MarieTV and you can probably hear a plane because I’m here in Venice recording in

my little Venice home. So today is special because if you’ve ever had anything happen

in your life that could potentially be traumatic or maybe you’re dealing with weight issues

or relationship issues or financial or business issues and you’ve tried everything but you

can’t seem to break through, my guest today may very well have your answer. And my guest

today, you can see him smiling here, very handsome, good looking guy, Nick Ortner. Nick,

thank you so much for being on MarieTV.

Oh, thanks Marie for having me. Such a pleasure.

So I’ll just brag on Nick a little bit. Nick is the CEO of the company the Tapping

Solution, he’s also one of the people who created this incredible documentary. I’m

sure you’re the lead executive producer of The Tapping Solution. And now today we’re

gonna talk about not only what tapping is, but you’re the proud author of a brand,

new book with the same name. Right? The Tapping Solution.

Exactly. We keep it simple. We keep it nice and easy. The Tapping Solution all the way

through.

I like that because I don't have to remember a lot of things, which I think is perfect,

and if you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting the Ortners before, Nick is with us today

but Jessica is also in the business, which is his sister, and his brother, Alex, is also

in the business, and I love their whole family. It’s a family affair for sure, and they’ve

been able to reach over a half a million people with EFT and tapping, which we’re gonna

talk more about in a few minutes. But I wanted you guys to know the reason that we’re doing

this special episode today, because if you’ve been paying attention for more than a few

weeks, you know that a couple weeks ago Josh and I were in a pretty bad accident and it

shook the crap out of us and I have just not been myself. Right now I’m getting much

better, but Nick has been a friend of mine for a while and he was kind enough to send

me an email and say, “Hey Marie, do you wanna tap on this?” And I will tell you,

my instant body reaction was yes. And even though I’ve known Nick for a long time,

I’ve known Jess for a long time, I’ve known his family, I’ve understood what EFT

was from a psychological perspective in terms of understanding it, but, quite frankly, I

didn't really have a need for it, nor have I ever done it at that point. And so Nick

and I did a session and it was so powerful for me. We were just talking about it before

we started recording. And I felt like, literally, the moment we got done tapping I said, “Nick,

I have to do a MarieTV with you,” and then we realized that his book was coming out and

I was like, “Oh my God, it’s divine timing. Let’s do this.” So that’s the reason

that we’re talking to Nick today and I am so honored to have you here because I know

what launching a book or launching anything is like, so you’ve got a very busy schedule.

So, again, thanks for being here.

It’s a pleasure.

So tell us, because I know a lot of my audience knows about EFT and they’re probably jumping

up and down screaming saying, “Yes!” because they’re fans. But for many thousands who

don't or who may even be slightly skeptical or think, you know, “What is she talking

about?” can you give us the kind of basic description of what EFT or tapping is?

Yeah, we’re throwing out these weird words like tapping. Like, oh, are we gonna start

tap dancing in the middle? Which might happen on a MarieTV episode.

Exactly.

You never know, right? Well, we call it tapping. Another name is EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique,

that’s the kind of tapping we’re doing. And we call it tapping because we’re literally

tapping on these meridian endpoints of our body. I like to describe it as a combination

of ancient Chinese acupressure, that’s the tapping component, or acupuncture, fortunately

without the needles, and modern psychology because as we tap we’re saying certain statements,

we’re focusing on problems, on challenges, on what’s going on in our lives. You know,

for a long time the discussion with EFT and tapping was about the meridians and the energy

system and things that, Marie, you and I probably believe in and think, “Yeah, there’s probably

more to the body than we see.” Right.

You know, maybe there are chakras, maybe there are ancient systems that... but we don't see

them and we haven’t been able to document them in the ways that we’d like to. The

exciting thing is that the new research, the really Western scientific research, is also

proving why this is working and, in a nutshell, it’s showing that when we are focused on

a traumatic issue, on a vent, on something that stresses us out, and your car accident

is a great example, we talked in detail about the process there. When we focus on it, we

trigger the amygdala in our body, and that’s that stress response, that fight or flight

response, that very ancient part of our brain that we’re all very familiar with either

from traumatic events or from daily stress. You know?

Yeah.

Where it’s triggered and we feel it on our body. So we trigger the response and then

we do the tapping and the tapping has been shown through scans and a bunch of other research

to actually send a calming signal to the amygdala. We’re doing the tapping and the tapping

is saying, “It’s safe. You’re safe.” And that’s why we can retrain and rewire

the brain to act and react differently. To be able to think about something that happened

a week ago, a year ago, 10 years ago, it’s still stressing us out when we think about

it today, do the tapping and then think about it differently and let it go and actually

move past it. I mean, that’s really, to me, the power of this technique, that it goes

beyond positive thinking, which I totally believe in.

Yeah.

It goes beyond talk therapy and psychology, which can serve a role. It actually physically,

in the body, clearing through these events, emotions, traumas, etcetera.

So exciting. So I know, because I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of your book,

I know a little bit about your history. But can you tell us, like, the short version of

how you even stumbled upon this? Because you don't strike me as the kind of guy who is,

like, necessarily flying off to Asia or, you know, doing acupuncture work. Not that you

wouldn't do that stuff, but I’m just...

Oh, I have a doctorate in acupuncture. I didn’t tell you? You know, you’re right. I was

living my life but I was into, I think like a lot of us, it’s like we have our job,

I was doing web design and marketing consulting for a couple of years and then real estate.

And then there was this other part that was just exploring things. You know? Reading Wayne

Dyer and Louise Hay and going to Tony Robbins events and just doing the self help thing

to find more ways to improve my life. I was always searching for a better life experience.

Yeah.

I kept reading about this weird tapping thing and it was like, “Alright. I mean, really?

Like, let’s be honest here. We’re tapping, at one point it’s on the top of the head

so now we look like monkeys. Like, what are you talking about?” I had the same reaction.

I’d read about it and back then, this was about 10 years ago, there wasn’t the science

and research there is today, so it was even further into woo woo land. You know?

Yes.

Now it’s getting a lot more grounded, but back then it wasn’t but I kept hearing so

many stories. Somebody with pain relief. “Oh, I had pain for 20 years. I did the tapping,

it went away.” You know? And you read these stories where people are in tears writing

saying, “This has changed my life,” you know?

Yes.

“I couldn’t lose the weight. I had cravings I couldn’t control. I always felt stuck

in my business. I was scared to speak in public,” all these things and people were getting over

it. So I read enough of those stories and you get to the point where you go, “Ok,

my cynicism just needs to go away.” You know?

Yes.

And I have to try it. So I remember one of my first experiences, it was really something

pretty basic, but I woke up one morning with neck pain. And you know when you sleep wrong,

I don't know. I don't know if you wrestle your husband or wife at night or what but

it happens. You wake up like, “Oh, really?” You know? And it’s not that bad but it hurts

and all day you’re kind of a robot because people say something to you and you go like

this. You know?

Yes, yes.

It’s not fun. Alright? So I said, “Let me try this weird tapping thing on this neck

pain.” So I’m looking online and looking at the points and saying the statements and

next thing I know it was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s gone.” Like just a total release.

And, look, if all it did was work on pain relief, it would be exciting by itself. Right?

I mean, there’s a lot of people watching who probably have some sort of physical pain.

Absolutely.

So if all it did was that, that’d be great. But what I really thought about that day,

what that moment was so important to me for, is that I started asking myself, “Ok, I

woke up this morning with one world view and it said, ‘I have neck pain. I’m gonna

have this for 2 or 3 days. I can take some Advil, I can stretch it out, but that’s

just the way life is.’ Now I do this weird tapping thing that makes no sense, at least

on the surface. It makes sense if you go deeper. It makes no sense and this pain is gone.”

So I started asking myself, “What other parts of my life could I apply that to?”

You know? I think so many of us walk around saying, “These things happen to me and this

is just the way I am.” And I think one of the first steps in personal growth and development

is taking that responsibility and saying, “You know what? I’m playing a role here

and I have something to do with my business success and my emotional success and my relationship.”

I think most of the people watching this are probably at that stage where they’ve said,

“I gotta shape up. I gotta take responsibility. This is up to me.”

Yeah.

The challenge is, it’s one thing to learn that, it’s another thing to know what to

do about it. Right? So you know... and that was my first experience. You know, Tony Robbins

events 15 years ago, I learned to take responsibility and I could will myself to do stuff for a

couple weeks or a couple months and then I’d go back and do my own same crap again. You

know?

Right.

And it was like, “How am I going to change this?” And tapping, for me, was my way to

change that. To get to the real root, right, to the core events that happened. You know,

speaking... like, speaking in public, for example, getting your voice out in the world,

all these things that are so important that I know that people watching now on MarieTV

really wanted to do. If you have traumatic events from your childhood, if you have stuff

you haven’t let go of, if you were 7 years old talking in front of the class and the

kids laughed at you, you can still be holding onto that, and that’s precisely the thing

that’s holding you back right now. So my experience has been that, of just trying it

for myself, I shared it with friends, with family, you know, the running joke was, “Don’t

say anything is wrong around Nick because we’re gonna tap out.” You know? It was

like... and still...

I have to interrupt because you, you know, you even said that to me. You sent me that

sweet email and we’re friends and you’re like, “I know I don't wanna seem like a

bug here, but I really think we should tap on this, Marie.” It was so sweet. So I get

that.

Of course I’m less pushy 10 years later than I was in the beginning. But, still, when

I see somebody in need I’m like, “Uhhhh.” You know, our mutual friend, Kris Carr, she

can tell you the story of we were climbing up a mountain and she has a terrible fear

of heights... had a terrible fear of heights. And we’re going up this mountain and she