EntreLeadership - Mental Habits to Help You Keep Your Sanity with Dr. John Delony

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Join us as our host, George Kamel, talks with bestselling author and Ramsey Personality Dr. John Delony. They sit down to talk about the habits successful people need to stay well. Later, John explains how to increase your resilience and how that’s tied to your mental and physical health. You’ll learn: •      What the media is not telling you about small businesses •      Why winter is so depressing •      How to help your team fight seasonal depression •      How isolation is slowly killing us Support our sponsors: •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      BELAY: https://bit.ly/351P9AE Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Own Your Past, Change Your Future by Dr. John Delony: https://bit.ly/3DsDhoJ •      Listen to The Dr. John Delony Show: https://bit.ly/3j2p3Vc •      Register for EntreLeadership Summit 2023: https://bit.ly/3Uw3PMQ •      If you have a leadership or business question for Dave, call and leave a voicemail at: 844.944.1070 Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download the Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're kicking off the year with a five-part series on the most important habits you need to develop as a leader. And this is the fourth episode in the series, so if you miss the last few, be sure to go back and take a listen. On today's episode, we're talking about the habits successful people have to keep from breaking under pressure. Welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcast from the Ramsey Network, where we help you learn the proven principles for winning as a business leader. I'm your host, George Camel, and each week here on the podcast, I sit down with some of the best leadership minds out there to help you grow yourself, your team, and your profits. In our first segment today, Dr. John Deloney is going to share some of the habits successful people need to stay well.

Then after that segment, he's going to stick around to dive into how to increase your resilience, your perseverance, and how that's all tied to your mental and physical health. So joining me now is Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, best-selling author, and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show. Welcome, John. What's up, man? Good to have you back. And also with you.

We wanted a full episode of Just John. I am a long-term beneficiary of people who cancel at the last minute. And they're like, hey, Gondolone, come. So he come to both seconds? No, we specifically wanted you for this one because mental health is an issue that leaders aren't realizing is one of the keys to success personally, professionally, with their families. And you've noticed this as you've been speaking to many of them at our Entree leadership events. What are you seeing? Well, I think there's the speaking at the events, but where I really have had my perspective.

have changed is by travel in the country and sit with folks in their boardroom meetings or in their offices, sometimes even in their homes. And there's a couple of things happening. One, business leaders keep reporting back to me that they are experiencing something different than what the media is telling them. I sat with a group of leaders just a few weeks ago and they were all saying, our business is really, really busy. And everybody's telling me that there's a recession and the end of times are here. And there's a bunch of tech companies laying off people. am I crazy? And they were all, everybody at the table was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're having another record year, or maybe it's not as crazy as it was in 2021, but we're really busy.

And so I think it's important for business leaders to begin to focus on reality and get out of the news. Get out of the cycle, get off the drama, get off of the constant spin-up, spin-down cycle of cortisol and adrenaline, and just deal with reality as it's presented to you. Is your business struggling right now? Do you all need to pivot, hardcore? are y'all doing really well and we're going to continue to be smart about our finances but we're going to ride this thing out right that's the first one the second thing i'm hearing and has been a shift man people aren't asking questions about like hey i've got somebody with ADHD and my family or you know my marriage is rocky there's there's marriage-related questions but the bigger questions i'm

hearing are are we going to make it has democracy run aground is this the end of it for all of us and we just need to get what we can and so again it goes to back to this what I think this poison air that's that's circling our country circling the globe right now which is it's all coming down and I just don't think that's true I don't think there's anything that would lead me in that direction to think it's this is the end this is the end this is the end and so I want people to begin to choose to seek beauty in their days to find relationships with people to inject joy into their lives and find pleasure in their business again man So when it comes to leaders spinning out, feeling like they're on the verge of burnout or a lot of anxiety,

what seems like what you're saying is your inputs matter way more than you know. The things that you're allowing into your brain, the voices you're allowing into your head, that then has a trajectory effect on the rest of your day, the rest of your life. And the things you do, right? So it's not about I don't want to be anxious anymore or I want to be mentally well. man, those are all byproducts of the life you've chosen to lead. So I like to think of it in terms of how do I create a non-anxious life? How do I create a life worth living, right?

And that might mean I'm going to take 25,000 fewer dollars this year as a drawdown and I'm going to hire a part-time employee that's going to help pick up my dry cleaning. Do things like, you see what I'm saying? Like I want to create a life that I want to live. I don't want to continue to let my life dictate everything about me. or just do the next busy thing and the next busy thing and next busy thing. And if you create a life worth living, if you create a non-anxious life, your anxiety alarms shut themselves off. And they just ring when you need them, right?

You don't feel as low all the time if you're exercising and you're hanging out with friends and you've got people that are in your life that you don't work with. And you also have great relationships with people you do work with and your business is successful and you're growing. And all of a sudden, this quote unquote mental health stuff that's burying people, it tends to shift and morph and not become so front center anymore. Yeah, and for so many people listening, the leaders

I know, they have a high pain tolerance, they can just white-knuckle it and make it. It almost seems like they can build a tolerance to it where they don't really connect with some of the symptoms that you're talking about. How do you kind of self-assess to go, am I really experiencing this? What's beneath the surface?

How do you kind of go deeper? In the long term, I think you want to get back in touch with this sounds so... Dude, I know what I'm about to say? It sounds so cheesy. Like we're making our own granola in here and having chamomile tea and whatever.

Sounds wonderful. George is like, this is great. From flowers we picked ourselves in the forest, right? And I don't know if camo flowers are growing the forest. That's real. Our bodies are alarm systems, man. And if you wake up every day and your eyes fling open at 2.30 in the morning,

and your heart's already beaten 100 miles an hour and you're just spinning and spinning. Your body's telling you, hey, we can't fully sleep because we're under threat right now. And then you can go, okay, cool, thanks for letting me nobody. I'm not going to drug you up. I'm not going to drug you up. I'm not going to get all raged out and angry. I'm not going to go try to silence those alarms with more gummy bears and whatever baked goods might be in the house. Not that I've ever, ever, ever done that. Not personal at all. I'm going to ask myself, where am I disconnected? Where am I not safe, right? Do I owe somebody too much money? Am I not being honest about the trajectory of my business isn't good? Am I running out of employees?

Because I'm too frazzled of a leader for people to want to follow. I need to ask those questions and I want to learn to listen to my body. In the short term, I got to get a group of men or women around me that I meet with regularly that I can be completely honest with. not just that I can flex with or not so that I can be totally honest with and there's something there's a reason that every major religion throughout history has confession community as cornerstones because that's the key to healthy life right and so as a business owner I got to get people in my life that I can just sit and be honest with and that is the path in the woods towards healing So as we wrap, what are some of the non-negotiable habits, some of the daily rhythms, weekly rhythms leaders need to have

across the board from mental health to physical health? That's a good question. Are there things that's like, if you're not doing this, you're going to burn out this year. Are there things like that? Yeah, if you don't take care of, if you don't change oil in the car, it's going to stop. At some point it stops.

If you don't put gas in the car, at some point it stops, right? So if you don't take care of your physical body, if you don't sleep if you don't 80% 90% of the time eat some semblance of something right you know what I mean

if you don't deal with that nagging weight issue that's your hips hurt and your knees hurt your back hurts and your head hurts right if you've got physical challenges

that you haven't dealt with you need to get them taken care of that will impact your ability to lead other people long term the vehicle by which your leadership

moves to the world will break down on you you got to have relationships and man I wish I wish that wasn't true. I'm an introvert. I like just sitting with my little nerdy books in my basement,

like, and then occasionally like getting the guitar and playing some little heavy metal riffs and going back to my nerd books. I have to know that that's starving my body of oxygen. It's going to kill me long term. It's going to make me stew in my own thoughts and then think and then overthinking. And now I've got Google and I can super overthink. I got to have real people in my life. And then the third thing is I've got to have activities. I've got to have things that I do outside of work, right?

That stretch my mind, stretch my body, stretch my activities. stretch my community, and I go different things. And so I, you know, I work real hard here. I love the work that I get to do. And then I spend a lot of time in the woods hunting or I spend a lot of times in the summer fishing. I spend a lot of times outdoors with my kids because I got to do other things to turn this thing off for a while, let it rest. So if there was one exercise, you would say, hey, leader, if you feel that kind of anxiety bubbling up, you're feeling overwhelmed, what is one simple exercise they can do in that moment to kind of just recalibrate? I think when the alarms go off, you got to write it out, right?

You got to write it out. And so I need to, A, I'll give you a couple. I have to know in my head I'm not dying. I'm all right. I got to, like, my body's spun out, here we go, right? And so I'm not going to fight it, right? I'm going to, box breathing is a big thing. And like breathing in four or five, holding it for four or five,

exhaling for four or five, holding it for four or five. and if you're not driving like that's a whole other podcast I did that while I was driving and I wrecked my car but doing it for 30 seconds for a minute, a minute and a half getting your breathing back under control skin to skin contact is important

so if you're with the friend I was just talking about another interview I pulled into the parking lot about a year ago and somebody's having a panic attack in the parking lot and there was a whole bunch of people leaning into the car really almost making it worse trying to care and love but it was just suffocating that person And so I walked over and cleared everybody out

And I didn't even know the person that well And I grabbed her hand and said Well you go for a walk with me and she said yes And I took her hand and I put it on my wrist And then after we walked around the parking lot for a minute I said can I put my hand on the back of your neck Just like this and she said yes And then we just walked

And then I said hey what are you seeing And she was like well there's the grass And there's the parking lot And then within just a few minutes Her body's like I we're safe right So skin and skin contact is good Movement is good right It's just some of these

basic, I wish it was more complex or basic. There's no life hacks here, John. It is a life hack, right? It's like to regain your life, yeah. Man, well, this is super helpful. I hope a lot of these tips help our leaders out there to avoid spinning out because we need them in our communities. We need them to be the great leaders we know them to be.

And part of it is taking care of this stuff, even though it doesn't feel leadershipy in that way. So, John, always love having you on. Thanks for joining us for this segment. Thanks, man. All right, if you want to hear more from John, you can do that. He's going to be joining us for Entree Leadership Summit 2023, so you don't want to miss him alongside the rest of an incredible speaker lineup, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Malcolm Gladwell, Manit Chohan, Pat Lynch, Dave Ramsey, just to name a few.

So you've got to get your tickets now. It's happening in Nashville, Tennessee, May 30th through June 2nd. You can go to Entreeleadership.com slash summit to secure your spot. Now, don't move a muscle because we're going to be right back with more Dr. John Deloney to dive in on how to increase your resilience and perseverance this year. All right, welcome back. We are here with Dr. John Deloney, talking about how to increase your resilience, your perseverance,

and how it's all tied to your mental and physical health. So we're switching gears here to talk about something that you've talked about recently on your show, which is seasonal effective disorder, also known as winter blues. Some can call it seasonal depression. Sad. Sad.

Sad. That's right. I'm sure whoever came up with that was like, this is brilliant. Some grad students somewhere is still talking about it. Yes. And a lot of leaders out there, I'm sure they're going, yeah, this segment's not for me, John. I don't, this is not an issue for it.

Oh, it is. Yes, it is. It's not an issue, John. Yes, it is. I don't live in a winter climate, so we're fine. How would you kind of diagnose what this is in someone? I'll stay away from the diagnostics. Here's what happened to me.

I lived about 30 minutes from the time zone change in West Texas. right so if i had gone 30 minutes west the time zone changes maybe 45 minutes west the time zone changes then i moved to nashville if i go 45 minutes east the time zone changes that way and so i was stunned to find out after daylight savings time in the winter in Nashville i remember looking out my window after a meeting and it was it was pitch black like midnight and i thought oh no i've missed dinner I've missed everything, and I go racing out of the building. It's 4.15 in the afternoon. I was like, am I in Alaska?

I feel like I'm on the moon. And so I remember the first winter I spent in Nashville. It wasn't as cold as it was. It was in Texas. It was gray, and it was just heavy, and I was busy. And I remember about February, March, thinking, I hate everything in my life. All I want to do is eat donuts all day long.

I wish every human in my life would leave me a love. and I just want to sit in a dark, cold hole, which is where I happen to be right now. And I remember walking to work one day. Again, it's pitch black in the morning. It's pitch black at night. And it hit me. This is the longest my body's ever gone without sunlight.

Like, I was getting no sun. I wasn't moving. I just was slowly drawing the curtains up over my own head, right? And so I really kind of went down a rabbit hole into seasonal defective disorder and how it impacts your work productivity, how it impacts teams, how it impacts marriages and kids and all of that.

And so I don't care who you are. It affects you. If you go to work in the dark and go home in the dark, your body, it just starts to get out of whack. Absolutely. It's like, well, it's sleepy time. Let's pump the body full of sleepy time chemicals. And it's hard to crush and kill it, drag it home when your body's like, it's bad time. It's tough.

And so that's why we talk about resilience and perseverance. Right now, it's just like, can we get through a winter of just dark and cold and gross and gray on top of the fact that, you know, holidays come around, we start eating poorly, and the resolutions and goals start to fall off that we had personally, and we just go, well, I'll still crush it in business as a leader, and that'll be fine. You know, that's what I mean to do. I saw a great social media post the other day that said, I'm going to start a new gym called resolutions, and for January and February, it's going to have weight room equipment in it, and from March to December, it's just going to be like a bar. I thought, genius. You can buy a membership for the year.

That sounds fantastic, yeah. So how do we begin to fight against us as a leader before it gets to that point? Are there things we can do? Obviously, we can't, you know, manufacture sunlight, but there are ways we can still fight against us. Literally we have, actually. I did that this morning. I think the most important thing is to own reality. I know that if I look at my books, Q1 is a tough time for my company, right?

or I've got more guys out sick. I've got more of my men and women who are leading our company or on the front lines of our company are reporting that their kids are sick or that they're exhausted or there's more drama, whatever. Let's just own it. People feel a little bit low when it's cold and they don't go outside, whatever. So let's own it up front. Let's own it in January. Let's own it in February.

Let's own this is happening and let's create some things like I have a light box that I bought off Amazon, right? And I sprung for the expensive one, but there's some cheap ones you can get. And this morning, when I was preparing for one of my shows, I had this big thing on. And it's like being blasted with the sun. Is it like a studio light, or is it specifically meant to mimic daylight?

It is a, it mimics daylight. It's what it does. But there's some research about even those small light boxes that are used for kids' art projects. Those help in the morning. When you have your coffee, just put them up, right? I have that up with my kids. I also do whatever I can to get morning sunlight,

even when it's super cold. I like to put my feet in the ground. I got an earthing mat. So there's some things you can do, some technology things. Some of it's a little bit woo-woo, right? There are some things about my eating. I have to be intentional about it.

And you've been with me at a couple of events when I intentionally got off the rails. Even my wife was like, wow. Yeah, how can you be in that good of shape and eat like that? It is. I was like, how many bags of gummy candies?

Just wrappers everywhere. And it's just like, I look up in my eyes of red, I'm like, don't talk, right? And it's like, whoa. I can feel people moving away from me when I'm in the... But on the whole, I've got to be highly,

highly intentional about what I'm eating. And I've got to be highly intentional about exercise. Yesterday, I was in my home gym in the basement, and I just cheered after my workout. I literally cheered out loud.

And I got upstairs, and my wife was like, wow, high school football star. And I was like, no, listen, I got through my entire workout, and that was a psychological victory, not a physical victory, because I just kept wanting to quit.

I was tired and I was worn out. So I'm going to do those things that I know keep me well, keep me whole, even when I don't feel like it. This is when discipline, it's easy to work out when it's summer and it's warm and you're like, yeah, I want to look good outside. It's hard when it's freezing cold.

Yeah. Well, I heard this the other day. Someone said, don't ask your emotions. Ask your schedule. Because if you ask your emotions every time, it's going to be like, it's dark. You know what you deserve to sleep in today. But if it's on the schedule, and as leaders, we know, if it's on the calendar, you kind of just show up to the meeting because someone set the meeting and you're supposed to go to the meeting. And so it's a great thing to do in your personal life as well.

motivation doesn't count. It doesn't matter. I could care less about motivation, especially in the winter months, because the only thing I'm motivated to do is to lay down and eat milk duds. That's it. I just want to watch Netflix and eat milk duds.

I've worked really hard all year. I just want to stop. And unfortunately, my mortgage company doesn't buy into that system with me, right? Or the light company or my customers, they don't, they're not like, you know what, you just take four months off. We'll catch up with you in March.

This isn't how that works, right? So that's one thing to do as a leader. It's another one you're leading a team and you're trying to help them fight against this. What is the right way to go about that without it being weird? I think you call it out. Like Dave, you know, in the three years I've worked here several times in that over those three years, Dave is held an all company meeting. We have one every week, but he's held a specific one and said, hey, here's what's what's coming down the road. Here's what we think's going to happen with COVID. Here's what we think's happening with profits up. Here's what we think we're happening with profits down.

here's what's happening. And there's a one, two, three-month trajectory on this. And so I'm going to treat you like adults and just say, let's just call it is what it is. And then so we can make good decisions afterwards. So I think it's setting up a meeting with your team and saying, hey, everybody's struggling. I'm buying light boxes for everybody. They're 30 bucks on Amazon. If you want one, I'll buy you one.

But you got to use it. Okay. And by the way, we're going to have a gratitude minute. I have a buddy who runs as a CEO of a long care company in Texas. He has a gratitude minute with his team. They just circle up before the day and say, what's one thing y'all are grateful for? Let's go around the room.

And they're all like, oh, my gosh, that's so cheesy. We're just going to keep doing it. We're going to keep doing it. We're going to keep doing it. And I'm going to make eye contact. So there's some intentional things, but it all comes back to him. I'm going to treat you like adults. I'm going to call out what is.

It's cold. It's gray. Nobody wants to be turning wrenches right now. And we've got to turn wrenches because we told our customers we would be there for them. That's great. Yeah, just be honest with them, communicate often, frequently. and I love the idea of just going, hey, I'm going to go first. I'm doing this.

I've found it really helpful. I'd love to buy one for all of you if you're willing to use it. Yeah. Every leader needs to go first. I'm feeling low. I'm feeling like I've got less energy. My marriage is a little bit sideways right now. I'm being extra annoying with my kids right now.

And so I'm going to do things in my life to fix it. I'm willing to help. And it's going to help you in this way. It gives everyone permission. I love that. So outside of some of the physical things, Are there any mental habits that we need to have in place to maybe overcome some of these, the negative thoughts, the self-talk that we tend to have? I think you said it earlier.

It comes down to planning. And when it's on my calendar, I have a weird rule, and this is just me. I sit down the night before, generally, to plan out what my workout's going to be the next day and what my day is going to look like and use that. I put on a note card. And whatever random thing comes in my mind, if I'm not following a very strict workout plan, I have to do. do it. I have to do it. It's like five sets of a hundred. I'm like, come on, dude. And I'm my own mean coach, right? But I got to do it. I got to do it. And it goes on the note card. If it's on the note card, it has to happen. And so I don't care about how I feel. I don't care about what time it is.

I got to knock that out. Unless like my whoops, like this morning, I woke up and said, do not exercise today. Like you have pushed me too far. Body. Great. I'm going to take a today's a rest day. So that's great. Listen to your body there. I saw a great tweet yesterday. It said negative self-talk is just do-it-yourself-bullying. That's a great way to think about it. My self-talk is a strange

mixture of my dad, my old high school coaches, and maybe a crummy boss or two. And I filter out all of the positive things my dad told me over the years. I filter out all of the encouragement and way to go Delonis

that I've received from bosses and coaches over the years. And it all just distills down through a filter of negativity into this. You suck. You loser. Get off your... And that's what drives me.

And that is jet fuel, and it burns up real hot, and it burns up real fast. And I can get a lot done in 30 days, and then I'm useless for seven months, right? So it's been a journey to work through, how can I build a schedule of things? How can I build a system of things that keep me well? James Clear, I think, says it best. When you get stressed, you fall to the level of your systems, not your goals. You fall to the level of, do I already have my dry cleaning? Do I already have somebody opening the building up at the shop?

Do I already have a breakfast schedule with my wife? Do I already have a weekly check-in with my kids? You fall to the systems, right? And I can be exhausted. I was super exhausted this week. Hank, my son, my 12-year-old was like, Dad, are we going to Cracker? I mean, a Waffle House on Tuesday.

I literally was like, last thing my digestive system needs is another morning at Waffle House. I need sleep, man. And I said, yeah, buddy, we'll be there. We're going to go early? I'm like, yeah. Yep. The energy of a 12-year-old man.

But it felt to the level of my system, right? I got the systems in place. And so then the behavior, then we had a great time. I ended up loving it. I went to work in a better mood than I would have been. So all those things work because it falls a little over your systems. And so I just have to be honest about what are the things that keep me healthy and well. Leaders tend to be just so hard on themselves.

I mean, they're just such hard-driving people of men and women. And so it's hard to give yourself grace as a leader and just say, hey, this is a lot. And I have to tell someone about it. And that goes back to what you talk about with relationships and community and who's walking beside you, as you say. What does that mean and why is that an essential piece for leaders? The research has become abundantly clear. The human body doesn't work in isolation. It just doesn't.

And it creates strokes and heart attacks and cancer. It shuts itself off. And I've seen the movie castaway. We know what happens. You start talking to volleyballs, right? And you look at Castaway. He's eating healthy food. He's getting sunlight.

He's no longer, like, stressed out by work and deadlines and things, and his body shuts down. His mind spins itself out of control. And he finds himself weeping over a floating away volleyball. I mean, you remember that scene? He's, like, devastated. That's us. That's us right now. We've talked about this at Entree Summit, but the way you punish a prisoner,

is to put them in isolation. When you've killed somebody and we take you out of civilization, we put you in a metal concrete box, and then you get in trouble in there. We're like, we got one more move. We're going to make you go be by yourself. And it's like, no, right?

And that's the world we've created for ourselves. That's our lives now. We're so, so lonely. And the human body doesn't work when it's lonely. So regardless of how I feel, I don't want to hang out of other people, I don't want to be vulnerable. It sounds so stupid.

I don't want to work out with other people. I don't want to do anything with anybody else. I just want to get my job done and go home. Sorry. It's just not how the human body works. And so I've got to do what's right. I've got to do what's right for me and my family and my team and my customers. And for my spiritual community, I've got to do what's right.

And that is get with other people. We've talked about this on this podcast, but making friends as an adult is hard. It's not hard, George. It's the worst. It's the absolute worst. It's the worst. I've got a friend here at Ramsey. and the intentionality he has

in just putting a monthly hang on the calendar. And so it's on the calendar. I go, oh, I got the hang coming up. Otherwise, I found that it doesn't just happen that I'm like, you know what? I'm going to text the guys and see if we can get it hang. Oh, it never happens. It never happens, naturally.

And it's usually not on my terms. I'm not the proactive one in the situation. So it's someone who's better than me who reaches out. And so do you have any tips to help leaders be more intentional about that and be more proactive? What you just said, John Falcons and I were talking today. There's a text thread of five or six of us who hunt a lot.

I'm not on that list. Just to be on that list. Yes. Not hunting for deals on shoes, but for... Very different. For analysts. Deal hunters are a different text. That's you and Rachel.

Cruz. John and I were talking and I told him, hey, last year, like there were several of us that were hunting together. And we've all got busy. Entree, leadership as a business unit has just exploded. It's really, really busy. hard and now we've not hunted together now we're just talking with each other about it and so we all of a sudden looked up and we were one standard deviation removed from each other and our bodies know that

our brains are still like oh it's a funny meme and ooh look at that podcast Cheryl listen to that and wow nice dear john good way to go but our bodies know we haven't hung out we haven't seen each other and so it goes back to what you just said you fall to the level of your systems which means you fall to what's on your calendar, which means I have to have a systematic approach. Once a month, I'm getting guys over to watch the fights. Once a month, I'm going to go hunting with some group. Once a month, I'm going to take somebody to lunch who's just a buddy. We're going to hang out. We're going to talk shop. We're just going to hang out. That's what's going to keep me accountable moving forward. Just waiting for me to feel like being around other people, that is not going to happen.

That day's not coming. Yeah. Well, it all comes. I know it's such a buzzword of just like intentionality, but it does come down to, you know, what you focus on is where your attention is going to go. It's where your success is going to go in life. And you've got to think about these areas. You've got to commit. Any final encouragement to leaders as they head into 2023, just head first, trying to lead themselves well, lead their teams well. What is the thing you most often find yourself telling folks these days? Turn the news off. Turn off the news.

It's reached a point. And you know, you've known me for several years. I've been whining and complaining about it for years. I think it's reached a whole other level of insidiousness. It's mayhem. It's nonsense. And I fully believe that there are other groups that use the media to make me do certain things. Right.

When I sit with business leaders across the country and they're like, I don't know what's happening because my business is fine. But everywhere the time I turn the TV on, we're going to a recession. it's all coming down. I don't understand. They're raising rates. And I realized, I think they're trying to crash this thing into the side of the road. I think they're trying to crash the economy,

so we'll slow everything down. But my customer needs me to show up. And so what's more important, man? My wife, my kids, my customers, my teammates, or Red Alert, I'm just, dude, I'm not. I'm not into it, man. And if there's another big event,

somebody will let me know. But turn the news off and start focusing. on what you can control. I love that. That's a classic Deloni quote to end us here. There's only two things you can control, your thoughts, your actions control to control.

Well, and here's the reality. We got about 12 months. 12 months. And then the election cycle starts up again. And at this point, I'd rather set myself on fire than go to get right now. So I'm just going to take 12 months of doing the best I can with what I got. And being in the woods as much as possible.

As much as possible. Maybe inviting me because you need a friend. The deer will smell your cologne. miles away, George. You deer hunt, I'll deal, hunt. I think we've made that very clear. Well, always fun hanging out with you, John. Thanks so much.

You bet. All right, good stuff with Dr. John Deloney. As I mentioned earlier, if you want more of Dr. John, you got to join us for Entree Leadership Summit. We've got a great lineup this year. Go to entreel leadership.com slash summit to secure your spot. And a quick reminder for you, we announced a few weeks ago that Dave Ramsey himself is going to be the host of this podcast in just a few weeks, and he's going to be taking your

calls. So if you've got a leadership or business question for Dave, we want to hear it. You can leave us a voicemail with your question at 844-944-1070. That's 844-944-1070. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show. If you did, follow, subscribe, and leave us a five-star review wherever you're listening. And share this episode with your team, with your friends on social media with someone who needs to hear this. You can always follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. And if you love this podcast, check out some of the other great shows on the Ramsey Network, like The Dr. John Deloney Show. All right, folks, until next time, keep learning and keep leading.