Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. John Delony on the 6 Choices to Build a Non-anxious Life EP 354

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed by anxiety and stress? In this episode of Passion Struck, I sit down with Dr. John Delony to discuss six daily choices people have to make to create a non-anxious life. Dr. Delony is the author of the new book "Building a Non-Anxious Life." Want to learn the 12 philosophies that the most successful people use to create a limitless life? Pre-order John R. Miles’s new book, Passion Struck, which will be released on February 6, 2024. Full show notes and resources can be found here:  If you are looking for even more inspiration, Check out my friend Erin Diehl's "The ImproveIT podcast" on Wednesdays, where she speaks with personal and professional development gurus about the things that make this life pesky and beautiful. Unlocking Peace: Dr. John Delony Shares Practical Tips for Overcoming Anxiety and Stress Dr. John Deloney, a renowned expert in the field of anxiety and stress management, joins us on the Passion Struck podcast. With over two decades of personal experience and extensive research, Dr. Deloney has established himself as a trusted authority on finding inner peace amidst chaos. His new book, "Building a Nonanxious Life," provides practical strategies and outlines six essential choices that pave the way for a calmer existence. Dr. Deloney's expertise and dedication to helping individuals overcome anxiety make him an invaluable resource for those seeking relief from the challenges of modern life. Tune in to the Passion Struck podcast as Dr. John Deloney shares his invaluable insights and empowers listeners with practical tools to attain inner peace and find calm amidst chaotic circumstances. Sponsors Brought to you by OneSkin. Get 15% your order using code Passionstruck at https://www.oneskin.co/#oneskinpod. Brought to you by Indeed: Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed dot com slash PASSIONSTRUCK. Brought to you by Lifeforce: Join me and thousands of others who have transformed their lives through Lifeforce's proactive and personalized approach to healthcare. Visit MyLifeforce.com today to start your membership and receive an exclusive $200 off. Brought to you by Hello Fresh. Use code passion 50 to get 50% off plus free shipping!  --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! How  Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMiles and on Instagram at @john_R_Miles. Prefer to watch this episode: https://youtu.be/kUKVgMwZCx8  Subscribe to our main YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Subscribe to our YouTube Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@passionstruckclips Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/  Passion Struck is now on the Brushwood Media Network every Monday and Friday from 5–6 PM. Step 1: Go to TuneIn, Apple Music (or any other app, mobile or computer) Step 2: Search for "Brushwood Media” Network

Coming up next on Passion Struck, the lie that we tell ourselves is, I don't want other people to find out. And I'm constantly reminding folks, if you're struggling with anxiety, if you're struggling with depression, if you're struggling with food choices and body image issues, the people around you know the demon there is often, if they truly love you, they will think it's them that's making you uncomfortable. And they'll try to solve it. And especially your kids will try to solve it. And especially

your kids will try to solve it. And so you have a group of people wondering why every time you're in the room, they feel uncomfortable and they think they're crazy. Everybody knows. Everybody can whether they know it intellectually or they feel it in their body, they know when you're not all right. And so the greatest gift you can give somebody to say the words, I'm not all right. Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the

show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews, the rest of the week with guest ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to episode 354 of Passion Struck. Ranked by Apple is one of the top 10 health podcasts in the number one alternative health podcast. Thank you to all of you, come back weekly to listen and learn, how to live better, be better, and impact the world. Passion Struck is now on syndicated radio and you can listen on the Brushwood Meaning Network,

every Monday and Friday during your evening commute from five to six p.m. Eastern time. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, check out our episode Sturder Packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize into convenient topics. I give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show, either go to Spotify or PassionStruct.com slash Stur slash starter packs to get started. In case you missed it last week I interviewed renowned leadership thought leader and futurist Jacob Morgan. My discussion with Jacob was so enlightening that we split it into two parts, both equally

compelling. The first, delved deep into the future of work, personal branding, evolving employer employee relationships, reskilling in a tech-driven world and the paramount importance of employee well-being. In part 2, Jacobin Vills, the vulnerable leader equation, a groundbreaking concept that serves as the foundation for his new book, Leading with Vulnerability, which launches today. I also interviewed Renowned Children's Book author Laura Numeroff, with a prolific career

spanning over four decades. Laura has captivated young readers and inspired countless imaginations with her beloved, if you give series and other enchanting tales. I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews. They go such a long way for bringing more people into the passion start community. If you loved today's episode or any of those others I mentioned, we would so appreciate you giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Now let's talk about today's episode.

Are you tired of feeling trapped by anxiety, overwhelmed by stress, and disconnected from the life you truly want to lead? In a world that seems more connected than ever, countless individuals are battling anxiety, wrestling with inner turmoil, and seeking relief from the chaos that surrounds them. If you're one of those individuals or if you know someone who is, you've come to the right place today. Joining me is the remarkable John Deloney, a beacon of hope for those navigating the often tumultuous waters of anxiety and stress. In a society where safety, communication, and technology have advanced beyond measure, it's disheartening to witness a surge, and loneliness, exhaustion, and anger.

But here's silver lining, anxiety doesn't have to hold the final say. John knows his first hand because he's walked the same path. Over two decades, he's immersed himself in research, experienced personal growth, and compassionately guided countless others towards reclaiming their lives from the grip of anxiety. The key to this transformation lies in the power of choices, six essential choices that pave the way for a non-anxious life. These choices that he outlines in his new book, which releases today, building a non-anxious life are not easy,

but they are the stepping stones towards a brighter future, enabling you to rise above challenges and find peace amidst chaos. Today's podcast isn't just about overcoming anxiety, it's about flourishing, growing, and truly living. So whether you're seeking relief from your own battles with anxiety or striving to support a loved one on their journey, PassionStruck Podcast is here to illuminate the path towards a less chaotic, more vibrant existence.

Join us as we embark on this transformative adventure together. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am absolutely thrilled and honored to have the one and only Dr. John Deloney on Passion Struck. Welcome, John. What's up, man? How are we doing? And I am so excited to have you on this show. I have been listening to your podcast for the past couple of years,

and I just have to say, man, you do an awesome job. So lucky to have another podcast around the show. Well, I appreciate it, man. It's a bit better than anybody. It's gnarly behind the edited final product. So it's good to talk to you, man. Well, today we're going to be talking about this incredible new book, which will launch the day of this podcast goes live. It's called, for those who can't see what I was just putting up, building a non-ancient life. But before we go there, I always love to give the audience some background into who we're talking about. So I thought I'd do it in this way. John, I understand you grew up with a father who was a homicide detective and a hostage negotiator. And as a person who grew up with a father who was a homicide detective and a hostage negotiator.

And as a person who grew up with a father who was a Marine, I'm sure we can relate a bit. But how did this impact you growing up? I have to say that my dad was in that line. So I've spent my last 20 years working with military folks and especially police officers. He was pretty unique and he really worked as hard as he could with the tools he had to shield us from some of that. So I say most of what I picked up was really good stuff. And I've got these core memories of my dad getting up from the dinner table and answering the phone

and putting on his bulletproof vest. And he got that little, and I'm sure your dad had this too, is just a little grin out the corner of their mouth. That most people are running and screaming. It's a go time. And so it's just a different when there's a problem you head in. Some of the things that I probably would have wished we didn't do was my dad would put polaroids on the family desk and he would say, Hey, these nine guys get out this month and I helped put them away. And so if they knock on the door, they're dangerous, you should call. So as a young kid, I just always wondered if the next person ringing the doorbell was a murderer, right?

But again, when he was doing his best to protect us and that's a hard gig. It's a hard gig, especially back in the 70s and 80s. That was tough. Well, one of the funny things, my dad told me and it's not, I wouldn't say funny. It's a unique skill as he was part of Marsok used to be called force recon and they taught him how to eavesdrop. And so we would sit in restaurants and he would tell me, I can hear every single conversation that's going on around me and I can process each one individually if I need to. And it's so unique. Some of the things that these guys learn. Well, here's a maybe the most important thing that I picked up. And this wasn't something I learned,

but because of who my dad was, a lot of people in our community, and you and I both spent some time in Houston and North Houston, people would reach out to him all the time offline. So non-policed up, but it's a, hey, my kid is in trouble. My teenager got arrested. My daughter's struggling with drugs. Can you help? And he would go take back when the phones had cords on him. And so he had a 50 foot cord on this thing and he'd pull it all the way into his closet. And it was a small closet, but he would go in the closet

just to protect the family. But that closet wall shared a wall with my bed. Where my bed was pushed up against my wall in my bedroom. And so at a young age, I knew, oh, that guy at our local church is a scumbag. And then I would see that guy on Sunday, just waving at everybody. And I would know this guy's marriage is falling apart. And this, so I picked up a lot growing up. And so I had a ringside seat to the world that we experience is not always the world that people are living. Yeah, well besides your father's influence, one of the questions I'd like to ask is that we all have defining moments, that influence who we become. What are some of the defining moments that

shape who you are today? That's a great question. I think globally my mom grew up in a community that she wasn't allowed to go to college. Christian women in her community had a very particular role and that was that. And so at 42 years old, she took her first community college class. My dad was always encouraging her and she finally did it. And then she took another community college class and then you were talking beforehand. She spent some time working at Inron and DeLotin Tush. She was a writer, just a brilliant writer.

And she graduated with her PhD at 57 and I got 10 years as a professor at 65. And so I grew up in this house where if there's a problem, you head in from my dad and you take care of business and also from my mom, you're never too late to start completely over from scratch. And there's some pretty amazing things. She just got back from teaching at Oxford this summer for her final summer over there. She's in her 70. So that was a big, concrete moment.

I think some of the other moments are, I would say, aren't grandiose. When I went to college and a group of guys almost got in a fist fight that I just knew at the residence hall, because they were fighting over who was gonna pick up the check. And I just stumbled into a group of young men who were all about taking care of each other and hospitality. And if you fight me, you fight all of us. And I just didn't, I didn't know

that world. And I got a ringside seat from Trevor and Todd Mitch and Johnny's guys, and Craig, who taught me what a friend look like. So here's what being a friend requires of you. So that was an important moment. And then I've had some faculty members and colleagues just almost two numerous accounts who gave me opportunities and chances and taught me and called me in their office and said, hey, you can't do that. Or, hey, we have to call this parent telling their kids is passed away. I want you to watch me on how we do this because you're going to be doing this for the rest of your career. I've just had countless people who walk alongside me. And then I think they'll find one would be my wife and my kids. I think my wife and

I've been married. We celebrated our 21st anniversary and I think we're on marriage number five where we have to reinvent this thing because the marriage we had can't sustain what our life has turned into and so we have to Re-date and reimagine and redo everything and having kids obviously is transcendent too. I've had so many instances where I've had to reinvent myself and I think it is something that is going to become even more important for this next generation of leaders like my son and daughter and your kids because the world is changing so rapidly. Do you feel the same about that? I think you'd be silly and naive to not even believe that, but just to know that. It is true. And even when I look at my own life, I was a business major and actually I was a journalism major and then a theology major

and then a business major. And then I saw Goodwill hunting. And I remember Robin Williams character and I was like, I want to do that. And I don't know how to do that. So I got a degree in humanities. That's what they let me out of there with because I kept changing my major so much with the thing in psychology. And then I had some great mentors that taught me more importantly about all the diagnostics, which I had to learn and all the theories, which I had to learn. Here's how you sit with hurting people. Here's how you walk alongside somebody who's struggling. And so teaching me the lessons underneath the lessons have allowed me to be a

dean of students to run housing units to now be a podcaster on YouTube on the radio. And it's important for me to remember podcasting YouTube did not exist when I graduated with my first it didn't exist. And so the thing that pays my family's bills was not even in the world yet. So I think all of us need to be open to what skills am I learning and how do those impact the people in our immediate and peripheral worlds, because we're going to get dropped in all sorts of different situations. And by the way, YouTube could turn the channel off tomorrow and I don't have any recourse. It's just over. And so I think it's important to create a world where when one light switch gets switched off

or turned off, you've got other switches and you've created a world where that doesn't end you. Well, I wanted to just comment on a couple of those things. One, my friend Keith and Meg Jarrett were one of the producers on Goodwill Hunting. Oh, wow. And they said that Robin Williams was as real as it got. And they actually told me up there in Boston, they have a different type of bowling that has not as many pins and you play with a smaller ball.

And they said he was just incredible at it. And then the second thing I wanted to comment on is, I think we as human, many pins and you play with a smaller ball and they said he was just incredible at it. And then the second thing I wanted to comment on is I think we as humans are the ultimate learning machine. And that is what we innately are built for. And it's something that all our listeners need to understand because the switch to AI and the digital explosion we're experiencing robotics, everything else is going to cause so many jobs to shift. So being a person who understands the need for constant learning is going to give you a huge advantage in the world to come. I think it's important to call out. I

didn't know this because I didn't participate in the media economy. I didn't know anything about it. I was just a nerd taking care of folks in my Dean of Students' roles and as a professor. But just today, I called a friend who's one of the best family law professors in the state of Texas. She's a savant, she's brilliant. And I called her because I answered a question on my show and I got a lot of heat for it. And it was a family law question

and I gave some wisdom to somebody that I thought I was right. It was a hard conversation, but I had to hold an open hand. I might be wrong here. And so after I got some negative feedback, I called her and said, Hey, let me know if I'm wrong. And I've done several episodes where the episode is based on, here's how I was wrong the last time. And I think it's important for folks who don't run with what I would call true experts, those who are really passionate about getting things right in their particular field, whether they're architects or engineers or anthropologists or psychologists, whatever, is there's a lot of high-fiving going on

when someone finds out they're wrong because now they have a different right answer, right? They can now go lean and do something better and it's only in the media world and in the political realm where being wrong is this year, it's only in the media world and in the political realm. We're being wrong is this year. It's all over, right? And so I think it's important for anybody who's listening to know true experts are always trying to learn something new and always trying to learn how they could be a little less wrong. That's the name of the game and did not only not be embarrassed about that,

but seek that out regularly. And that's what wisdom and that's what true influence is out in the real world. Speaking of being a constant learner, today you're talking to us in one of the studios of Dave Ramsey. Someone that most listeners would probably equate to taking control of their money, not about anxiety, mental health, and self-imperman. How did you become a personality with Dave? I think the story Dave and I always tell or he always tells is he's been telling people for 30 years that money is just a symptom. How much debt you have or how out of control you are with your money or how little is a symptom of bigger challenges going on. And he also said I've been telling people

to go see a counselor for 30 years, so I finally just hired my own. So that was his behind closed doors. In all reality, I gave, I forgot, I had to go to a funeral, and I forgot that at the university I was working, I had to give a speech to incoming parents and students, about 1,000 people in this beautiful theater on campus, and I'd forgotten about it.

My wife and I were working through some challenges. We just come back from a funeral and they're like, hey, you're on it too today. Don't forget. And I thought, oh, no. So I sat down on my laptop and wrote probably the most important speech I've ever given, which is I'm just tired of all the fluffiness at the university level and tired of all the kumbaya stuff and all the raw. There's hurting moms and dads in that audience. There's hurting kids in this audience and there's a university that said, we'll take care of you. And so I gave a real direct speech and it just so happened that his executive vice president was in the audience dropping her daughter off.

And she said she pointed up and she said, I'm hiring that guy. And a year and a half later, here we are. I quit everything I know and my whole, I was at my dream job that I'd worked for 20 years to get. And now I'm a YouTuber as my young son says I just want to go back to YouTube just for a sec because YouTube actually shut me down for almost two months. Oh wow And what caused it is I had interviewed a Jewish rabbi who when he was a youth was abused. And you know how when you upload a video, you go through their criteria. And I'm judicious about it. So I picked that this might upset some people, etc.

And labeled it that which already gave it limited monetization. But they said I didn't go far enough. And so as a penalty, they turned off all monetization for two months. I didn't even know if it was ever going to end. And also kept giving me these warnings that second strike, they turned off all monetization for two months. I didn't even know if it was ever going to end and also kept giving me these warnings. The second strike, they were going to just shut down the whole channel. So you're comment about YouTube can be taken away from you in a second is absolutely true. Yeah, I've got a buddy here in Nashville that just keeps getting episodes pulled down over and over again. And that's a bizarre world we live in, right? It's a very bizarre world.

And I also want to hold open handedly. I'm making money off in somebody else's house. It's their house. And so I walked in with my bag of goods and said, I'd like to set up a shop here. And they want to kick me out. They kick me out. And I got to make sure that I've created a world where that isn't catastrophic. That doesn't end everything for me. Yeah, I hear you. And I think you're probably talking to a mutual friend of ours who's a former seal. But speaking of Dave Ramsey, he wrote the forward for your latest book, Building An Unank Biggest Life, which follows your best-selling book, Read-of-Finding Anxiety. And Dave writes that we're in the most stressed-out anxiety-written out-of-control culture and history. And you actually cite that anywhere between

a quarter to a half of the US population reports being affected by anxiety. And that paradox that Dave brings up is that we have the most prosperity we've ever had. Why do you think we find ourselves in this situation and how is anxiety ruining people's lives? I think you have to back up and not to be tongue in cheek about the book title, but you have to redefine it. Anxiety is not a disease. Anxiety is not a classified as a disorder. I think that's irresponsible to call it that. Anxiety is simply smoke alarm in your kitchen.

Let you know that hey, I detect smoke, something's on fire in here. And anxiety, as like the great Wendy Suzuki says, a professor out of NYU, it's good. It's a friend. It's letting you know, hey, there's things in your life that are not okay. And as a culture, I think if you back up, I think several things have led us here. And I'll be a little more blunt than Dave was in that opening. More people right now than ever before in human history are under the care of a licensed mental health professional. More people than ever before in human history are under the care of a licensed mental health professional. More people than ever before in human history

are being medicated for some sort of psychotropic with some sort of psychotropic medication for a quote unquote mental health disorder. We have more contact with more humans than ever before in human history. You and I both have like 450,000 friends on Instagram. We have access to more humans, no human in human history. You and I both have 450,000 friends on Instagram. We have access to more humans, no human in human history would have access to 450,000 people. And most of America

don't know who I am. We live in this insane world and we're lonelier than all get out. I think we have to back up and say, we have everything. We've won. We can go into grocery stores and get food. We can just swipe right and swipe right and find somebody new. We just have all of these problems, quote unquote, solved that have plagued humanity forever. And they come to find out those were the things that our bodies were designed to do.

That's what kept us whole and good. And so if I were to distill it down into two main key issues, one is we as a culture have pathologized discomfort. We have made feeling uncomfortable, a bad thing to be solved instead of looking at much discomfort and saying, this is really important for our bodies. Our bodies are designed to be cold and to be hot. Our bodies are designed to Our bodies are designed to be cold and to be hot. Our bodies are designed to get periods of deep sleep and periods of shallow sleep. Our bodies are designed for carrying heavy things. And so we take that away and we create 72 degrees, 72 degrees, 72 degrees lives from our

house to our car door, our office and back. And we stop exercising and we just Netflix everything and And we don't have to work for, we don't have to work for a minute. I just hit a button on my cell phone and it drops off a pizza. We've just created a world that our bodies can exist in. And you put that on top of this insane pervasive loneliness that has such deep physiological consequences.

We've just created a catastrophe. And then something comes along like COVID, something comes along like significant political discourse issues or whatever. And it just throws a match on the whole thing. And so I think all of it actually was in good. Hey, we have 10 great friends. What if I gave you 100,000 great friends? That sounds awesome. Hey, getting chased by a tiger and having to go hunt and kill your own food is awful. It's terrible. What if I just sent it to you in a package? That sounds great.

And it's killing us. I want to piggyback off that because I think a good starting point for understanding why you wrote this book is to establish a foundation for your own personal experience with anxiety. And in chapter one, you talk about how you got there. And in many ways, it overlapped you got there. And in many ways, it overlapped my own story. Can you share a bit of your personal story? Yeah, we were talking about my dad as a homicide detective. The part about that that doesn't get told nearly enough is I think

he made $19,000 a year. And I have an older sister and a younger brother. And so there were, I remember, there were seasons when he would go to the grocery store and we shared one car We had a small house, but he would put in a this little magic thing called the debit card Knowing there was no money in the account And so we always wrestled in the house with this idea that they don't pay enough money Like there our city thinks so little this guy the tool and to give his life up every day It worked that we can't even afford groceries for us just a family of three and we weren weren't we live so unextraving and dude, I grew up with money was a bad thing. And there was some moments when I was like, Dad, why don't you just go get a graduate degree and you know, this is what I was put here to do.

And so I left my house saying that won't be me. I will earn enough money. I will chase down prestige in these titles. I will bulldoze my way to a seat at the table so that I don't ever have to put a card in a machine, knowing there's no money in there, hoping that I can get groceries for my family. And what I did in the process was I abandoned relationships, I abandoned health, I abandoned good choices, I abandoned all those things in pursuit of I will get this other title. And at some points, I've been in integrity. I've been in character.

I've been in all these things because I'm going to get this much money. And I'm going to be the assistant director so that I can become the associate director. So that could be the assistant vice president. It was just all a stair step. And as the story goes, it's not a story that happened. I was so out of my mind by the time this thing landed. I mean, I was up 24, 7, 365. I was on call.

So I was in hospital three or four nights a week. But then I was also working in my full-time job as a dean of students. But I was always showing up if a student drank too much or had been sexually assaulted or had passed away or whatever the issue was. So I was always in hospital dealing with trauma. I was running and running and running.

And one day I was walking to work and I didn't tell anybody. I just turned around and got back in my car. And I was over so much at the university by this point that I could have not gone to work for a week or two and just answered my cell phone. And no one would have said a thing. And I drove three hours away and sat and walked straight into the office of a buddy of mine who was a medical doctor. And I just, I remember pointing at him and saying, Hey, I'm not okay. And that was the moment I realized my body to quote Vander Kolk had been keeping the score and my body said enough, we can't do this anymore.

You can't be this lonely, this tired, this unhealthy because when you get that dollar amount or you get that job title, you go with you. And the marriage you have goes with you and your relationship with your kids go with you. And it's really, it was me trying to reverse engineer, okay, the path to wellness and being a whole was, I was wrong, but I didn't have an alternative plan B. So I had to rebuild the whole, a stupid highway with the help of a whole bunch of other people. Thank you for being vulnerable with that story because it's in so many ways, something that I experienced

in the same way. And that's really one of the main reasons I started going down this whole path of creating passion struck because it's really about trying to help people overcome the struggles that you and I both experienced. And I believe as we were talking about before you came on, that self-actualization is really about not how we impact ourselves as individuals. It's about how we impact the world through the services that we give. And in the book, you talk about people's lack of belief in something bigger than themselves.

Why do you think that is so harmful? I think you can go down the research of some pretty remarkable scientists and some pretty remarkable thinkers, but as simple as possible, we're trying to experiment for the first time in human history. We've never had a human history where we have just simply clipped all of the strings that bound us to a god or a series of gods or an eternal being that we took a knee to and we walked outside of our tents or our huts and we looked up at the sky and said, please rain or my kids are going to die. We saw for water. We don't have that problem. And so I think in a very short window, when you're not walking outside to pray to something bigger

than you, because you can have apples shipped in from Guatemala on a daily basis. And you are not looking at the only woman in your tribe that's bound by a thousand years of honor to you. And you can just swipe right and find somebody else. I think we've gotten very arrogant and put ourselves at the center of the universe. And when you do that, you end up chasing how I feel. And you say dumb things like my truth, things that, that's not even a real sentence, right? But you start, everything is guided by what I feel and what I want to be true for me.

And you lose tether with reality. And so that was the hardest chapter to write by far. I'm a Christian guy. And I also don't want to pose that on anybody. But I also couldn't look at I couldn't be a person of integrity and say, Hey, at the end of the day, if you want to live a non-interest life, you just got to do you, bro. That's just not true. And so whether it is my, my, my friends who are atheists who I love and they believe in the life,

and the birth and the life and the death, the cycle of life that happens, or it is my friends and family who are of my same faith, or whatever faith tradition you have to be, I don't believe that we are designed to go through life untethered to something bigger than ourselves. And so that's about opening your hands up and taking a submissive knee. And we are, that is not our culture these days. One of the other things we're not very good about is setting proper boundaries. And one of my,

yes, and it leads me back to one of my favorite interviews I ever did, which was with my friend Terry Cole, author of Boundary Boss. And she and I talked about why it's important to be intentional about our boundaries. And in the book, you write that boundaries are one of the first things that we let go. And in fact, it causes us to let all of the voices around us become our own voice. What happens when we do this? You become imagine like the soldier that was being tortured in the medieval times, a guy in the middle and they just tie 20 horses to you and they pull you apart, right? That's just what happens. Everybody's telling you this is what you need to look like.

This is where you should work. This is what you should do. This is what you're going to do for the holidays. This is what you should wear. And it just melts you. Because we're not designed for that much pull in that many different directions. And with what you so brilliantly do with passion struck, you lose your central core. You lose what you're actually anchored into.

And yeah, if you don't have bad batteries are like the reverse golden rule. If you wanted to others as you would have them do unto you, most of us treat other people so much better than we treat ourselves. We talk to other people so much better than we talk to ourselves. And so what I want folks to do is to know, you can't fully honor your wife. You can't fully honor your kids or your customers if you're not whole, if you're not stable. And so the greatest gift you can give the people you love is to do the things that you need to do to take care of you first. So that you can repel off the edge.

My dad is not helping anybody if he doesn't put on his bullet, professed and make sure he's hydrated before he runs into a hostage negotiation. Because if he gets shot and killed, then his expertise is gone. And now we got a big problem. So the greatest thing he can do is wait 35 seconds or a minute or five minutes, compose himself, remember his training put on his proper gear, and then hit it, right? That's the gift to the person he's going to save. And I think most of us just have lost our core sense. And

we're just running a thousand different directions, trying to make everybody happy, trying to not feel bad. And man, it just ends up in a dumpster fire full of bodies, man. I can't agree with you more. And there's this a do of me from over a decade ago that's floating around on the internet that I used to despise. It's me on stage in Paris, France with Salesforce founder Mark Benioff talking to about four or five thousand people in the audience and I look like a fat pig. I was like 45-50 pounds. Every other than I am now, I was like you experienced.

I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't taking care of myself. Everything seemed to be about someone else and I actually thought it was selfish at that time to do the things that I needed to do. And as you just rightly pointed out, when we don't take care of ourselves and when we're not functioning at the best we can be, how are we possibly going to be a positive

and influence in anyone else's life? And so I think what you just said is so important is that you have got to get a hold of your physical health, mental health, spiritual health, emotional health. And then that'll have got to get a hold of your physical health, mental health, spiritual health, emotional health, and then that'll lead you to career health and relationship health. If you don't concentrate on those things, you're going to go spiraling down. Well, and I think the facade is, or the lie that we tell ourselves is, I don't want other people to find out. And I'm constantly reminding folks, if you're struggling with anxiety, if you're struggling with depression,

if you're struggling with food choices and body image issues, the people around what becomes the demon there is often, if they truly love you, they will think it's them that's making you uncomfortable and they'll try to solve it. And especially your kids will try to solve it. And so you have a group of people wondering why every time you're in the room, they feel uncomfortable and they think they're crazy. And really everybody knows everybody

can whether they know it intellectually or they feel it in their body, they know when you're not all right. And so the greatest gift you can give somebody is to say the words, I'm not all right. Let's go figure this thing out. And man, you talk about the entire ecosystem you're part of begins to heal when one person has the courage to go do that. Yeah, man. John, I love that. And it reminds me of interview I did earlier in the year with Dr. Bob Waldinger, who if the audience doesn't remember him, he's currently responsible for heading the Harvard study of adult aging, but he came out with a great book last year called The Good Life.

And he found that above all else, the quality of relationships most determined creating a good life. And I wanted to throw this back on you because I think anxiety gets in the way of that. How do you think it's impacting so many of our lives and our ability to impact the good life? I actually, I don't know if I've got any data that would suggest the causal before and after, right? But I have often found that anxiety alarms start ringing when your body figures out that you're lonely, but you don't have anybody. And so if I back out, let's just say like 2000 years ago, and you're roaming the swamps of Tampa, and you woke up one morning and your tribe had left you. You were probably going to die. You're going to get eaten by something.

You're going to die of exposure. You're going to die of something. And so we have baked into our, onto our physiology, the need for other people. I got a sleep. You keep watch. You go get food. I'll take care of the kids. You all take care of the kids.

That's, that is wired into us. And we don't have a life design for, well, I'm just going to go home after work and turn on Netflix and open up a drink and eat a pre-packaged meal that was sent to me. And my friends become video screen characters. Ted Lasso becomes our friends or the characters of the office become our closest friends. We know their jokes, we know their back stories, we know everything about them. And we don't know the guy in the apartment next to us or in the home behind us. And our bodies are screaming at us to get our attention. And so I often will tell people who are struggling with

anxiety, you have to be hyper intentional about making community, making a friend, inviting somebody over, go be weird, get risk getting rejected, because you can't do anything else. Your body will be failing you. If it lets you sleep, your body will fail you. If it lets you go have deep intimate relationships with your wife or your husband, where it will fail you. If it lets you do that, if you're completely and totally alone, it's got to try to get

your attention. So I think often loneliness is a precursor to anxiety. And then when I know my life and I find myself anxious, it's almost always one of the variables is I've quit hanging out with my friends. I canceled four Monday night, get to go to the road. I have quit watching the fights for the last three or four times. The guys got together. And so it's become almost pathological about it. I don't miss those nights anymore. Well, it's because you made a choice. And that's what this whole podcast is all about is the power of intentional choices. And I think in the same fashion, your book is really about how it's possible to live

a less anxious life by making intentional choices. I'm going to throw this back on you. Why is the power of choice so vital and effectively dealing with the inevitable onslaught of life struggles? I hope your listeners know how revolutionary you are when you say that because our culture tells us if you have anxiety, if you have depression, if your spouse leaves you, if experienced job loss, whatever, that you are from this point forward, if you're a person who is in the margins, but for whatever reason, society has kicked you aside and said, you have less value than other people. Our culture tells us, as of right now, you are broken. You will never be able to come back without somebody coming to rescue you. You're a defective, broken individual. We'll do our best to come rally and come get you. And I think that's so disempowering and so dishonest and so heartbreaking. And so when you tell people, yes, this assault happened. Yes, you're dead left. Yes, you were born the wrong

color and the wrong side of the tracks. Yes, those things, you have generational poverty. Yes. And the most terrifying question we can ask ourselves is, and what are you going to do now? And that's where this power of choice comes in. And so I think you and I share this common mission. I just want to re-empower folks and say, well, yes, this happened. You hit in the mouth. And by the way, every one of us is going to get hit a lot. And then what are we going to do? And so I'm going to suggest that we make some choices before things get sideways during

the storm and after the storm that we're going to create as I've called in the book, this non-inxious life. And so here's a picture I paint in the book. I'll give this story away. My cousin from Houston, one of my favorite people on the planet, just died. He's passed away suddenly with his wife. And they were on a vacation together and he passed away. This is a guy that he had lived all nine lives fully

and he had borrowed heavily against the night to one man. He had a lot of adventures in his life, I'll say. A lot of challenges. And every time we got together, once a year at Christmas, he would pull me aside and he would look at me and say, hey, I'm really proud of you. Like, he could see it.

And it was always such a meaningful thing because I knew he meant it really hard. You're making choices. I didn't make it. I'm proud of you. And so when he died, here's what a non-existent life means. Not that it inoculates you from bad stuff. Best of us can happen all of us. A guy that I love died.

But my wife and I made some gnarly hard choices 10 years ago. We sold our house and I moved into a residence hall with my wife and a toddler. We have driven the junkiest, crappiest cars you can imagine, because I just think it's silly to borrow money on a depreciating asset. We have lived in smaller houses. Every time we've bought a house, the mortgage person laughs at us. What are y'all doing? We're looking at how much you make versus the house and we're like, this is good enough. This is what we need. This is good enough for us. And all of that led to my cousin dies. And without even checking our bank account balance,

I went and bought two plane tickets for me and my wife. She called a babysitter that had to stay for two days with our kids. And we hopped into plane. And I also booked a hotel, so I didn't have to stay under some ants kitchen table. And I got to go to Houston. And I had the eternal privilege of being very sad. I was devastated, sad. But I wasn't worried about how I was going to pay my bills and how

I was going to eat when I got home. And if my kids were going to be safe and if my wife was going to be drama at dinner, I just could pick up the tap. And I'm not a wealthy guy. I don't you hear that, but it's been a decade of hard choices so that when something bad happens, I have the opportunity just to fully feel that thing. And so that's what a non-existent life is. It's, hey, I have created a world where I've got four or five revenue streams or I've got a job where my boss isn't an evil idiot.

And I don't have a toxic leader. I just leave those situations. And if my mom gets cancer, I can say, I'm going to be gone for three weeks. I'm going to go suit my mom. And I'm out, right? I'm out. And the whole thing doesn't fall apart. Otherwise, your body will spin up the alarm systems and say, you can take care of your mom. What about your kids? What about your bills? What about this? And so that's what I mean about building this life that is, it's resilience, right? But it's the ability to absorb when, not if life gets you. And that's across a number of different planes, whether it's financial, whether it's relational, whether it's emotional, whether it's any number of the things, it's about creating a foundation

because the storms are coming. Oh, they definitely are. And I think one of the things so many of us are guilty of is we end up living our life on autopilot. I like to refer to it as the pinball life, where we're just sitting there bouncing off all these distractions that are around us. And people fail to realize that every day you've got the power to intentionally make choices that can either lead you on the path of greatness or

towards a waterfall of despair. And it's in those micro moments that life is really determined. It's not in these huge colossal events. It's doing like you did and going to a relative's funeral to feel the emotions, to celebrate a life that had true meaning. It's how you show up for a friend. It's how you come across to your son or daughter. It's all these little things that we do at overtime amount to the impact that it's going to have in our life. And that my dream is it will never be fulfilled. But I would love to have an Instagram channel. That was what you just said. Not the big shiny moments in the fishing trip where you actually catch fish, but the other five where you don't the moments when you have to exhale

Because you just want to take your kids backpack that he left in the middle of the hallway again You want to throw it through the nearest window? Where you exhale and you call them back for the 44th time and you say I need you to pick up your backpack Man, this is not where this goes and he's sorry that so it's I wish we could make a documentary of And he's sorry, so it's I wish we could make a documentary of the thousand the million tiny little choices that create the good life, which is very different than the unboxing or the oh my gosh, I got a new car, but that's not life, that's not life. Life is those shared moments between you and your wife life is those shared high fives or those shared let's go grab a dream because everything fell apart with your business partner. That's life. That's every day. It's letting the guy over in traffic. It's way over tipping your waitress at Cracker Barrel. It is all those little bitty things that I think make a good life and really to get nerdy about it.

It's how you take care of your own nervous system, man. If you gear up for a fight every second of every day, at some point, your nervous system says, Hey, I quit. I don't know what we're doing. But so what the coffee wasn't great at dinnies. It's dinnies. Tip your waitress. You know what I mean?

Or yeah, this paper, this report that your assistant director sent in is full of errors. I can get a heart attack or I could call him and say, hey, we're better than this. I need to be excellent. Go redo this. I can just choose to not die on a daily basis, man, which as you mentioned, that means I'm choosing to live.

I think it's so funny. You brought up Denny's. I don't think their food has changed and taste in over 40 years since I've been eating there. I actually think that 40 years ago they made enough food to get them through the next 50 years. I don't even know if they've made processed new foods. the next 50 years. I don't even know if they've made processed new foods since then. But man, I may health nut. I'm obnoxious about it. I'm annoying to be around. And my son and I, we go to a waffle house every Tuesday morning as part of ritual. I want him to look back. And as long as I'm alive to go, man, my old man, we had breakfast every week. And man, the food's not great. But it's awesome. Actually, the food's great. It's fine. What's really awesome is watching my son interact with the wait staff and realize that when he walks in every Tuesday, they all waived to him in cheer for him and then ask him how school's going.

And he sometimes will bring some of his mowing money and he's watched his old man over tip. And so he over tips. And it's a cool place to experience humanity in a non sanitized way. It's just become one of our favorite places. I love it. I can't get enough of their pecan waffle. And I have to tell you a funny story. I used to live in Moore's Hill, North Carolina, which is the home of Nat NASCAR. And whenever

I would go to waffle house, till junior, I would be eating there. No way. That's awesome. There you go. Yeah. So totally regular person outside of the racing circuit. Well, I want to jump on this daily choices here just a little bit more because your book really is about six daily choices that can help us reduce anxiety in our lives. And I was hoping that you might be able to go through some of them with us. Sure. You bet you. Knock the ones out that you want to talk about. We can be talked about anything you want to talk about. So in a world where communication is more accessible than ever, why is it that so many people struggle

with feeling disconnected and lonely? And how can choosing connection help them rediscover the strength in human connection? That's a great question. I think at the end of the day, there's parts of our brain that absorb data that are designed to filter data to think long term to think about complex issues. And there's parts of our brain that scan the environment and say, I'm safe right now. And I can text my wife a hundred times a day. I love you. I love you. I love you. You're beautiful.

I love you. I can give her a hundred bits of data, but as the old stat goes, I still can't find a study that backs us up, but it's fun to repeat because it makes my point for me that 70 to 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. When I text her, I love her. I love her all day. She gets that data. She gets that info, but that does not give peace to her body, to her nervous system. Her shoulders don't drop. Her shoulders drop when I walk in the front door and I smile and say, hey, what's up? And I have picked up my underwear and I don't just throw my shoes in the floor

and I give her a hug before the kids come in and start hollering and everything. That's what connection is. And so we're communicating like crazy but we're just simply not connecting and our bodies are screaming at us. And what does that mean? That means I've got to be intentional

in a world where our calendars are mad houses to put down a phone and I got to sit at a table with real people and have real conversations. And that means I'm going to look across and be like, oh, you vote like that, but I like you. And we're all going to go, yeah, that's true. As opposed to you vote like that, I hate you. Which is easier to do when you're on a keyboard. And choosing connection means you got to

choose to be awkward. You have to choose to be uncomfortable sometimes. You have to choose to not get your way all the time. You have to choose to see the best in people. You have to choose to tell the truth. A mentor mine as a psychologist in Texas, Dr. Richard Beck said, he posed a question that's just haunted me, said, what would happen if you were never allowed to move? What conversations would you have at your local schools, in your neighborhood, at your local churches? If you could never move, and I was like, oh, man, everything would be different.

Because now if my church just makes you mad, I just go to new one. If my kids' school is bad, I just pull them out and go to the one down the street. What if we had to actually have human interaction? And so I think that's the cornerstone of not being anxious. Another one I wanted to touch on because it's something we've talked about several times during our interview is choosing health and healing. And one of the things I often see

is people who make these New Year's resolutions and they say they want a healthier life. They say who they want to be healed yet so many of us lose our way the second we run into an obstacle or set back. What is your advice to listener on how they can navigate those obstacles and setbacks to actually choose health and healing in their lives. Man, I appreciate that. I think a number of people who I meet with it say, like, Hey, I'm struggling with burnout or chronic stress or anxiety. And they're holding a monster energy drink in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. And it's, let's just give your body a chance first. So sometimes healing and health is maybe back down the stimulants.

Sometimes it's, Hey, at some point you got to sit with a trauma counselor and talk about your childhood sexual abuse and you've got to have that conversation and you've got to go through that healing. Sometimes it's like you mentioned, it's health and health-related, it could be exercise, it could be any number of these things. I think the challenge is if I anchor my success and failure to a particular set of actions versus anchoring to an identity. I'm going to run into a problem. What do I mean by that? I can say, I'm going to run five miles every day. Okay. Cool. And then the day you wake up with the flu or the day you wake up and your wife is sick and she says, can you take the kids to school or the day your boss is your butt will be in here tomorrow at 5.45 a.m. before this presentation.

What are you? Do you lie to yourself? Are you a liar now? Are you a coward? Are you weak? Are you going to get home at midnight and run five miles in the middle of the night in the dead of winter and then get up? Because you want to be like David Goggins, what's the identity thing here?

Or you can anchor into an identity that is, I will be a good steward of my body. I'm going to be a guy that takes care of his body so that he can take care of those that he loves. What does that mean? That means I'm going to be a guy that takes care of his body so that he can take care of those that he loves. What does that mean? That means I'm going to have movement every day. And on the days that I can't make it, that's fine. That's fine. I'll work it. I'll get it back tomorrow. And so it's a way of being really concrete and firm and also being pretty graceful with yourself. And so my identity is anchored, not into how often I work out. I work out seven times a day. That's a terrible way to anchor your identity.

My identity is anchored in. I'm a guy that honors his body, takes care of himself. What does that mean? That means whenever possible, not when I feel like it, whenever possible, I exercise every day of the week, if I can. That means that I try to not just mainline gummy candies, but the last few days I have been doing that, right? But on the most, on the whole, I try to eat healthy. I try to get enough sleep. But if me and my wife are going on a wild date or my friends get together for the fights, I'm going to sacrifice sleep for this because it's an overall picture, right? And so I think by making new years resolutions, I know the cool thing is make your goals so clear so that you can cross them. I know a lot of marathon runners who crossed that marathon

line and they went with them and they still don't. The guy that crossed the marathon line, they didn't like the guy before, they don't like that guy either because they didn't change their identity. They just crossed the finish line. Cool man. I need to make this much money. All right, you make that much money and then you're still gonna be the guy that didn't like him. And so it's changing the identity. I'm going to be a guy that makes enough money that takes care of my family and takes care of my legacy. Cool. That gives me power to say, notice some things, to try some things, to risk some things, to say yes to some things. So I think it's anchoring into identity over these insane goals that we

give ourselves. I love that answer. And I'm going to bring up another author and it might be a strange segue, but Mark Manson came out with the book, everything is aft up. And it's interesting because when I read it, it was actually really good. And it was about a top. Mark is brilliant. Yeah, it was about actually the epidemic of hopelessness. And this is something that you reference in the book as well. And I wanted to end on this question. You write, I would not have written this book if I didn't

believe there's hope for you, for me, for our kids, for the people we love and for our world. And you explain that and what you hope a listener or a reader will take away from your book. The best way I could go is this. There's a man named Randy Harris who's a was a bioethics professor and a monk. So at the end of every semester, he would go to a monastery just disappear. And I credit him with being one of the few men who saved my life

back when I was not well. And we met every day for a year, I'm sorry, every week for a year, and he taught me meditation practices and taught me all sorts of pretty amazing things. And one of the the wise things he said was this, we live in a culture where sarcasm and pessimism so often present as wisdom, enjoy and optimism so often presents as lunacy. You're insane, as insanity. so often presents as lunacy. You're insane, as insanity. And what he meant by that was whatever cultural ethos, if you go back to the 80s

and it's all gonna be wonderful, there needs to be somebody going, or maybe not. And when all hope feels like it's lost and every news channel tells you how we're all doomed and every headline is negative, somebody needs to be able to go, hey, hold on though, but the sun came up today. And my kids are healthy.

And the water's still coming out of the faucet, at least for today. And so there's something about owning. Things are tough, but if you don't, if you're not walking towards a light, what are you doing? What are you doing? It's also the great Amos Tversky. He's a famous psychologist that there was a

research partner with Daniel Coneman who's won all sorts of every award on planet Earth because there those two guys are the smartest guys psychologists have ever lived. But I love this quote by Amos, he says pessimism is stupid because if it comes true, the thing you're worrying about comes true, you've been impacted by it twice. Why not just hope for the best work hard for the best and deal with negative things when they come and that has become an ethos for me Yeah, things are really tough and I think there's a path forward things are gonna get sideways I think we can get back on track and I don't see a I don't see a reason for existing without that Light and so I would not have written a book just to be like, Hey, man, everything's falling apart. High five, just smoke them if you got them. I don't think the world needs that voice. I think we've got that voice just fine. We've got plenty

of snarky people lobbing tweets at each other. I think what the world needs is a roadmap back to light back to, okay, let's just stop. Let's take the red pill and the green pill. Let's get all the way out of the matrix and just say, okay, what's the path forward here? And that's the point of this book is, hey, if you'll do these six things, it's not going to not, not you from hurt, but when hurt comes,

you'll have the capacity and the community and the resources to deal with it when it comes. And I think that is the light at the end of the path. That's hope. Well, thank you for that, John. And last thing is listener wants to learn more about you tune into your podcasts, where the best ways for them to reach you. Only after you've listened to the passion struck episode that comes out. When did your podcast release October 5th? No, like on a, you on a daily basis Tuesday Thursday Friday. No, like on a, you on a daily basis Tuesday Thursday Friday.

All right. Only that Tuesday Thursday Friday, after you listen to passion struck, you can go to the Dr. John Deloney show and you can find it on YouTube and on anywhere you get podcasts. And it's I'm taking live calls from people and we work through their challenges and try to figure out the next right step there. And you can go to johndeloney.com or follow me at john Deloney on all the internet. He places. Well, John, it was such an honor to have you here today. And congratulations again on this incredible book.

Thank you, my brother. I'm really grateful for you and good luck with yours in February. Man, it's awesome. Thank you so much. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with John Lone and I wanted to thank John and Dave Ramsey for the honor and privilege of having him appear on today's show. Links to all things John will be in the show notes. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests. We feature here on the show all proceeds go to supporting's show. Links to all things John will be in the show notes. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we

feature here on the show. All proceeds go to supporting the show. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one community at PashInstruct.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Videos are on YouTube at both our stations, at PashInstruct Clips and John Aramiles. I have some exciting news that my book is now ready for pre-order. It comes out February 6th, anywhere that you order books. And in it, I explore 12 powerful principles for how you unlock an intentional life. To find me on social media, go to genre

miles where I post daily on all the major platforms. You can also sign up for my newsletter at both johnarmiles.com and passionstruct.com. If you wanna know how I book amazing guests like Dr. John Deloney on my show, it's because of my network go out there and build yours before you need it. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruct podcast interview that I did with Katie Horwich,

who is a writer, speaker, mindset coach, and a women's empowerment activist. She's the founder of Want Women Against Negative Talk, platform empowering women to move forward by shifting their negative self-talk patterns. In our interview, we dive deep into Katie's new book, which is titled Want Yourself, a revolutionary approach to transform your self-talk patterns in a deep and lasting way. The book is called Want Yourself, not Want Your Talk. The book hopefully gives people this blueprint and this guidebook to get to that core

of the self-part of self-talk because the talk part is symptomatic, right? What it is a symptom of TBD, but in order to find out what it is a symptom of, you've got to look at the core of It is a symptom of you've got to look at the core of who you are, who you believe yourself to be, how you got there, how you are willing to dive in dig deep, how you are willing to be out in the world, how you are willing to stay out in the world. And that gets us to that place, wanting the self that we have so that, even when that negative self talk comes up, we can start to get to the core of the information that's there. The fee for this show is that you share it with your family and friends when you find something useful

or interesting. If you know someone who's experiencing anxiety, then please definitely share today's show with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you live what you listen. Now, go out there and become a passion struck. you