RV (00:00:08): Hey, my, my new friend, mark, Victor Hansen introduced me to somebody that you are about to meet Dr. John Demartini and mark and crystal who we had on the show several months ago, said you gotta have Dr. De martini on. He is incredible. They’ve known each other for 38 years. But Dr. Demartini is one of a, a world renowned specialist in human behavior. So he’s a researcher, he’s an author. He studied over 30,000 books, which I was pretty amazing. That’s just a, a wide on, on a number of topics, but that’s a bunch of books. He’s been on Larry King live, he regularly contributes to magazine and I’ve been just following him online here, recently tuning into to what he’s up to and getting to know one another. So anyways, Dr. Demartini, welcome to the show. JD (00:01:04): Well, thank you for having me. I’ve been looking forward to it. Thank you. RV (00:01:07): Yeah. So, so tell us a little bit about how you got started. I mean, you and I were just kind of rapping that you’ve known mark Victor Hansen for 38 years. So you you’ve been around the industry for a while. Would love to just kinda hear how you get started and then kind of like, what is your business model? How, and how is your business model, you know, did it begin and how has it evolved over the years in terms of like, you know, the different revenue streams that you focused on? JD (00:01:39): Okay. I had an arm and leg deformity when I was a child and speech impediment and went to a speech pathologist and specialist for that in first grade, I was told that I would never be able to read or write or communicate effectively, probably wouldn’t go very far in life for amount to much had to wear a dunk cap back in 19 0 59 60. I made it through elementary school by asking kids questions. What did they learn from the book? What did they learn from the class? And if they told me stuff, I would get enough to kind of, sort of pass. JD (00:02:25): When I turned 12, my parents moved from Houston, Texas to Richmond, Texas. We went to a low socioeconomic country area. They weren’t a bunch of smart scholarly kids. I didn’t have a team to help me. I failed, I dropped outta school and I lived on the streets, but I was okay in standing on a surfboard. I started doing that at nine, but Texas was not the surf capital. I didn’t wait for a hurricane to get new waves. So I made my way out. 14. I hitchhiked out to California and lived in Huntington beach for part of the summer, and then hitchhiked down to New Mexico and surfed California in Mexico. At 15, I left there and got enough money panhandling to go and fly to Hawaii. I lived under a command may highway, sunset bridge. Then I lived in EAI beach park under a park bench, then in a bathroom abandoned car. And finally a tent kept social climbing. I was riding waves and got pretty good at it. Got to hang out with some of the top surfers, got in a few magazines and me movies and books. And then I nearly dock at 17. JD (00:03:45): At 17, I was in the recovery of that. I was led to a little health food store and then eventually to a yoga class to try to overcome my neuromuscular problem that I had there. One night I met Paul Bragg and one night, one hour, this man who was inspired and a very enthusiastic man spoke and talked about what we can do with our lives. He talked about, we had a body of mind and a soul and a body must be directed by the mind. And mind must be guided by the soul in order to maximize our, our life. JD (00:04:21): When you spoke that night, he said that we need to set goals for ourself, our family, our community, our city, our date, our nation, our world, for and beyond for a hundred, 120 years, nobody ever talked to me like this and I could understand. And he was simple. And he, and he said that what you think about what you visualize, what you affirm, what you feel, what you, what you do and what you write, determines your destiny. And so that night was the first time in my life. I thought maybe I could overcome my learning problems. And I thought I could someday become intelligent. JD (00:05:02): And that with his inspiration at night, I set out on a quest to try to overcome my learning problems. I, I eventually left to Hawaii and I flew to LA and I hitchhiked back, Texas. And I prepared for a G E D and passed GEDs, a high school equivalency. I passed that and I tried to go back to college and I failed and I was distraught sitting on my living room floor and my mom and dad, you know, we’re encouraging. But my mom said to me that morning, that, that day when I failed son, whether you become a great teacher, like you dream about cuz at night I met Paul Bragg. I had a vision that I would overcome my learning and learn how to speak properly and be able to teach. JD (00:05:51): He said, whether you become a great teacher and travel the world, like you dream, whether you return to Hawaiian ride giant waves, or whether you go to the streets again, just wanna let you know that your father and I are gonna love you. No matter what. When she said that my hand went into a fist, I looked up and I said to myself, I’m gonna mass this thing called reading and studying and learning. I’m gonna master this thing called teaching, and I’m gonna do whatever it takes. I’m gonna travel, whatever it is since I’m gonna pay, whatever price to give sort was love across the plant. I’m not gonna let any human being or myself stop me now. And I got up and hugged my mom and went in my room and I got a dictionary out and I started memorizing 30 words a day and she would test me on 30 words a day until my vocabulary was strong enough to learn and pass school. JD (00:06:40): And I, I did and I eventually started to Excel and I’m now 18 and slowly but surely people started asking me questions, cuz I started to Excel in school and I started to have students asking me questions, mentoring. And it went from one to two to about 15. By the time I finished my first little two years in school, I went to the university of Houston. I started having a hundred, 150, sometimes 400 people a day under the trees and I would do my yoga and they would ask questions and I’d have a, a following of students. Wow. When I went on to professional school, I started doing classes seven nights a week. I would speed read books of by then. I was learning how speed reading it. But I was speed reading, read four to four to seven books in the morning and then do a presentation that night. JD (00:07:33): And that’s how I had paid my way through college in professional school. When I got outta school and I still opened up my practice. I was teaching every single night and I generated patience from doing talks and everywhere and anywhere I could find a place from breakfast clubs, luncheon clubs, you name it anywhere where there was a speaker might be used. I went to go and offered my speaking services and I generated patients from that. That led me to have a TV show on channel 20 on health, Dr. De Martinez health ends. And then I started doing that in my office. They’d film it live for my audience and we would talk about patients and care. And then I started doing more. And then I, and I figured out how to grow. My practice went from a little 970 square foot office to 5,000 square foot office from one assistant to five doctors and 12 a and people want to know what the heck did you do? JD (00:08:34): And all I did is I prioritized things and delegated things and stuck to what I did best, which was being a man on a mission with a message and speaking, and then engaging people. And then doing clinical work. And I prioritized my patients and got the doctors to do certain ones. And I did the most info and 10 folded my income. And then in different professions, they started asking me to speak on clinical practice and growing practices and things and mindset. And I was studying everything and anything I could get my hands on any possible thing that might help maximize human awareness potential. I was devouring and that reading, you know, sometimes 20 books a weekend, I was just devouring and devouring and devouring and learning everything I could. And speaking as every single time I could. Cause when you’re told, you’ll never be able to read and write or speak and then you find out you can, it’s pretty inspiring. RV (00:09:34): And what was your practice? So you, your Clear clinical psychologist. JD (00:09:37): I, I was a car. I, I was a chiropractor. I was a chiropractor. RV (00:09:40): Ah, JD (00:09:41): That’s where I met. That’s where I met mark Victor Hanson at a chiropractic convention in Las Vegas. There were about, I don’t know, 6,000 doctors there and I was a speaker there and that’s where he and I hooked up. And then we end up doing some things together. We created a, an Al them of what they called audio cassette album back in those days, how to build a, your practice. And that led me to speak into other health professionals and then other businesses. And then and I was, I started writing books at 23. So my first book was at age 23, I’ve written over, I don’t know, 200 book books now. And I call it, most of ’em are big textbooks that are going to different specialties, but a lot of ’em are, I got probably four of ’em. They’re about to do 10 more new books that are coming out. Publisher just did a 10 book deal. And so I write, I research, I teach every day of my life and you know, I, I just, it started to grow and I started to go from United States throughout all the states, all but two states I’ve gotten to speak in and then it went into Canada. Then it went into France and Spain and Italy and it started going to Europe and it just kept growing. And I, I, I kept getting opportunities and I RV (00:10:56): In the beginning. So in the beginning you were, you were, you started speaking, but you were making money from being a chiropractor. So you were speaking for free. JD (00:11:05): No, I, I, I, no, no, no. I, I, my first money that came from speaking started at the university of Houston. Okay. I started doing tutoring and I got paid very small amount. And then when I went to professional, I started to, I, I tried this love donation bit, you know, you put a bowl out and whatever you wanna pay kind of thing. Nobody loved me. So I, I decided to pay 20, make ’em pay $20. And the second I valued myself, so did the group and it grew, I started charging $20 for little evening talk and that kept growing. I just spread the throughout the city. And RV (00:11:44): So you’re JD (00:11:44): Over a hundred, RV (00:11:45): A public seminar model at that point. You’re like in professional school selling tickets. JD (00:11:50): Yeah. And I did I did over a hundred thousand dollars a year at 23 years old doing talks, which is pretty good back then and paid my school and I didn’t have debt and I could buy all the books I wanted cuz I just, all I cared about is buying books. I wanted to catch up and read and, and study. I wanted to study the greatest teachings on the planet. And so that I, my teaching model, I was paid from 23 on and I, I, I got paid even when I was in practice, I got paid to speak and then I got generated patients from it. So I got double paid and then I, they buy books and they buy, I made audio cassette tapes. I, I had, I had 900 audio cassette tapes by the time I was 20, probably about 29 30. JD (00:12:32): I had 900 to audio cassette tapes on different topics of health and and, and growth and personal development and made albums out of it. So I had tons of albums and things that was going on. And I just, every time I talk, I recorded it and people wanted a copy of it. I had a Mira recorder and I had a duplicating machine, two of them. So I could create six duplicating machines at the back of the room and they would get a live presentation. And then that was my advertisement. As I spoke, they would get copies of that. They’d tell it and I’d give ’em to the friends. And then I had the backlogs of all these other talks and they’d buy a bunch of those. So I had a, a revenue model and then they were coming in as a patient. So I had a good revenue model RV (00:13:15): And then JD (00:13:16): Expression. RV (00:13:17): So you were selling tickets to come to the event event, and then you are selling tapes at the back of the room and then you’re getting clients out of there for your practice. JD (00:13:27): And then I was doing consulting too RV (00:13:29): For JD (00:13:30): Companies. I was getting clients from that to consulting. Yeah, I was doing, I did a lot of the, you know, oil companies in Houston, Texas where we started and I did presentations to them on ergonomics and health, health, reducing healthcare costs and things. And then that was generating business too. Plus they buy products cuz I had I had a bunch of books by then and tapes and they were buying those and they didn’t have to pay me if I could sell. They had to, had to pay or they’d do a product sale, either one, I was prepared and that I never stopped that I still did that. And then in those days, you know, there was no internet and there’s no fax and all that stuff. And we just did, we, we sent out these little cards to notify these little mail cards. JD (00:14:16): We’d stamp these little mass mailing cards out and the people would come, we’d have, you know, hundreds of people coming to programs. And then I, I had other conferences once I had products, conferences could have me come on and speak cuz then they could do a revenue share and they didn’t the fees. They could afford the fees, cuz I’d have a fees and then they would split the revenues on the product and they’d get their feedback. So they, they liked me because I could, I could you know, make it cost effective. They didn’t really have to pay anything and they made money off me. So they, they didn’t mind me speaking. And I just kept those opportunities growing. I didn’t have any slick marketing. I just, I just made sure my dad said if I, if I deliver more than people expect, I, I won’t worry about business. JD (00:15:02): And I found that to be true. If I, if I deliver something that’s unique and present something that’s inspiring and meaningful and practical that they can use immediately to generate opportunities or money or a business or more fulfillment, then there’s always business. So I, I just found that that I’ve never been a slick marketer. I don’t really know all that stuff. I’ve hired people. I, all I do is research, write, travel, teach to this day. I, I live on my ship and I basically research write, travel, teach and do podcast all day webinars and write books so, and travel. So I, I never stopped that model. I just kept doing it. And I’ve spoken in 163 countries now and millions and millions of people. So I, I, I had a dream to travel and step foot in every country on the face of the earth. I still got a few more countries to reach and I I’ve held a vision of that since for 49 years, I’m going on my 50th year. This will be the 50th year of speaking. RV (00:16:00): I mean, this is just so, so wonderful. And it’s, it’s amazing to see so much of the path cause this would be so I’m in like, I mean the first time I got paid for a speech was like 2005. That’s kind of crazy to think. I’m not even in year 20. I, I started speaking for free when I was in high school, right. Coming outta high school, which was like 2000, 2000 2001. But the first time I got $5,000 for speech like really paid I think was 2004, 2005, something like that in. And you know, so I I’ve been in 15 years coming on 20. And so many of these concepts apply exactly the same. You’re speaking for free. And then you are selling at the back of the room and then you, you know, you know, people are hearing about you and I think it’s, it’s really amazing. RV (00:16:53): So talk to us a little bit about your business changed. I do wanna hear about the boat, cause I think that’s super interesting. You’re on a boat right now. If y’all, didn’t pick that up. Dr. D Martinez’s been on a boat for a long time, actually here the last couple years. So I wanna hear about that, but how did your business change or not change? So, so that happens, you know, in the eighties, the nineties, and then 2000 hits, the web comes out 2005, social media podcasting starts to come on the scene. Did you basically just like transition what you were doing to those platforms? And you know, it’s kinda like, oh, I was doing tapes and then I did CDs and then I didn’t B three downloads. And then I did learning management system or like tell us a little bit about how life evolved at post 2000. JD (00:17:46): Well, CDs in the nineties, CDs came in, audio cassettes, still sold. I still had some audio cassettes, but the CDs started coming in and then we converted to CDs. But you know, I learned at age 27, not to do anything, but what my core competence is, which is research, right. Travel teach. So I don’t do anything else. I haven’t driven a car in 32 years. I haven’t cooked since I was 24. I haven’t done administrator written checks or done any, you know, hiring or firing or managing, or I, I learned it to age 27 after reading the time trap by Ella McKinsey, not to do anything other than what is absolutely most inspiring to you if you want inspiring life. So I delegate everything and I’ll hire people that know what, what they’re doing to do that. And so if it’s time to go to CDs, I find somebody that takes care of all that. JD (00:18:35): And I just put them in place and I, to this day, still stick to that model. I don’t, I, so I haven’t really done anything except teach research right. And travel since 27, I’m 67 now 68 going on 68. So, so 40 years, that’s all I’ve done. I don’t do the other, I, I, my day consists of reading, writing, teaching, or doing interviews or movies or something. That’s, that’s it. I don’t do the, I don’t do anything else. I don’t make those other decisions. I learn that from Warren buffet and I, I don’t, I don’t, I do what I do my core competent. I know what it is. I stick to it. I don’t waiver from it. And but I surrounded myself with people. So if somebody, if we, if we need to go to CDs, we get some of the packages and organizes and does that. JD (00:19:23): If we’re going now to internet marketing, and then I get somebody to do that, but I don’t sit there and try to do my learning curve and do all that. I, I just hire people around me to do that. So to this day, I couldn’t tell you how it’s all being done behind the scenes. I just know I have competent people that take care of that for me. And my objective is to do as many podcasts and do as many webinars and do as many speakings and as many as many books and share as many insights as I can on this planet. That’s, that’s all I, I care about and travel the world. RV (00:19:54): I love it. So you’re now you’re living on a boat though, so you’re not, you’re clearly not doing in-person speaking events. You’re JD (00:20:02): Well, I, I did until I, I I’ve been living on this ship for 20 years, so I, I, I got this in 2001. So oh, so I, I, after nine 11, I was living in truck tower in New York, right underneath the Donald there. And we were up in the top of the building and, and but when nine 11 occurred, my wife said, no, this I don’t wanna be here in New York. Right now. We had some homes in Australia also. So we, she got a helicopter in the street and got out of there real quick. And and we, we got to Australia, but I told her, I said, look, I’m not scheduled to be in Australia, but four times, if you’re gonna live there, we need to come up with plan B. So I found out about the, the world, the ship called the world and which is a private condominium luxury condominium that, that sails around the world to all the countries. JD (00:20:51): And I, that matched my belief system, cuz I’ve said, the universe is my playground. The world is my home. Every country’s a room house. Every city’s a platform to sharer my heart and soul since I was 20, I’ve been internal dialogue. So it matched. So I, I bought that as an anniversary presence. We lived on here until she passed and I’ve been on here, but I’ve been traveling by, by flights. I still did 350 plus speeches a year by still flying and shipping. So if I’m on my ship, then I will go places. If not, I fly. So I’ll get on and off. But since COVID the flying has, and so I’m now just full time on the ship, just going place to place and doing much of it on zoom. So, or on these other mediums. RV (00:21:36): Well, and you’re not, but you’re not seeing you’re. I mean, clearly at some point the chiropractor patients stopped. And JD (00:21:44): Well, I sold, I sold the practice. I sold the first practice to two of my docs at the five. Gotcha. And I became financially independent at that time. And then I opened up another part-time consulting and practice. I did only for very special patients. I still did a little bit of practice by 1990 I, 89. I was not time practice. I was full-time speaking and consulting. And still to this day, I still consult. I still do consulting as it comes in. I don’t go out promoting it. Don’t do any marketing for it. Really. I just, it it’s on the website if people want to do it, but I still do coaching consulting. I don’t like to call it coaching, but just consulting with executives and various types of people, entrepreneurs, students. But I don’t, I don’t drive that. It just happens. You know, I I’ve done, I can do 300 in a year or I can do 200 a year something maybe, maybe more. But I, I don’t, that’s not my main business. I may do it and a half to that, on that, RV (00:22:47): On consulting. JD (00:22:50): But RV (00:22:50): Your, so your revenue streams now from, from the, you know, the ship for the last couple years is people will hire you to speak. You do virtual keynotes, you, you have private coaching slash consulting clients and then are, and then, and then what else? Like book deal like you, you know, JD (00:23:10): Web webinars, I have webinars. Most of my income still webinars. I have 80 different courses that I teach that I do pretty regularly. The one the break to experience, which is my CIG program. I’ve done 1,140 times. So I, I do that consistently. Donald told me that he says you, if you’re gonna do something brand and do it, build momentum, incremental momentum by doing it and over and over and over again until the people recognize it. So I’ve done that one. That’s my signature program. But I have a series of programs that are multi-day programs that I still do. That’s primary generation. I definitely have book royalties, but they’re not, that’s not, you know, major it’s, that’s secondary, that’s just added, but I I’m getting ready to do 10 more books. That’re in the making now. And then but most of it’s webinars, you know, the live webinars that I do or live. And that when yous that I do RV (00:24:04): Think is so is, so this is just so fascinating. So when you say a webinar, you’re saying people are buying an individual seat at a virtual event that you’re hosting and leading. JD (00:24:19): Yes. Yes. RV (00:24:20): So it, the same thing you were doing at the university of Houston under tree, people were paying money to come get tutored. They’re just paying 20 bucks per whatever. You’re still doing that more or less, just virtually someone buys a ticket comes to your event. JD (00:24:36): Yeah. But they’re not $20 anymore. RV (00:24:38): Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, that, that’s the awesome part is the price just keeps going. It just goes up over time. But, but the, the part that’s fascinating to me is that, like you basically said, I’m gonna do these four things. And for the most part, your core model, it sounds like has been public seminar. What I would call public seminars. It’s it’s anybody from the public can buy a ticket and come, you know, you started doing it for free. You are mentoring a couple students. Then it comes to, into, you know, hundreds of people. Then it’s 20 bucks ahead. And now it’s whatever it is a price for, but, but your people are buying a ticket and then they’re coming to an event and anyone can pay their own admission to come and, and just learn from what you, you have learned. And that, that hasn’t really changed. That’s been the core through your whole career. And then out of that, you’ve gotten keynotes and consulting and you’ve sold some products. And you also had your practice that you sold off, but like just basically hosting public educational events. You basically, it’s been your main business, the whole career. JD (00:25:43): Yeah. I think I’ve made about a quarter of a billion dollars doing that. So I think that that’s been a good model, but I think RV (00:25:51): I would say, so you, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s not nothing a quarter of a million dollars is that’s a pretty good bit of coin. JD (00:26:00): Yeah. The, the thing is the, the speaking, you know, I, because I had a speech impediment speaking is probably the most inspiring thing I get to do. And because I had learning problem learning and delivering something that’s novel and unique to people, you know, it’s original information. It’s not something that’s canned from somebody else. I don’t copy people. I create original ideas that serve people and and synthesize and Ize information. So I’ve, I’ve, I’ve done a lot of reading to try to make, distinguish that from just anybody out there it’s solid information. So that, that’s my core thing. I just do it every single day so that you, you, somebody, I have people sometimes coming back to a program multiple times because they, they want, they know there’s something new every time that’s that’s part of my model is just to continue. Even if I do the same program, it’s I keep refining and adding and building and, and educating myself. That’s my responsibility. RV (00:27:03): Huh. Yeah. I’ve always kind of thought of myself as almost like a Civ, right? Like as the reason people pay me is not for the time with me, they’re paying me for the time I’ve spent condensing information from other places and, and, and exactly. It seems very much like how, how, how you view yourself, how do you get people to come? I mean, at this point, I guess you’ve had the email list and social media for years and word of mouth, but like, but like literally, how do you get people to come? Do you just have a team that says, Hey, you know, create an online page and we send email blasts and drive ads to JD (00:27:38): It. I don’t, I don’t, I have no idea. I don’t say that I don’t do that. I just research right. Travel, teach their job is to help me spread my message across the world. That’s their, I hire people whose vision and mission are congruent with what I’m intending. And I tell them, and I inspire them to what my vision is and help me do it. Let’s go, go make it happen. So I couldn’t tell you everything that goes behind the scenes on social media. I know we’re in all those things, but I don’t do all that. I, I, all I do is if they want me to do a message on some sort of social media, they send me a link on a zoom and they tell me this is the topic or whatever. And I just do a dissertation on it. And then they take care of all that I don’t. No, I couldn’t tell you I’m I didn’t even have a cell phone till last year. I don’t deal with that. RV (00:28:31): I love it. Are these people, employees or contracts, like vendors that you hire or does it matter? JD (00:28:38): There are some that I guess you would classify as contract. I think there’s a little of all that, cuz there’s somebody that’s kind of does management and does things and they hire people and I don’t even know all the people cause I have a south African office and I’ve got for a while there, we had people in Tokyo and Sydney and South Africa and the states and London and, and so I don’t even know all the different people until I get there. And then I recognize them and I say hi to ’em, but I don’t, I don’t, I Don manage. So I don’t do all that. All I’m all I do is write, travel, teach depend. Yeah. I don’t know all the different prices. RV (00:29:16): Yeah, yeah, no, that’s okay. But I, I, I, I, I just, I paused the recording here. Y’all for a second. Cuz I wanted to ask, ask Dr. D Martin, if he’s comfortable sharing the prices, cuz I wondered, you know, how much char these and you know, it’s, it’s really, you’ve stayed so true to just doing your thing. But it’s fascinating because you know, identifying that through line is that you’re a teacher you’re doing exactly what you said you would, but you’re the teacher in your own classroom, you created your own school, your own events, people used to pay or they started out paying $20 per seat to come. How much do they pay now? JD (00:29:54): It depends. I mean, sometimes there’s just little webinars, a little simple webinar, they still pay small amounts. And then there’s sometimes one and two and three and five and 10 day seminars, two week seminars. It depends on what we do. And each of those go up in price, they could range from oh $1,200. I’d say a thousand to $1,200 up to $7,000. It depends on what we’re doing. And the, and the things now, since zoom has come down, we’ve been able to bring prices down because we don’t have the logistics of the flights and the venues and all that. So we’ve been able to keep those prices down. But so some of the higher prices are down a bit closer to the five, 5,006,000. But, but that’s, you know, it depends on the logistics and what we, we, we just take what I, what I have is my fee. And then we find out all the cost and we put those together and we calculate that and we pass that on. RV (00:30:47): Interesting. So that’s a interesting way of figuring out the pricing. So you basically take your speaking fee. Plus you take the cost of the event. You add ’em together. You figure out how many seats are available, divide it, take the total cost divided by the number of seats. And there’s your, there’s your price. But with zoom, you’re able to bring, bring that. And I just, I, I, I, I, I love this. There’s so many reasons that I love this, but your whole story is one of just being told you, you know, you can’t do it. You’re not gonna be able to do it. You’re not good enough to do it. And, and then you basically take into your own hands and completely defy that. And I know a lot of people that are listening to this show, Dr. D martini, they feel that way in the industry, right? RV (00:31:32): Somebody, they, they maybe aren’t struggling with a speech impediment or you know, the, the kinds of things that you were, but somebody is saying, you know, you’ll never be a great speaker. Like you’ll never get booked to speak on a stage. You’ll get a book deal. Like my company will never hire someone like you. And I think there’s so much of this industry that people go, Ooh, I got a book deal from a publisher. Or I got a company that hired me to do a consulting engagement, or I got a speaker’s bureau that decided I was good enough to pitch me to their client. And I got a, a speaking engagement through the, these third parties. We forget how much of the world is available to us directly. And when you look at mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, my personal mentor was one of ’em was Zig Ziegler. RV (00:32:18): You look at Dave Ramsey, you look, you look at Tony Robbins, you look at Tom Hopkins and Brian, Tracy, and, and, and it, all of these people and your story syncs up with that is going, you can find your own clients. You can hire yourself for your own speeches. You can, you can be your own publisher just by adding value to people’s lives. And whether it’s on a cassette tape or it’s in a venue or it’s on zoom, I just it’s, it’s inspiring to me as, you know, at least in this case, usually I’m starting to be the older guy in the room, but you’ve got many years on me in this industry inspiring to go that has worked. And it will always, it will always work JD (00:33:00): Well when the whys big enough, the house take care of themselves. As the old proverb says, when you have a big enough reason to get a message out into the planet. If the publisher I got rejected by publishers, I got night and gal KOAC rejected me three times. Now, they’re, they’re putting in products out. You know, that that rejection just means refinement. It doesn’t mean anything else. It just means, you know, they’re either not resonant or it’s time to refine what you’re doing, or just keep going and publish yourself. So I published many books on my own before I did the others. I didn’t let any of that. Stop me from my mission. My mission was to, I wanted to reach billions of people on the planet. And so we do so that’s we, but that means I may do find podcasts 10 podcast in a day, or, or go sit at the BBC and do 21 radio shows in a day. JD (00:33:46): I mean, I don’t, I don’t care. I don’t care what it takes. I just on a mission to get it done. That’s that’s, if you, if you have a, an attitude that there’s no option, we’re going forward, we’re making this thing happen. How do we do? And you’ll, you’ll, you’ll find the way you’ll find the people, the people, places, things, ideas and events will synchronize in your life and show up in your life. If you’re just committed to the outcome. All I wanted to do is study the greatest teachings on the face of the earth, by the greatest minds I ever lived, summarize synthesize Ize that gather that information devour, synthesize it, come up with something original out of it by the, a transcend awareness and deliver that in such a way that inspired people to go out and do exactly what they would love to do and show them how they can do it. I, I was told I couldn’t, I, I found out I could and they, they may think they can. And if they, if they all of a sudden follow some basic principles, they absolutely can. I, I, I, there’s no doubt in my mind that people can do something extraordinary their life. If they decide to do, it’s just, I’m just gonna pass the torch from what I’ve learned. That’s all. RV (00:34:52): I love it. That is so inspiring. Dr. D martini, where do you want people to go to connect with you? If they wanna like, stay in touch with what you’re up to or find out, find out more about your work. JD (00:35:03): All they have to do is go to Dr. D martini.com, D R D E M a R T I i.com Dr. D martin.com. They could spend the rest of their life on that, that website, cuz there’s so many interviews and YouTubes and things to read. And it’s an educational website. You know, people always said, you know, this is how you make it a sales website and stuff. And people buy stuff on there. But that wasn’t my intention. My intention was an educational website. So I get told that’s not how you’re supposed to do it. And I said, you don’t understand your mission is a sales before content I’m as content before sales, sales comes, take takes care of itself. If I do something that’s a value. So it’s an education and you’d almost have to believe in Buddhist reincarnation, cuz you’re gonna need a bunch of lives to probably be able to absorb what’s on there. There’s a lot of on there. So you’re gonna have to come back again. RV (00:35:54): Well I know, I know you are, but then it’s it’s like what your dad said, right? I mean, it was that idea. If your dad said it, basically if you over deliver, you’ll never have to worry about business. And that’s JD (00:36:08): My dad was correct. And I thank him for that. I had a, you know, my dad was an engineer and he had background in philosophy and he, he always, he’d never figured out how he could make a living on philosophy. And he said, but son, you figured out how to study the sciences and religions and philosophies of the world and psychologies and stuff. And you, you were able to do it. So he kind of, he used to come to my class and both, both my, the whole family used to come to the class and it was inspiring to see my dad and mom there. It was just lovely. RV (00:36:37): That’s so cool. Well thanks for sharing your, your, some of your personal story and your family and the background. It, it really is inspiring. And but your, JD (00:36:48): Can I share one more story? Can I say one more thing? RV (00:36:51): Yeah. I, I know JD (00:36:52): Where to go. When met Paul, when I met Paul brag in 1972, he had daughter named Patricia brag, a controversial background on that, but there’s, but that’s his daughter that took on and she took over the business when he passed. Well, it was interesting. I was speaking in Honolulu at Waikiki, the Hyat and I was doing my breakthrough experience program and in the back of the room in walks, Patricia brag. And after I, I, I took a break and, and at the break, she came up to me and she’s four foot seven. She comes up to me with this pink outfit on this hat and she comes up to me and she says, that was inspiring. And I said, thank you. And I knew who she was because I, I recognized her from Paul Bragg’s books and her books. And she said, you remind me of my father. RV (00:37:46): Amazing. JD (00:37:46): That meant a lot. And she then with my daughter, she sat with my daughter and she said, if you ever have an opportunity and you have an inspiration and it feels natural for you to want to carry on the work that your father’s doing. Just know it was inspiring for me to be able to do that with my dad. Well, my daughter is now teaching and doing insulting and doing this and doing and taking over. So she says, step aside, pop on taking over. So I’m still gonna be around for another 10,000 years, but I’m gonna be doing program. I’m gonna doing seminars with Wei boards in the afterlife. So that’s okay. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll be selling Wei de Martin Wei boards probably that they can tap into. That’s RV (00:38:27): A joke. That’s that’s funny. JD (00:38:29): My daughter, my daughter is definitely up and coming and she’s, she’s on the, on the ball now. RV (00:38:36): Yeah, well that is, that is so cool. And you know, I, I, I feel very much connected to that lineage of just all the personal development teachers that have come before. And it’s, it’s, it almost just feels like an honor to sit, sit in that stream and that, that stream of consciousness as it flows from one generation to the next. And obviously at brand builders group, we serve mission driven messengers. And so we very much feel like this podcast is mentoring. Those who, you know, are, are where I was 20 years ago going, how do you become a New York times best seller. And how do you get in the hall of fame of public speaking and how do you make this your full-time business and how do you speak in front of thousands of people? And it’s just like, it just passes from one generation to the next and it’s, it’s, it’s an honor to just be able to carry some, some small part of that torch for some number of years was really, really, really great. JD (00:39:33): It, it’s a, it’s a great industry and there’s some, you know, some great people in there that have left great marks. I was chatting, we did a little thing with Dennis Waitley recently, you know, we did a, his I dunno you saw, I saw pictures or two ago when RV (00:39:48): I did, because Darren Hardy, I think Darren wasn’t Darren Hardy there too. JD (00:39:52): I don’t remember who all was there, cuz I just did an hour with him and and that’s fantastic. I think he may be trying to meet us up in, in Tahiti next week, this coming week. So I don’t know. I’m gonna see if I he’s gonna come on, try to hang on out on RV (00:40:05): This. Well, I saw pictures of an event and I recognized of course I recognized Dennis Waitley and then I recognized several people that were in the room and it was like, wow, that, that was a, was, it was a room full of legends. So that’s really cool. Yeah. JD (00:40:20): Well, I, I went to, I went to zigs class when I was 20 and I went and I went to Dennis Wheatley’s class back when I was about that age. So I, I remember him, I, we met way back then we, I spoke with Dennis Waitley in 1984 together in Chicago and also Wayne Dyer and you know, Deepak and all the characters. RV (00:40:40): Yeah. JD (00:40:41): And so I got, I had, I be, I’ve been blessed to meet a lot of great people along the way and yeah, they all add a little piece to the puzzle along the way we all do. Yeah. RV (00:40:48): Yeah. You know, that’s the other thing about this industry that’s really amazing is just, I mean, I guess it’s probably true for most industries, but it’s like, if you hang around long enough, you end up meeting all these people like it, there it’s, you know, you end up being at the parties, you’re sharing the stage with them. You’re in the green room. You’re, you’re on the TV shows you have book launches at the same time. You, you know, you’re on each other’s podcast these days or whatever. It’s it’s really fulfilling. Well, thank you for sharing part of that legacy and, and that history with us today and such, such an inspiring story. And I, I, I know that there are people listening right now who will go, yeah, I can just do this. I can just find people to help and love on and I can be in charge of my own destiny and put on my own events and just pour into their lives. And if I over deliver, I I’ll never have to worry about business. So we wish you the best Dr. John, and you know, make sure you hit Dr. D martini.com. If you get him, if you get a chance and, and go over there and check out some more about him and what he’s up to and, and his, and we just, we look forward to staying in touch and, and all the best. JD (00:41:57): Thank you so much for having me on your show and for asking questions and appreciate it very much. Thank you. Speaker 3 (00:42:03): Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re in interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon. RV (00:42:50): I had no idea that I was going to love the interview that I did with Dr. John D martini. As much as I did that interview was inspiring. It was informative. It was instructional. Like I thought that was so cool and awesome. And I mean, there are so many great lessons from that, and I’m gonna draw out just, just like always, I’m gonna share with you sort of like my, my top takeaways, my top highlights for you and how I’m gonna apply them to my life and how I think you might be able to apply them to yours and to your business. But the, the very first one here is the story of how he started his business. What was it? 40 years ago? 40 years ago, he spoke for free to generate clients for his practice. He spoke for free. Then he started charging $20 a seat. RV (00:43:48): And now today he charges $7,000 per seat. This is always the model like this is the model. And it’s like from 40 years ago to, to 30 years ago, to 10 years ago, to five years ago to two years ago, you gotta speak for free. You gotta you’re you’re you gotta get out there. I mean, we call this chicken on a stick in inside of our, our membership community. It’s like, you’re walking through whole foods and they give you chicken on a stick, or you go through the food court. They give you chicken on a stick. Why? Because people need to sample. They need to get a taste of what you’re about. They need to get an opportunity to know a little bit about who you are and to experience a little bit of benefit enough to where they go. That was fabulous. I want more. RV (00:44:33): And so that, that principle has never changed and it never will change, right? Like it’s the fastest way to take someone from a stranger, right? Why do they spend money giving out samples and stores? Because you know, I don’t know your brand. And, and it’s like, you rarely see it with big brands, right? Like if Doritos launches some new chip, they’re not given away tons of samples across the nation, typically because it’s Doritos. Everyone is like, yeah, I know Doritos. I’ll try it. Like I like, if you like Doritos, I don’t. But like, if you like Doritos, you go, okay, I’m gonna try this. Cuz I recognize the brand. But especially the newer brand, the younger, the brand, the, the, the more lesser known the brand is the more important it is for the sample. Right? And you go, I’ve never heard of this type of chicken, but you know, or this season, but you put it in your mouth and you go, oh my gosh, that’s incredible. RV (00:45:25): And in that case, it’s like, the product is selling itself, not the brand. And, and when you, when you’re just starting out as a personal brand, your product, your expertise, your content, like it is your content that people are buying. They’re buying the solution to per, to their problem. They’re buying your methodology. They’re, they’re buying the idea that you are an expert later, when you break through Shehan, while they’re buying you, they’re buying you because it’s you, right. That’s what everybody did with Gary. Vaynerchuck’s NFT thing with V friends, right? Half the people who bought it didn’t even understand it. They don’t even know what the heck it is. Like they still probably don’t understand it, cuz it’s like new and pretty complicated. But you go, why did they buy it? Because it’s Gary V because they trust him. But in the, but, but, but millions of people are sampling him every day and have been for 15 years. RV (00:46:17): What are you doing for people to sample you? They have to sample you. They have to have a free chapter, a free download a podcast, a a, a video of you, several videos on social, your blog, right? Like everything that we do in the relationship engine ecosystem is about creating these little mini assets where people can sample you. They are basically chicken on a stick and they occur as tweets and LinkedIn pulse and blog posts and medium posts and YouTube videos and Instagram videos. Of course, we use the content diamond, which ties that all together from, from just one main video a week that we repurpose. There’s a video on my blog, by the way, if you have, if you’re not familiar with the content diamond, if you’ve never heard me talk about that term, just go to Roy vain, blog.com and then search for content diamond. RV (00:47:08): And it will, it’ll, it’ll pop up. But like the point is you have to put self out there, not even yourself. Like you have to put your content out there, your expertise out there in a way that people can sample it because they’ve never heard of you. But if they like your content, it’ll override it, right? Like just cuz I’ve never heard of this type of seasoning. If, if I taste it and put it in my mouth and go, that was amazing. Like, or I’ve never eaten at this restaurant. If I taste it, I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna eat at this spot in the food court. That that’s how it’s done. And, and Dr. Demar has been doing this for years and it’s just another example of this timeless principle. And so, you know, don’t get lost in the tactics and the like, you know, I don’t, I don’t know if this is working and I don’t like this platform and I’m not like it doesn’t even matter really where it happens. RV (00:47:58): It can be a speech, it can be a podcast, it can be a video, it can be an article. It can be a tweet. It can be any of these things, but you’ve gotta put your expertise out there. You’ve got to add value and solve problems for people and answer questions for them so that they can sample you and build trust. That is why we do. I mean, that’s our whole content marketing strategy. That’s it. The second takeaway from Dr. D martini, which was interesting, cuz I’ve done this and heard a lot of this, but never thought about it quite in this way, which I, it was super sharp was he said, you know, I started speaking for free and then I had a fee and people would pay me. And then as my fee got higher, less and less people could afford me. But what several of the audiences did is they would do a revenue share with me. RV (00:48:49): And, and that is how the conference could afford me. That was how I could get my speaker fee. And, and that’s a really important way to think about it. I mean, especially if you’re beginning, you should be taking every gig you get, like you should be taking every opportunity to practice and hone your craft and, and get out there and, and, you know, rehearse your content, do that and build your email list and all those things. But the other thing is going, if you can make an offer from stage and you can sell something. And typically what we’re gonna say is, I mean, in world class presentation craft, which is our phase one course, three of our curriculum, we teach about the mechanics of what to say you to sell from on stage. And we talk about firm offers like our not firm offers, sorry full offers and soft offers a full offers. RV (00:49:42): When you’re asking for a credit card, a soft offers, when you’re just like offering people a free call or a free download when you’re first starting out, you, if you’re making a full offer, you, I would, I would say you probably wanna keep it under $200. Because it, it takes quite a bit of skill to sell to a room full of people, something north of $200 and not like, you know, turn a bunch of people off. But most of what our clients do and what we do is when we speak, we do soft offers. We don’t sell anything. We give away free calls. And then we do one on one calls and we do the selling there. And that, that is the way to do it. And, and even to this day, there are some events that I will speak at because they don’t have my fee, but they will allow me to do an, an offer. RV (00:50:26): And they will allow me to follow up after the event and get emails and do all this stuff. And we can, we can make our feedback in, in other ways, if it’s the right audience, if they’re, you know, perfect for us. So the revenue share from the sales that come at the events is another way that, that you can get your fee or maybe you don’t even have to do a revenue share with the event. Host. Maybe the deal is you go speak for free, but you get to keep, you get to make an offer and you get to keep all the money at the back. I mean, all of that is kind of like part of the normal negotiation, but don’t just turn away an event because they don’t have your fee, especially if they really want you, like, if they’re really your fans, they’re really your people. RV (00:51:05): They love your stuff. Hopefully, you know, and if you’ve been in our community, hopefully you’re learning ways to monetize. I mean, I know you’re learning the ways cuz we teach ’em to you, but like you have other ways to monetize other than just your speaking fee. And that also opens up a lot more opportunity for places that you can speak. Because even if you don’t get your speaking fee, you can, you can make the same or more by what comes at the back of the room or from free calls after or from getting people on your email list. And then you, you sell, you know, after the event is over and that’s huge. And, and again, part of why I love this conversation is one that’s sharp and kind of like a new way of, you know, just a really clear way of thinking about it, but the other is it shows you that this idea, this is a principle that has been around since the beginning of personal brands like that, that you speak for free, and then you’re selling at the back, and that is how you make your living. RV (00:52:02): And that is how I made my first dollars as a personal brand. I spoke for free and I sold myself published book at the back of the room. And then after that, I spoke for free and I sold tickets to a half day event at the back of the room. And then, you know, from there it evolved and evolved. And then, you know, one, we sold, we sold CD sets for a while, and then we sold courses and then we sold the expensive live event tickets. And then we sold coaching programs. And then you nowadays, we just drive free calls and then we talk to people and then we sell ’em whatever they need. And some of the stuff we sell is 99 bucks. We have, we have stuff that’s 25 bucks, 99 bucks. Most of the stuff we do is obviously our membership program. And we’ve got different tiers of that, that fit sort of every budget. So you can do it. People have done it. Dr. John D. Martinez has built this whole. We are doing it. It has worked, it does work. It will work revenue share from the back of the room. And then the third thing was something was when he was talking about what his dad said, and this is so simple, right? But it’s just so good. He said, son, if you always over deliver, you’ll never have to worry about having enough business. RV (00:53:18): If you always over deliver, you will never have to worry about having enough business that is so strong and clear and simple and profound and true and was true, is true and will be true to come. Like if you always over deliver, if you always give people more than they are expecting, if you always give people more than what they paid for, if you always deliver above and beyond what they need or what they deserve, like what, whatever the transaction is, if you exceed that, you’re never gonna have to worry about business because you’re gonna have advocates out there. I did. I did a reel on this, on my Instagram my handles at Rory Vaden. And I did a reel on this, about how to, how to select the right price. And, you know, my whole, my whole point is going. It doesn’t so matter. RV (00:54:16): It doesn’t so much matter what you charge. It doesn’t so matter. It doesn’t so much matter what your price is. What matters is that you always deliver more than the price that you’re charging for, right? You always deliver more than the price you’re charging for. So it could be a hundred million and you, as long as you’re delivering a billion dollars of value, it’s worth it, right? If it’s $10. And so we use the something that we call the rule of 10, which is price it at one 10th of what it’s actually worth, right? So, you know, if, if our goal, if we’re gonna, you know, let’s say it was $10,000, we wanna deliver a hundred thousand dollars of value that we go. Like, we really believe this is worth a hundred thousand dollars. This will, you will make a hundred thousand dollars from what you’ve learned here. RV (00:55:02): And we’re gonna charge 10,000. That gives you a lot of conviction that gives you a, a lot of strength that gives you a lot of enthusiasm when you’re sharing the price and talking about your program. And you don’t have fear because you’re going, this is, you’d be crazy not to do this, which is how I feel about brand builders. I’m just like, y’all, we are the cheapest, most insanely valuable education. There is. I mean, what we give to our members for what they pay is are tens of millions of dollars. Like we have proven it. Like we have made millions of dollars from these things that we’ve had to learn from 7,900 different sources and pull it together and give it to you step by step. And just going, if you haven’t requested a call with our team, like request a call, like go, go to free brand. RV (00:55:54): What do we say? Pod, pod call, whatever, whatever the advertisement is, you can go to free call.ro vain.com. I know that one works or whatever the ad is that we place on here. But like, if you’re liking this and you’ve been listening to this for a minute, you should request a call, right? Like it costs some money to do, to work with us, but it is extraordinary what people get and the experience and the results that people are having. And the, and the other people in the community alone. Like if you learn nothing, just being around the other members of our community is insane. Like our community is epic. I mean, you’re at an event sitting next to New York times, wrestling, authors and hall of fame speakers, and eight figure entrepreneurs and billionaires and people who’ve sold their, their companies for hundreds of millions dollars and people who are multi seven figure, you know, direct sales or network marketing people. RV (00:56:46): And you know, the top of their profession or their industry. And maybe you’ve never heard of ’em, but they just crush their industry. Like they’re the most well known in their thing. And they’re all just sitting. We’re like all in the same space. It blows me away. Like our members, our clients are the most amazing people, actors and actresses on TV. Obviously the, the author thing, there’s former pro athletes, tons of people with like hundreds of thousands of followers or tens of thousands of followers. And there’s like sitting right next to you at, I mean, our, our events are crazy. So, and that’s how we design it. Right. And it’s, it’s because of exactly what Dr. DM, our teen’s dad told him. And then he did. And so many, you know, Zig Ziegler was one of our mentors and he did it. And like overdeliver, overdeliver give people more than they expect more than they deserve more than they paid for. RV (00:57:37): And watch it come back to you, watch it, change your life, watch it, change your business, watch it radically flood your bank account. Like just do it for a while. Go, how can, what are people expecting? And how can I give ’em more than that? How can I constantly be pushing the envelope of adding value, adding value? And our team is doing this. Like our team is awesome. You know, I’ll, I’ll log into like our members portal and be like, oh my gosh, that’s so cool. Like, where did that feature come from? Because our, our team is just doing it and you wanna create that culture. And even if it didn’t pay off somehow in money, it, it, I mean, it always does, but like, it, it, it pays off an impact. It, it, it pays off in purpose. It, it pays off in this feeling that you’re contributing to the world and that what you’re doing is good and that you’re adding value to people’s lives. RV (00:58:28): And it gives you the conviction that other people should buy from you. And that is worth a lot. It’s worth a lot to you, especially if you have call reluctance and sales reluctance, like I’ve had for so much of my career, cuz I don’t wanna annoy people and I don’t wanna be pushy and I don’t wanna be aggressive. And so you gotta be convicted the value of, of what you do. And, and so use the rule of 10, use the rule of 10. It’s just make sure that the, the value you deliver far exceeds the price that you charge. That’s it make sure the value you deliver far exceeds the price that you charge. Because as Dr D Martin’s dad says, if you, you over deliver, if you always over deliver, you will never have to worry about having enough business. And I hope that you feel loved on as a listener of this show. RV (00:59:19): We would love to talk to you. So hopefully you, at some point, you know, request a call with our team or just keep tuning in like, and, and just keep tuning in or just keep tuning in. We’re here for you. It literally fills us up to know that you are on the other end every week, listening to this show. Like even if we never ever have any financial exchange, it is the greatest like honor and privilege to know that you’re gifting us your attention and your time, and you’re willing to allow us and our guests to be an influence in your life. And it’s just an honor. I mean, and we absolutely love it. So I hope we get to meet you in person at some point. But thank you for tuning in. Thank you for sharing this with your friends. Thank you for leaving your comments and your reviews on iTunes and telling people about this. And just please keep coming back and know that our heart is to overdeliver. And Hey, if you don’t think we’re overdelivering or if you have ideas about how we could leave that as a comment on iTunes, let us know because that’s, that’s the desire of our heart is to, is to really serve you in that way. That’s it for this version of the influential personal brand podcast, Roy Vaden out.