motor cortex is for service. If we are focused on serving somebody and doing something to inspire them and help them fulfill what’s meaningful to them, we don’t have time for the frustrations and challenges that most people get trapped in.

This particular show is called the Joy of Living. I tell people the Joy of Living can be summed up in one word. It’s giving. The word business is very fascinating. In business, the U comes before the I. When you recognize that it’s about you, what can I do to benefit in service in the world? The I is rewarded as much as it wants. Whenever you need or want, that’s going to come to you. That’s a law, as John has told us, love and wisdom. You can’t break that law. You may try. You are going to get frustrated, and you are in pain. Eventually, you will wake up.

I want to mention this also because John can’t say it. Here he was, a person who was bedraggled and befuddled until he met Mr. Bragg and other people, and thankfully, the nice man in El Paso. He has become not just a voracious reader but also a consumer of over 30,000 books, journals, and whatever he can do to read and continue the expansion of his being. He does it not to add wisdom for him. What he is doing is he is giving it because he wants to be able to share it with the world. Am I correct in that, John?

When you can’t wait to get up and deliver your service, the world can’t wait to get your service. There’s nothing more inspiring that brings more tears. If I look at all the moments I have had tears of gratitude, it’s when I know I have made a difference, and people have acknowledged the difference. That is its own reward. As Kahlil Gibran says, “Love and grace is its own reward. It doesn’t require anything except being present.” I’m a firm believer in doing that. I spend seven days a week doing that. That’s what I love doing.

John is on board a ship. The ship is called The World. He has arrived in Nassau in The Bahamas. First of all, there is even such a thing as Wi-Fi available and broadband and that we are doing this. If you ever want to think about what’s happening in the world and be mindful of the possibilities of life, think of what we are doing at this moment.

Whenever you are reading this and going to share it and click a button, don’t ever let it be in your mind that there is anything called constriction because it doesn’t exist. The world is built for abundance. The world is built for you to contribute you. When you are the best you, you make the world a better place. There’s no such thing as a pie that’s shrinking. This planet is more than enough for everybody. That’s the world of abundance.

Einstein said, “The greatest teacher is exemplification.” I dreamed about being a teacher. It’s my responsibility to exemplify the principles of life and honor the magnificence of moments in life. You can’t make any greater difference than being the individual that you want the world to be.

One of my great teachers said to me and taught me both verbally and by example. She said, “Teach with everything you do. If necessary, use words. It’s the being that you want to be so people can emulate.” Mr. Bragg made you aware that you are a genius, and then you can share that genius with the world. That caused a shift. That shift helped transform not just the world of John Demartini but the world because John has touched millions of lives.

When I was in Hawaii, I was speaking in Waikiki at the Hyatt. In the back of the room, a short older woman walked in, dressed in pink with a hat on. She is 4’7″ and I knew who she was. I had never met her but I knew her from her pictures. It was Patricia Bragg, the daughter of Paul Bragg, who was the one that inspired me. She walks in the back because she heard I was in town because I was speaking. At the break, she came up to me and grabbed my hand in her hands. She looked up to me because she was small and said, “That was wonderful. You remind me of my father.” I hugged her. We held each other for a while because that was meaningful to me.

John, I have a couple of questions for you. First question, will you come back again?

Absolutely.

Second question, what is your most fervent desire?

My mission is to research, write, travel, step foot in every country on the face of the Earth and share whatever I learn that would assist individuals, honor the magnificence of who they are, and help them live a consciously evolved and inspired life. I am focused on that every single day for many years. I will continue to do that as long as my body is alive.

Love is its own reward. Grace is its own reward. It doesn’t require anything except being present. Share on X

Third question, may I hug you in front of 358,222 people?

Absolutely.

Let me tell you what HUG stands for, Heartfelt Unlimited Giving. Thank you for reading. On this show, the reason you read and it has been proven is because you cared the most in the whole world about you. You want to be the best you possible. You now can. Go forth and be the best you. You make a difference in the world.

Remember, we work with the three fundamentals. Number one, life. Your life has a purpose. Number two, go MAD. It stands for Make A Difference. Number three, unlock the power and the secrets of everyday words and terms, such as WWW, Whata Wonderful World, and SMILE, Seeing Miracles In Life Every Day. My niece said seeing miracles in everyday life. CREATE the kind of world you want to live in, Causing Rethinking, Enabling All To Excel.

Use four-letter words, love, life, hope, grow, free, gift, play, praise, swim and surf. Tell everybody FU, NN. You’ve got to remember to add NN right away. When you do this, you will be happier, healthier and wealthier. Who doesn’t want that? We guarantee it or get your money back. Remember to say thank you three times a day, consciously and conscientiously, “Thank you” THANK stands for To Harmonize And Network Kindness. John and I would like to give everybody a blessing. Our blessing is to go forth, live exuberantly, and spread the seeds of joy, happiness, peace and love. Go MAD. Go Make A Difference.

Important Links:

• John Demartini
• The Brilliant Function of Pain
• The Road Less Traveled
• Count Your Blessings: The Healing Power of Gratitude and Love
• The Joy of Living: How to Slay Stress and Be Happy
• https://www.Facebook.com/drjohndemartini
• https://www.Instagram.com/drjohndemartini/?hl=en

About John Demartini

Dr. John Demartini is a world-renowned specialist in human behaviour, a researcher, author and global educator and is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on human behaviour, leadership and entrepreneurialism. He has studied over 30,000 books across all the defined academic disciplines, and is the founder of the Demartini Institute. More at www.demartini.com