You're not an angry person: what Dr John Demartini told me over dinner

In December 2018 I sat down to dinner in London with Dr John Demartini and asked him why I got so angry. He gave me the answer in about ten seconds: "You're not an angry person. You're just a person right now who's having to do stuff that's not inspiring to you."

I recorded it on my phone, with his OK, and I've played it on podcasts and webinars ever since.

How I ended up at that table

I'd been flown over from Ibiza to organise the official after party for The Personal Development Event of the Year, at the Park Plaza London Riverbank. Dr John Demartini was the headline speaker. If you haven't come across him, he wrote The Values Factor and was one of the teachers in The Secret.

I was a big fan. I'd read The Values Factor. I was there to make sure the party worked, but one of the perks was dinner with him. I got one question in, and I'd been carrying it around for a while.

The question

I've got a short temper. I always have. Little things wind me up, people annoy me, and when there's too much going on at once I go off like a firework.

So I asked him straight: why am I like this?

I'd also told him I had another event the following week, smaller, but it was killing me. So many moving pieces, and I was holding every one of them. I had a few people helping, but not a full team.

The answer

He didn't go into my childhood. He went straight to my week.

When you spend your days doing work that doesn't inspire you, he said, your brain drops into survival mode. You get impulsive. You snap. When you're doing what you love, you're far more resilient, because you're fulfilled.

His fix was simple. Find the person who loves doing the job you hate, and give it to them. Then go and do what you do best.

Then he said the line that stuck: "You're not an angry person."

The second thing he said

I pushed my luck with a follow-up. I told him it wasn't only work. Day to day, people annoy me too.

His answer: if you expect people to live by your values, they'll let you down every time. They live by their own. Be honest about what yours are, let them live by theirs, and work out how they can help you by doing that.

That one took me longer to get than the first.

What I've done with it

I know what I'm good at. I love meeting people, shaking hands, doing deals and building things. I'm a builder and a visionary, not an integrator. Admin and day-to-day organising drain me, and I've got ADHD, so too many moving parts at once is when I'm at my worst.

So the business I run now is built around that. I build, I talk to people, and the work I'm bad at goes to people who are good at it. Our build team handles the detail I'd make a mess of.

I'd love to tell you I never lose my temper now. I'd be lying. With three kids in the house, all different ages, all wanting me at once while I've got work to do, I still get worked up. The difference is I know what it is now. It isn't who I am. It's a signal that I'm doing too much of the wrong work, or I haven't moved enough. When I feel it, I get us all out of the house and down to the park, or I go boxing.

What I'd pass on

If you're snapping at people and you think you're just an angry person, look at your week before you look at yourself. Write down what you did yesterday. Circle the jobs that drained you. Those are the ones to hand over first.

It cost Demartini ten seconds to tell me. It's taken me years to build a life that actually follows it.

Two years before that dinner, I'd written in my goal workbook that I'd learn to control my anger. Here's what else was on that page.