The Dr. John Delony Show - Ask Me Anything: John Answers Your Questions About Himself

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, what is up? This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm John. I'm so happy to be here. I hope you're doing well. I hope you have survived Christmas, whether it was wonderful and exciting and you got to be with kids who got to open presents, whether you had to get up and go to work and serve the least of these, whether you're a nurse and your shift doesn't

Starting point is 00:00:39 stop no matter what day it is, whether you are picking up the trash in the neighborhood and you've got your headphones in right now, I hope you survived. If you had to go to your family's house and it was a disaster, I hope you are back on track. You're doing okay. You're recovering. Whatever it may be. You may be listening to this in a closet in your cousin's bathroom. I don't even know who's got closets in their bathroom.

Starting point is 00:01:02 It may be you. And so if it is, awesome. We're going to do something a little different today. So I put out on the interwebs, on the social medias the other day, an AMA, Ask Me Anything. I've been getting a lot of requests, whether it's direct messages or emails or Facebook connections. Is that how you say that, Facebook connections? I sound like 111 years old just then. Yes. Facebook messages. Yes. Said James, otherwise known as the deity of my choice, right? Asking me certain questions about why do I do what I do? How do I do it? What are the things that I believe in? What are the things that I actually do with my life? And so I thought I

Starting point is 00:01:40 would compile all that, do an AMA and ask me anything and just go through some of these questions. If you don't want to hear that, if you tune in every time a show drops to hear what's going on in somebody else's life, if you tune in to just hear like, whoa, I thought my life was bad. I'm glad it's not that. Or I'm experiencing the exact same thing, then this won't be the show for you. You can just check out if you want to have some fun and dig into some of the things behind the thing. Some of the reasons I say what I say and where those things come from. This is going to be a fun show. So we're going to jump in and do an Ask Me Anything. We've got Kelly and James here. They can actually

Starting point is 00:02:18 speak into the show today, which is going to be fun. And if I just blow by something or say something stupid, they are free to make fun of me and pop in like they always do. Can I do that from now on on every show? Every show, you're welcome. You do do that. Here's the thing, folks. James can speak into my ear where only I can hear him, and he can speak into everybody's ears

Starting point is 00:02:38 so everybody can hear him. So y'all don't know how much he tortures me. I look directly at Kelly, and she sometimes makes faces that are worse than my wife and my mom combined. Yeah, but this is the first time that I can actually speak on the air. I know it hurts. It hurts and it makes me nervous and uncomfortable. All right, so let's go in. Question number one that came up a lot is what is my morning routine? I talk a lot about having routine, controlling what you can control. What are the things that you can do every day.

Starting point is 00:03:05 And it started with Ben Greenfield a decade ago. Ben Greenfield, fitness.com, is a guy that I trust, a guy that I have high respect for, and who practices what he preaches. Also, a few years ago, Tim Ferriss of the 4-Hour Workweek fame came out with a book called tools of titans it's about two or three inches thick and it just has morning routines and daily practices of everyone from i don't know professional bowlers to neuroscientists to astronauts and everybody in between and so consensus is that people who achieve things that help them be well and i don't want to say success because i think a mom of three kids who's making it work is highly successful. And I think someone who can put a man on the moon is highly successful. Someone who's figuring out how to mine an asteroid is highly successful. And somebody who works at a used car dealership and make sure people have a affordable car to

Starting point is 00:03:59 get to work is successful. And so an underlying theme there is that they have a morning routine often that they don't budge on, or if they budge on it, it is barely. So here's my routine. I do it almost every single morning. Sometimes it's little tweaks and variations here and there. And we're going to put some of this stuff in the show notes. So this will be a packed show notes thing. So if you don't want to just take notes, you can click in and check out the show. But here's the way it works. I wake up somewhat early, usually between 5 and 5.45 on most days. I try to get seven to nine hours of sleep, seven, eight hours. I really don't like to budge on that.

Starting point is 00:04:37 Occasionally, like once a month, I'll sleep until 7, and several times a month, I wake up at 4.30. If I get up at 4.30 on my own, I just get up and go ahead and go do the day. I turn on the coffee pot. I make my bed. My wife is a writer, and so she's usually up before me writing. So I make the bed. Boom, I started off the day with a win. Turn on the coffee pot, and then I immediately go to my gratitude journal.

Starting point is 00:04:58 If you're watching on YouTube, this is my gratitude journal, the actual one. And I write in it. I just grab a marker. These I grabbed out of my kids. But I write down five things that I'm grateful for. They start with the sentence, I'm grateful for. Then I reach over and grab a Bible. I'm a Christian guy. And so scripture guides my life. And I will write down a scripture that's going to be my guiding one for the day. And I put that on my little note card. My note card is what guides me. I don't have a fancy app.

Starting point is 00:05:26 I don't have a planner or anything like that. I've got a note card that I carry in my pocket and I check on it. And I mark things off as I go. I then move to meditation, whether that's five minutes or 15 minutes. Usually I use the Insight Timer app. It's free. And I don't make any money. By the way, I'm not making any money on any of the things I recommend here.

Starting point is 00:05:47 These are just things that I do on my own. And I will meditate for 5 to 15 minutes. I also spent a year with a professor who was a monk. And so I've done a number of my own chants and learned a number of my own meditations through him. And so I will do those too. I've got my own little Tibetan bell down in my little home office. The point of meditation is to be still, learn to control my thoughts and experiences.

Starting point is 00:06:13 And if you think of your thoughts like a muscle, meditation helps you bring them back. And when they wander, you bring them back. Then I head upstairs and I grab some coffee. For years, I drank black coffee. I'm working on something now with Dr. Josh Axe's Green Matcha Colostrum. It's an ancient nutrition product. It's pretty good. I like it. I'm several days into it and I like it a lot. I mix 50-50 decaf to caffeinated.

Starting point is 00:06:39 And I think the science is pretty clear that caffeine helps and we are way overstimulated group of people. And so I've been mixing it 50-50 and me and my wife and it's helped our anxiety. It's helped our sleep. It's helped everything. So I then put my feet on bare grass just for a few minutes. This isn't something you do for an hour. A day does not go by when I don't touch my bare feet to bare ground, period. And I don't have caffeine after 10 except rarely.

Starting point is 00:07:03 And that's just one of my little rules. I then go work out. I've been collecting gym equipment in my garage for years. If a CrossFit gym is going out of business or a local Craigslist has something for sale, I'll go buy and buy two plates or one kettlebell. And I work out anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. I built my own squat rack using four by fours in a YouTube video. There's just not a lot of excuses for not working out at your house. Gyms can be cool. There's a good camaraderie there. It's got everything there,

Starting point is 00:07:36 but most of us have everything we need at our house, or we could collect it over a couple of months. Obviously COVID, man, dude, gym equipment's gotten expensive because people are stuck at home. Good for them. You can even run around your yard with rocks. You can fill up five gallon buckets with concrete. There's a number of things you can do to come up with weights and workout equipment at your house. But I work out from anywhere from 30, 60 minutes, depending on my morning. I listen to my body. Sometimes I've had several late nights in a row, or I have sleep terrible several nights in a row, and sometimes I'll just take a walk. Often, I'll walk every day for a week. I'll walk a mile and a half one way and a mile and a half back. It'll be a three-mile walk. Other times, I'll take a

Starting point is 00:08:20 walk, but I'll wear a backpack, and I'll put a 35-pound weight in it, like a makeshift rucksack. Right now, I'm doing Jocko's push, pull, squat, and lift protocol, but I'll switch them up. I'll do that for four or five months, and then I'll go do something else. The goal here is this. I am in my 40s now. I'm in my early 40s, and my goal has switched from, yeah, bro, I want to squat and bench press. Now my goal is this. I want to be able to roll around and wrestle with my grandkids when i'm 90

Starting point is 00:08:47 I want to be a formidable opponent for my granddaughter and my grandson on a wrestling mat When i'm 90 and so I am working out on getting strong getting lean getting Um making sure I move often and then i'm keeping my strength up When I went on vacation, like on Thanksgiving, we drove a van a thousand miles to go to a ranch, like a hunting field, and then we went to my parents' house. I put some of my kettlebells and dumbbells in the car, and it's not uncommon for me to do a 15, 20-minute workout in a parking lot of a hotel or off behind a tree somewhere in the

Starting point is 00:09:25 middle of a field. It's just good to keep moving. I'm probably going to hire a mobility, a movement coach via online and start working on some joint mobility and some joint muscle strength. I'll let you know how that goes, but I'm looking at that in the next couple of months. Then after my workout, 30 to 60 minutes, I hang upside down on my teeter. It's an inversion table. It's called a teeter. They couldn't have come up with it. I guess it's teeter totter, right? That's what, yeah, right. Just saying I hang upside down on my teeter just sounds weird when I say it out loud, but I can see James getting uncomfortable too. Pretty much all this stuff sounds weird, so don't worry about that. Exactly. So I hang upside down for three minutes,

Starting point is 00:10:02 three to five minutes, and then I go outside in my cold tub I have a metal watering trough That I got from a tractor supply store And I leave it outside in the winter And it ices over This morning I actually had to break the ice And I sit in it for three to five minutes And learn how to breathe still

Starting point is 00:10:18 And if I'm not in the cold shower I mean if I'm not in the cold tub I take cold showers Cold exposure grows new mitochondria. There's a cellular reason why. There's a scientific, a biological reason. It grows new mitochondria. That's the battery power for your cells.

Starting point is 00:10:34 It makes you stronger from the inside out. And it's good psychologically. But the whole thing takes about 45 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on my day. And sometimes if I wake up early, I'll slow play it and do a long workout. Sometimes if I'm in a rush, I'll do 45 minutes. Sometimes like today was a recovery day. I spent 30 to 45 minutes with my foam roller and with my, I don't know, jackhammer massager thing, just stretching and getting loose and doing some squats and then calling it good. I also build in a lot of hugs and touching and body contact with my wife and my two kids. I had somebody come stay with me recently. He was working through some personal challenges

Starting point is 00:11:14 and they pulled me aside one day. We were walking outside and said, do you and your wife hug that much all the time? Do you and your kids hug like that every day? Or do you just put on a show for me? And I said, no, we do that every day. Skin to skin contact, body contact, eye contact is critical. It's something we've lost and it's something that I'm highly intentional about in my house. Sometimes we do morning dancing, singing or quiet. Sometimes it is silence in the house. And I can now, I just look at my wife or my son. I can just know today's going to be a quiet day. I try to eat breakfast with my kids when I can. Sometimes I'm fasting. Sometimes I'm not. We'll talk about that later. Often after drinking coffee and a good workout, there's an epic bathroom event. I'm not trying to be gratuitous. I'm just telling you that's

Starting point is 00:11:59 got to build that time in too. And then when I leave the house, I put in my human charger, especially in the winter time for vitamin D and sunlight. I jam to music, have silence, prepare for my show recordings, depending on whatever's going on. Sometimes I write in the morning. Sometimes I'll meditate for a long time. Sometimes I do weird things like work outside in shorts and nothing else in the freezing weather, whatever it happens to be. But that's my morning routine. Pretty much do that every single day with little to no variation. Occasionally on Saturdays, if I'm going to be at a hunting ranch at 4 a.m. or I'm going on a trip or something, I'll adjust it. But getting into a rhythm of life.

Starting point is 00:12:37 All right. So the next thing naturally is what's my diet? What do I actually eat? Now, before I answer this, here's the thing. Diet is, I could say, listen, I worship Satan, and I would get less drama and hate mail. I worship Satan, and I don't believe in God. I could say that out loud, and I'm going to get less mean emails than if I say, you know, I think vegans are psychotic, or I think keto people don't know how to read science.

Starting point is 00:13:02 Whatever the thing I'm about to say. So everybody keep your dietary things to yourself. I don't care, quite honestly. Do what works for you. What I will tell you is I've met with a bajillion researchers. I've spent 15 years figuring this out. And there's a couple of common themes throughout everything. And I also know that if you adhere to your diet more religiously than your core

Starting point is 00:13:26 convictions, you're going to make yourself insane. So here we go. I have tried every diet. I used to keep spreadsheets of my diets, right? For 30 days, I would try to be vegan. I'd try to be raw vegan, or I would eat whatever it happened to be. I had my own glucose monitor for my blood. I was a nerd. My weight, I tracked everything, how I felt. Here's a few guidelines. Unequivocally, no ifs, ands, or buts, sugar is killing us to death. Slowly, quickly, it's destroying us from the inside out. So if you have one enemy in your diet, it's sugar. So I have no sugar unless I'm going all in. So my rule is I don't fall off the wagon. I climb off the wagon. I park it, and then I let it run over me.

Starting point is 00:14:14 So if I'm going to eat sugar, I'm going to eat 65 cookies and eight bags of gummy candies. I'm going to scrounge my neighborhood for insulin, and then I'm going to sleep for a few days terribly, and then I'm going to get back into it. So on the whole, I don't eat sugar. Very, very, very few grains, almost no grains, no sugar, no grains. I got that from Vinnie Tortorich. I love that. Just quick saying no sugar, no grains, especially processed grains. So I hardly ever eat bread or hamburger buns or rice or pasta. Never. I do eat my wife's sourdough bread. There's a whole other reason for that. It's live and it processes all the gluten out, et cetera, et cetera. I usually go between 15 to 16 hours

Starting point is 00:14:50 between meals, a minimum of 12. So if I quit eating dinner at 6.30, I won't eat again until 6.30 the next day. Intermittent fasting is important. Sometimes 20 hours, sometimes one or two day fast. That's a whole other conversation. So I won't dig into that. Lots and lots of fats, high, high quality fats, lots of high quality meats. I get my meat from a grass fed butcher in Missouri, actually drive and go pick it up. Lots of grass fed butters. I do put heavy cream in my coffee when I'm not fasting, lots of vegetables. And I eat frozen berries with heavy cream. I get big bags of frozen berries from Costco and I will warm them up and put heavy cream in there.

Starting point is 00:15:31 I don't drink a ton, maybe a drink or two a week, maybe every two weeks. Usually it'll be whiskey, occasionally beer or an organic wine, but I just don't drink very much. The more I practice not drinking much, the more I realized I just feel better. I don't sleep as well. If I have a couple of drinks, I challenge everybody, take 30 days off a drink and see how you feel. You're probably going to feel a lot better. Then it goes to what supplements we'll get to that later. I'm working on some cool

Starting point is 00:16:00 things for you, the listener, when it comes to supplementation. And I am super selective, but I am obnoxious about the supplements I take. So we'll save that for another one. The next question that came up a lot was books. I read a lot and a lot, a lot. So a couple of things. One is I read as much as I can get my hands on, whether that's science articles, whether that's books, whether that is the occasional, I don't know, blog post.

Starting point is 00:16:29 And I reread books a lot. My wife is a literacy expert. I like to come back to books with new eyes and experiences. And I learned this from her. And the book will mean and say new things to me. So I like that. So I'm going to run through a list here of the books that I love. Books that have meant a lot to me that I still go back to.

Starting point is 00:16:47 And here we go. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Catcher in the Rye by Salinger. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. That's a recent book. It's his autobiography. It's extraordinary. I Don't Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real.

Starting point is 00:17:00 A book that changed everything in my life by Nassim Taleb is Anti-Fragile. He also has a follow-up called Skin in the Game, which is a similar book, but Anti-Fragile just rocked my world from the inside out. Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski is the best book on sex and intimacy I've ever read. Finding Meaning by David Kessler is a book on grief. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Dr. Lindsay Gibson. Everybody with parents, everybody with parents who left them, everybody who's parents, who has parents or have had a parent, which means everybody, should read the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. If you are a parent, you should read it because it's going to tell you about yourself. Okay. Nadine Burke Harris, the book, The Deepest Well, I did some work with ACEs,

Starting point is 00:17:53 Adverse Childhood Experiences, and the ACEs scores. It is powerful and extraordinary and has the opportunity to change the world from inside out very simply. Any book by Gabor Mate, M-A-T-E, Daring Greatly. Any book by Brene Brown is good, is worth your read. Irvin Yalom, The Gift of Therapy, which is an open letter to young therapists, is good for people entering into mental health space, people who help other people, and it's good for people who are going to counseling to know what a good therapist would look like. Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud is a classic. It's an extraordinary read. If You're a Super Nerd, Behave by Robert Sapolsky.

Starting point is 00:18:32 He's a Stanford scientist and researcher. It's a magical book, but it's also dense. And so if you're not a super nerd, it may not be for you, but it's remarkable. For those leaders in business, Pat Lencioni, any book by him. For just fiction that's fun, Ready Player One by Ernst Klein. I love that book.

Starting point is 00:18:49 As a kid of the 80s and 90s, that book was rad. Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel is an excellent book on relationships, just talking about how relationships are shifting underneath us. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely was awesome. Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes. That's like a mystery novel into what has happened to our country the last hundred years, and it's remarkable. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Starting point is 00:19:13 For you dads, especially dads of sons, read that book. You won't sleep well, but it's a good book. Huck Finn is magic. Justice by Michael Sandel. Anything by Tim Wise, Rob Bell, Richard Rohr, N.T. Wright, Richard Beck These are guys I know people disagree with But they stretch us If you are theologically minded too

Starting point is 00:19:31 They stretch and push and make you uncomfortable Make you think differently Richard Beck is a close, close friend of mine Anything by Anne Lamont is good The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk And now here's a Here's a magic little tidbit. I don't read any sort of anything scientific or insight or philosophical at night. I only read young adult fiction.

Starting point is 00:19:58 So here's some of my favorite young adult fiction. The Harry Potter series, obviously. The Winged Feathers Saga by Andrew Peterson. It's remarkable. The Wildwood Trilogy by Colin Malloy. So good. And the Wilder Goods series by S.J. Dahlstrom. I talk about Texas a lot. If you got young kids, Wilder Goods series, buy them all and buy them right now. They're excellent. Also, almost as important as books is I've had some transcendent moments over the course of my life with poets and with stand-up comedians. So here's a little insight into me. I had my life changed with a group of poets from the Deaf Comedy, the Deaf Poetry Jam series, Lisa Connell, Lisa Jessie Peterson. They spent a weekend with me and really transformed my life as a young adult. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. I'm a huge poetry fan, and we can go down and listen to them. I would keep notebooks, little spiral notebooks of what jokes worked and why they worked and what was fun and what wasn't fun. So I was obsessed with Cosby and Pryor. I think Dave Chappelle is leveled up over everybody right now. Obviously, everybody

Starting point is 00:21:18 swears a lot. They talk about whatever, fill in the blank. So these aren't for everybody. These are just folks who have meant a lot to me. Stand-up comedians, I love them because they are the last great bastion of art. It's just them and a microphone. There is no filter between them and an audience. And so they can connect in real time. And they go there, you go to watch a comedian with one expectation, make me laugh. And they have to overcome that expectation in a really remarkable, unique way. Louis Black is one of my favorites. I took my dad to a Louis Black concert when we were adults. And I remember looking over, he was laughing so hard. And I thought, he's going to die right now. He's laughing so hard. And then I thought, what better way to go? What better way to die than in a stand-up comedy

Starting point is 00:21:57 show? He didn't die, by the way. He made it. Steve Martin Records, obviously Seinfeld was good, is good. And Nate Bargotsky, is that who that is? Nate Bargotsky now? He's hilarious, dude. That guy is awesome. He's one of the new comedians coming up. So those are folks that I love.

Starting point is 00:22:15 And then I'll get into music. I'm all over the place with music. So I'm going to rattle it off. I'm not advocating for any of these groups. I'll tell Kelly, we both share a love for old Guns N' Roses. When Guns N' Roses got back together a couple of years ago, me and my old buddies got together, and we went to the show. And about two songs in, I was singing along. No, it was the first song.

Starting point is 00:22:40 I remember what the first song was. And I was singing at the top of my lungs. And then I just stopped. And I was like, well, Mr. Axl Rose, I have a daughter and I can't sing this song. This is inappropriate and you're rude and you shouldn't be saying these things. And so as a parent, it's totally different. As an adult, it's totally different. As a grownup, right? But here's some of the groups that have shaped me. And occasionally I'll go back to them. Sometimes I go back to them a lot. I'm not going to tell you which. When it comes to metal, I was a huge obsessive Pantera fan. Deftones, of course the Big Four.

Starting point is 00:23:12 If you don't know who the Big Four are, just go past that. Rage Against the Machine, Dream Theater. I love those bands. All 80s hair metal. I loved it. All of it. Poison was special to me. Obviously all those bands. I get into them all of them deaf leopard's the best deaf leopard was legit hey i saw when i saw them in the concert i remember

Starting point is 00:23:31 thinking like these guys are really good like they could play well they were awesome i saw all those bands they were great warrant and rat and all of them i love old punk bands like bad brains and henry rollins black flag one of my favorite bands of all time is Social Distortion. I used to love Sick of It All and Hatebreed. All those hardcore old punk bands. I really love The Killers. I really love, especially old, but I love Foo Fighters. Those two bands are excellent, excellent, what I'd call pop rock bands.

Starting point is 00:23:58 I was a huge fan of the punky new wave bands, which were like Trippin' Daisy and Ned's Atomic Dustbin. And then, man, the pop punk like Blink and 30 Foot Fall and MXPX and Goldfinger. All those bands I loved. And then one day my wife, when she was my girlfriend, took me to a show. And really everything stopped and changed for me. And a guy walks out on stage with an acoustic guitar. He's a Christian singer named Bebo Norman.

Starting point is 00:24:21 And I watched him capture an entire theater. Just all the air sucked out of that room. And he just started singing and people were hanging on to every word. I'd never been to a singer songwriter show like that. And I wish I had another word, but it's transcendent. And he was controlling an audience the same way I had seen Phil Anselmo of Pantera control an audience, just hanging on every word. And so then I went down a rabbit hole and really became fascinated and in love with singer-songwriters like Cadence Call, Eric Peters, who's also a great friend, Andrew Peterson, Andy O'Singa, great songwriters. And then Ani DiFranco was an important influence in my life, Damian Rice, obviously Bebo.

Starting point is 00:25:01 And then some of the best living songwriters in the world. I think Frank Turner, the Avett Brothers, Brandon Flowers, who's the lead singer of The Killers, Springsteen, Andy Peterson, those, I mean, just extraordinary writers. They're poets and they're songwriters. They're awesome. And then we get into hip hop and rap. Toby Ngwingwe is hands down the best rapper out right now. He's from Houston. He is incredible.

Starting point is 00:25:26 I do love old Jay-Z and old Biggie. And Dre was the beat and hook master. Old Warren G. And the Houston rap, Little Flip and Mike Jones and Swishahouse. Those things are near and dear to my heart. They're way down in my DNA for better and for worse. I love old Run DMC and M and Beastie Boys. The License to Ill Records up there at the top, one of my favorites.

Starting point is 00:25:46 Old LL Cool J and Grandmaster Flash. I love all Old Cube, all those. I love them. And then I really, really love old soul singers like Nina Simone and Aretha. I don't talk about that a lot, but I love them. I really love old guitar players like Hendrix and Stevie Ray. Ani DiFranco was a stunning guitar player. And then the newest guy, Guy Clark. If you're not listening to Guy Clark Jr., that dude is

Starting point is 00:26:10 something special. And then I love ambient electronica and lo-fi beats when I am writing. And then sometimes I love old country like Johnny Cash and Willie and Garth and Merle and those guys. And my buddy Aaron Watson there in Texas, he's, I guess, Texas country they call him? He's good too. I like all of it. So real quick, here's the movies that were... Hold up, hold up. I feel like you left out a really important 90s alternative band.

Starting point is 00:26:35 Third Eye Blind? Yep. Yep. There we go. Third Eye Blind can write a pop song and in between it, talk about heroin and murder and all these things right and so you find yourself singing along like and then you think i probably shouldn't be singing that out loud and i'm gonna have to cancel myself for a second but i was in middle school and i

Starting point is 00:26:56 didn't know what half the things meant and as an adult i was like oh that's what that means we probably there you go so awesome movies that were impactful to me, Good Will Hunting. I saw Good Will Hunting and I went and changed my major the next day from his journalism or business. I changed it to counseling, not because of the good, because of the Will Hunting character, because of Robin Williams. Oh, back to comics. I loved watching Robin Williams. Stand By Me is my number one favorite movie of all time. Meet the Parents, when my buddy, my oldest best friend in the world was in a car wreck. He's a paraplegic now, but the movie Meet the Parents was on loop and repeat. And there was something about the comedy of that

Starting point is 00:27:34 and the friendship of that, that means a lot to me. Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky film, is dark, dark, dark, but awesome. Spaceballs in Major League. Karate Kid 1 and 2. And I don't care who you are. Titanic was awesome. And if you're like, no, that movie is so lame. You're lying. You're lying. The movie Titanic was awesome.

Starting point is 00:27:53 Jack, I'll never let go. It was so good. American History X was a powerful movie for me. All the early Sandler movies, Will Ferrell movies. What's y'all's favorite movie? Oh, man, that's tough. Oh, no, easy easy godfather one and two no question no question and you run this ship like don corleone which is so great kind of well at some point in time you will be asked i will do a favor for you you will be asked

Starting point is 00:28:19 to return it exactly mine's probably donnie darko. Donnie Darko, huh? Yeah. Great music. This tells you a lot about James and I, the Godfather series, Donnie Darko. Exactly. James, by the way, is dressed in all black right now. Not true. I have a gray shirt on. There's gray. Yeah, he livened it up today for the Ask Me Anything, and he's wearing gray.

Starting point is 00:28:38 And Kelly has got an AK-47 across her lap right now, just in case things go down. Hey, you know you want to be prepared. Any time it can go down. That's right. All right. So those are just the broad influences and things I do. Here's some questions people started digging into like my personal life. So these are fun. I'm just going to go through them. How do you like living in the woods as opposed to the city? I love them both. I kind of love everything. That's a common theme in my life. I mostly like everything. I love being in nature. I like growing my own food. We've got a big garden, chickens and deer and turkey, et cetera. There is some great research

Starting point is 00:29:15 about fractals, Mandelbrot stuff. If you want to have your mind blown, read about Mandelbrot and fractals, how he came up with the patterns and clouds. It's extraordinary, but trees, clouds, holes in the ground, grass, hills, water, we're designed for fractals, not for smooth lives of 72, 72, 72 degrees from our home to our car, to our office, to our car, back to our home. We're designed for rises in temperatures and drops in temperatures and uncomfortable things and seasonal things. We're not designed. Our bodies aren't designed to eat apples every day. We can't process that much sugar. And so I love being out in nature. I love being kept awake because the moon is so

Starting point is 00:30:00 bright because the stars are so bright. It's like someone's shining a spotlight over my house. That's awesome. I also loved living downtown. I love being downtown Nashville. I like walking around in the thick of things. I like the pulse of the city. I love being able to just run over to a standup comedy club or to go to concerts and then be home in 10 minutes. I love all that. And I grew up in a suburb north of Houston. I love that too. I love the community. I love the neighborhood. So it's, it's really just deciding to be present and love where you're at. But right now, I'm really loving being close to nature. Next question. Why do you block out your kids' pictures on social media? The short answer is I've been behind closed doors with tech people

Starting point is 00:30:40 from all over the country. And what they are doing with digital footprints, what they're doing with facial recognition technology, the psychometric maps they're building of our kids, where our kids go, where our kids do what they think, their test scores, their facial recognition, all that just makes me uncomfortable. I hope people are going to use that for good. They may not. And so at the end of the day, I want to protect my kids' digital footprint. They didn't ask for this life, and so I want to let them opt in. And as we get into the facial recognition stuff, I don't want there to be a path of my child's life that's scripted out for them that's my fault. And so the best I can, I want them to be able to tell their own stories, how they want to tell it when they are old enough to understand what telling their stories means.

Starting point is 00:31:28 And until then, I'm going to block their faces out. Preach. They're beautiful. Yeah, James is with me on the tech stuff. My kids are beautiful, hilarious. Their mom is – my wife is beautiful, and so they got good genes on her side. And I'd love to be able to show their faces. They're hilarious and fun to be around.

Starting point is 00:31:44 But I want to keep them off the internet as long as I can. And by the way, we're weird about that. One of my best friends in the world came to visit recently. He took out a phone and I said, Hey dude, don't take pictures of my kids. And he was like, are you serious? You idiot. And I said, yeah, I know it's weird, but I just don't want pictures of my kids floating around as much as possible. And so I, I protect it as much as I can. We ask our parents not to post pictures. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but that's where we're at. How long have I been married? I got married in 2002. So it's at 18 years and we dated five years before that. So I have with a bunch of breakups, it's a whole thing. But my wife and I have been together more than half of our lives and that's kind of cool and kind of weird. What's my favorite food?

Starting point is 00:32:26 An awesome hamburger with sweet potato fries, a giant ribeye that's cooked barely medium, and deer and elk backstrap are my favorites. I just love those. What's my Enogram, Myers-Briggs, blah, blah? So Ian Cron and I met. He says I'm a two. I guess he wrote the book on it literally, so I trust him. I've also been told I'm a four, strong wing five. And I have also think I can be a three and a partridge in a pear tree. And I'm an INFP. I'm an introvert mostly, but also sort of an extrovert. It has like an IE

Starting point is 00:33:01 with a slash in between it. So here's my thought on these things. They're mostly nonsense. They mostly don't have tons of research behind them, but they do have one thing that I love. I love any sort of tool that inspires people to go look in a mirror and be introspective. I don't like the tools because people use them predictively and prescriptively, and they use them to label other people, and they use them to label themselves. So I've been in rooms where they're like, we don't need to hire them because they're an ENFJ. Or, yeah, that person's a Ford, so they're really going to struggle in this role. Using those tools like that is evil. It's wrong. It's very similar to, well, you know, people who look like that aren't going to be good quarterbacks or she grew up in this kind of neighborhood. So we probably shouldn't let her come work at this company. I don't like that.

Starting point is 00:33:54 In fact, I hate that. I don't like the judgment part of those type of tools. People use these tools to define and limit and judge themselves and others. I don't like that. I do like when people look in a mirror and say, huh, I do have a default setting that kind of looks like that. I don't want to be like that. Or maybe I can lean into that and fill in the blank. So when you use these tools in a positive way, reflective way, awesome. Knock your lights out with any and all of them. Patrick Lencioni just came out with one that is real short and I love it. It's great. The Enneagram is helping bajillions of people. StrengthsFinder, I went to the Gallup organization

Starting point is 00:34:36 when that was rolling out years ago. I just want to caution people that those are not the end all be all and that you get to decide every single day who you're going to be and how you're going to be it. What are my favorite places to travel? Home. I'm so lame. I'm a homebody. I love fishing in Galveston Bay. I like fishing, but I'm just not huge on traveling. I like being home and resting. That makes me so lame. And that's one of the things that I want to start leaning into, that I'm a guy who travels and goes on adventures in other places, not just adventures where I'm comfortable and safe, but that's just me. Who in history would I want to hang out with? Obviously, I'd love to sit down and have a meal or two with Jesus just to pick his brain here and there,

Starting point is 00:35:22 see how bad we've gotten off track. Also, William Glasser. He's the guy who developed choice theory. He died about a decade ago. I have some friends who knew him, met him, and they said there was something so warm and inviting. Same with Carl Rogers probably who had not a single judgment bone in their body and that when you were in their presence, you just simply, you're dropped your shoulders automatically. You just felt loved and not awkward or weird. He just looked at people as though, I'm so glad you're in my presence. And I want to be around

Starting point is 00:35:55 people like that. And I want to become that for myself and for other people. So those are the people I'd want to just hang out and meet with. I guess George Washington would be cool. Any of those famous guy, I don't know. Abe Lincoln, probably cool. Although he was kind of miserable. I don't know if he'd be fun to hang out with. He'd probably be kind of boring. I can't with James a little bit. How did you and your wife meet? So imagine this. I'm in the student center of my little college. I've got real long hair. I hardly ever shower because I'm a cool punk rock cool guy. And my buddy Justin shows up and he has a sister who's in high school, a senior in high school. She'd come up to visit him and she shows up. She is West Texan. She has a braided belt.

Starting point is 00:36:40 Her pants are tied just below her neckline. And she looks like she came straight off of a farm. And I look like I came straight out of a back alley somewhere. And he said, this is my sister, John. Hey, wife, my sister, this is my friend, John. Y'all are going to get married someday. I thought y'all should meet now. And we were both looked at each other and we're like, yeah, no, that's disgusting and weird. And then we,

Starting point is 00:37:06 she came to that college year later, then we met and we broke up and we met, we broke up, we dated, we broke up. I think we broke up five times total. And then we've been together ever since. And that's the story. I got introduced by my brother-in-law. One fun story about that is once we started dating officially the next year, he said, Hey, um, I know you're about to start dating my sister and we're friends, but since you're dating my sister, we can't be friends anymore. And I was like, Oh, okay. And literally he quit talking to me. It was awesome. He's like, dude, you're dating my sister. That's weird. I'm not gonna be your friend. And I loved it. And then we got married and then it was back on. It was legit, man.

Starting point is 00:37:40 And I spent a week with him last week out in the woods, and he's just a great, extraordinary guy. Just a stud. So that's cool. Things that get me the most anxious? What gets me the most anxious? Broadly speaking, climate change and economic issues and not like, oh, dude, liberal, bro. Like I've sat in meetings after meetings after meetings with climate scientists and looked at the data and the tables, and there's just some scary stuff out there. Economic issues, what we have managed to do in the last 50 or 60 years is just unimaginably unsustainable. The way we have moved the stock market, the fact that we owe $25 trillion,

Starting point is 00:38:34 those things aren't sustainable. And if you look back at history, they don't end well. And so it will take an extraordinary coming together of people making wise decisions that everybody's going to be uncomfortable. Everyone's going to have to change. Everyone's going to have to do hard things for a period of time for a greater good. And just watching how we've handled COVID, watching this the last election season, like it's been hard on me because I thought people could come together over big issues. And this has made me doubt whether that's possible. And so I'm back to helping people in my sphere, people who call my show, who I interact with every day, people who come to our events that will read the books that I put out. That's where I can be a person of influence and a person as neighbors and not as people that we hate and people that we've got to work together on for the sake of our grandkids.

Starting point is 00:39:30 But those are two big things that make me anxious, and mainly it's because I can't do anything about them. I can not owe money. I can be a part of being honest about the banking industry. I can ride my bike more. I can get solar panels on my house. I can do those things. But at the end of the day, some of these systemic things are just way bigger than me. And so those make me anxious. I can't do anything about them. I'm anxious about the future my kids are inheriting. And I'm anxious about kind of a movement towards the pathologization of discomfort.

Starting point is 00:40:07 You said something that made me uncomfortable, so you can't talk. Once we get rid of free speech, that's a dangerous, slippery slope. And that free speech means I can say what I want and you can too and they can too. If you go back to some of the ACLU stuff when they were defending Nazi sympathizers. That's evil and ugly and gross. But the fact that we have free speech means people can say what they're going to say, even if they're idiots. And so that's just messy. But again, I'm also super optimistic.

Starting point is 00:40:35 I'm just kind of an optimistic guy by nature. So how much money is in my swear jar right now? I swear way, way, way, way, way too much. A lot is what I'm going to say. A lot. What was the biggest change coming from Tennessee to Texas? Giving up my driver's license. That's just weird handing it over.

Starting point is 00:40:57 It was though. I don't know. I was losing citizenship. Mexican food. Mexican food in Nashville is bust, dude. Mexican food in Texas is legit. And I miss my friend. As a Texan. It's awful, right? It's just not.

Starting point is 00:41:10 Chewy's is here. When I first moved here and I wanted really great Mexican, this was 20 years ago too. And somebody was like, we've got this great place. It's called On the Border. Come on. That's like, hey, I know a great place to get a burger. Chili's. Yeah. Nope. Oh, I know where we place to get a burger. Chilies. Yeah. Nope.

Starting point is 00:41:26 Oh, I know where we could crush dinner. Applebee's. Nope. Same thing, dude. When we go home, I eat Mexican for like a week. Yes. Yes. And so, hey, listen, if you want to make a million dollars, bring a great authentic, not a million, a bajillion dollars.

Starting point is 00:41:39 Bring a great authentic Mexican food restaurant to Nashville. And Nashville's Mexican food is good. It's got like unicorn and octopus in it. Like it's all artsy. Well, because we're a foodie town now. Yeah, it's all fancy and it's $111 for like a miniature burrito that was, you know, like the goat grew up in somebody's home. Like it's awesome.

Starting point is 00:42:00 It's delicious. But I want like a pig roasting in the parking lot behind the building. I will buy the stuff that they're roasting in the parking lot of the convenience store. Yes. I want dirty, gritty. You need to go to Antioch, to Nolensville Road. There's plenty of that happening. I'm in, dude.

Starting point is 00:42:17 There is. It's not too far from where we live, so come over and we'll go eat. Okay, I'm in. What's my beef with CrossFit? None. Here's my beef with CrossFit? None. Here's my beef with CrossFit. I just lied. They are looking for people who have beefs with them.

Starting point is 00:42:30 You can't tell one joke about one. God, I love CrossFit. It's a great exercise program. They don't care about form at all, so you're going to end up with broken shoulders and elbows and knees, whatever. But they are great for community. They are great for group achievement. I've got a

Starting point is 00:42:45 great mentor and friend of mine, Dustin. Dustin is all in. He has changed my heart and mind about it. It's great. He's a teacher. They accomplish great things together. It's a good, and every group, every group, get a sense of humor, chill out. Be reflective. Do you ever find yourself being Dr. John when your wife just needs her husband? No. And here's why. Because I used to be that. And it almost cost me my entire marriage, literally, not playing. So no, I was so, so bad. I was Mr. Advice giving all the time. And it's actually why I preach against it so hard now because I demoralized my wife so bad. I hurt the person that I love and care about the most in the world. And so, no, when I get home, that stuff is off, off, off. I actually ask permission. Are you asking for my input here? You want me to listen? And she says, I just want you to listen. So no,

Starting point is 00:43:41 I only give advice in my house when it's asked for by my wife. And I'm pretty open about that. Even with my friends, I've shifted over the last three or four or five years to just listening and not just being advice guy all the time. What are some of my biggest influences on the advice I give? No question, Dr. Andrew Young, Andy Young, who is my crisis team supervisor in Lubbock, Texas. He's an author. Check out his books. He's just an extraordinary guy.

Starting point is 00:44:09 He's a great human being, and he is the master at going into uncomfortable, hard, broken, messy, bloody, ugly situations and bringing the temperature down, helping everybody in the room from the cops to the SWAT team to the actual victims to the assailants, everybody. And he's the master. Dr. Jean-Noel Thompson showed me how to fire somebody with dignity and grace, how to have hard conversations, how to be direct, how to lean in, how to talk, how to be open. Michael Gibson, who was my first boss, he was my first coach that hired me back in 2000. He taught me how to love young people, how to listen, how to be, what showing up and being there meant. My professors in grad school, Dr. Hendricks, Dr. Marbley, Dr. LaTorra, Peggy Price, those folks were incredible. And then my dad, my mom, they're just extraordinary watching them over the years. My wife is a a gifted communicator and she is good at hospitality and creating a presence

Starting point is 00:45:07 for people that feel safe to talk. And then my sister, my brother, those folks are good. And then the folks I've read and watched, interacted with over the years, Yalom, Glasser, thousands of people I've sat with, Gabor Mate, Terrence Real, Henry Cloud, those folks who just bring their presence with them, the Mate, Terrence Real, Henry Cloud, those folks who just bring their presence with them, the writers, et cetera. So have I had my own mental health challenges? Yes. How did I overcome them? Get my new book. How's that? That was a pretty dope pitch. It was a long story. I'm still working through it, but it's a long story there. That'll be a whole other podcast someday.

Starting point is 00:45:44 What's my professional background? That's a whole other podcast. We'll do that one later. As with all your knowledge and experience, what has stopped you in your tracks, good and bad? An alligator. That actually happened once. My buddy and I used to collect reptiles. We'd sell them to a store in the swamps in Houston. We stumbled into some alligators once and that froze us up. Not what you're talking about. The two things that have stopped me in my tracks, one was when I realized, oh my gosh, my marriage is almost over. And that was a couple of times over the last 20 years. Those are frozen moments when you have a, I'm going to lean this way or I'm going to stop and go back this way.

Starting point is 00:46:27 Those are important moments that stop everything. I'm leaving work. We're shutting this thing down until we get this figured out. And then I'll tell the story. Man, I was teaching a grad school class one night and – no, you know what? I'm not going to tell that story. I'm going to leave that for another time. I'll tell you this.

Starting point is 00:46:48 Being involved in the suicide response of young people. Anytime I get that call from a parent or I have to give that call to a parent and say, hey, your son or daughter is no longer with us. Anytime I had to knock on a stranger's door and be there with a police officer and say, your child was involved in a car wreck, your husband had a heart attack at work. Anytime I was in those kinds of situations, they always stopped me in my tracks. No matter how many times I've done them over and over and over again, they always make me stop. Life is so short. It is so precious. And the stuff we worry about is so senseless and useless. And those always stop me in my tracks every time. What car do I drive? A 2006 Tundra with a missing headlight and a 2010 Prius. That's not very remarkable. How do I deal with having different opinions from Dave? I've got a YouTube thing where I talked about that. And here's the deal.

Starting point is 00:47:45 At the end of the day, he signs my paychecks. His name's on the building. So I kind of, I don't know. He's my boss. Ultimate comfort food, gummy candies, marshmallows, burgers, mom's spaghetti. Hashtag Eminem. My mom made this old spaghetti that was dope. I don't eat it anymore, but man, it was legit.

Starting point is 00:48:04 Gummy candies and marshmallows. I can eat them out of the bag. Who are my mentors? Dr. John Will Thompson, Randy Harris, Dr. Stephen Bonner, Randall DeMint, Brett Hendricks, Aretha Marbley, Susan Blassingame. Darby Dickerson played an important role in my life. Dr. Ken Jones, my mom and dad. Dave, obviously Chris Hogan's been a good influence on me um how do i manage staying humble and being successful as i am number one i'm not that successful number two the smartest guy i've ever met in my life is a uruguayan immigrant named gustavo gustavo mendez menendez and he's the smartest man I've ever met. He was an engineer.

Starting point is 00:48:47 He married an American missionary. They moved here. And because we're so awesome, we wouldn't recognize his engineering degree from home, from Uruguay. And so he started sweeping floors in a cotton gin in West Texas. And he had $ bucks in his pocket and an old beat up Ford truck. And he started a business called Gus's Lube Service, where he would show up to your house or your business

Starting point is 00:49:13 and change your oil in your driveway. Smart, right? Now he runs a massively successful mobile lube service business where he comes and fixes your car and he cares deeply about people and he reads and he watches and he listens and he hugs and he can fix anything. What I tell you that because often we talk about success as I've got these degrees. I am on a podcast. I make this much money. And it's hard to think highly of yourself

Starting point is 00:49:48 when the smartest guy you know is a mobile mechanic who's very successful and he literally changes lives from the inside out. He's so generous and so kind. And so I think I'm successful in my family because my wife and I have weathered some storms. My kids are good. I'm humble because I know how this whole thing ends. When you sit with people who die, when you sit with weeping moms and dads, you realize this is short, man. I take none of this with me. It's all temporary. I did work for years with folks with disabilities. And one of my favorite quotes about working with people with disabilities is everybody is only temporarily able-bodied. At some point, it breaks down for all of us. None of this stuff at work here defines me.

Starting point is 00:50:35 My wife does, my faith does, my character does. This stuff at work is just awesome. It's just gravy. It's a fun, awesome adventure. I love helping people. I love getting to do what I love to do. It's fun. But I don't take it too seriously. I don't hold my identity in that. So that's how I stay humble.

Starting point is 00:50:59 Somebody asked me, Jackson Dinky or Charvel Dinky? Come on, people. This is a guitar question. Gibson Les Paul or an SG or a 335 if you're fancy or a Firebird if you really want to bring it down. Marshall amps. But to answer your question, orange amps are pretty dope too. I can't afford them.

Starting point is 00:51:14 But to answer your question, Jackson, Dinky all day if you really have to. My opinion. What about Jazzmasters, John? Oh my gosh. Here's the thing. If you're a Fender player, we're probably not going to be friends.

Starting point is 00:51:26 Tom DiFioli, who's the guy If you're a Fender player We're probably not gonna be friends Tom DiFioli Who's The guy who was my guitar Compadre for years He played Only Strats He's the only guy That can get away with it And you Jimmy

Starting point is 00:51:34 James Childs You can too You have a Jazzmaster Don't you? Yes In fact I think I have Only Fender guitars I have one

Starting point is 00:51:41 I have one Casino And I have one Casino But I don't have anything without buckers so deal with it dealt um my opinion on using weed and drugs recreationally we're all high right now actually it's pretty cool not really um i'll answer that question later the big thing is don't do anything illegal. Actually, I'll answer it right now. Marijuana, psychedelics, the MAP studies, they're changing underneath our feet. I've heard remarkable stories and catastrophic stories and all. I don't have an opinion yet. It's illegal in the state where I live. I have a very high opinion of clinical

Starting point is 00:52:20 grade CBD, hemp extract. I've seen that stuff. I've experienced it. It's good. But I don't smoke weed. I don't use recreational drugs. And in some places it's legal. And so people are working with their doctors to get the help they need. I don't have an opinion on it yet. How do I keep balanced balanced if a question goes against my beliefs or morals. In short order, people don't often call me with moral or character or belief questions. They call me and saying help. So think of it this way. I may not like synthetic rope. I like rope made out of, I don't know, hemp fibers. And I walk by and somebody's drowning. And I see a synthetic rope on the side of the lake, of the river. What we often do is we see somebody drowning and we say,

Starting point is 00:53:21 hmm, we shouldn't be using synthetic rope. It's not good. And then they drown because we made a stand on an issue. And I'm sick of people being wrapped up in issues, whether they're theological issues or political issues, while people are drowning. And so what I try to keep in mind when I'm answering a question is how can I help a hurting person right now? And if people call me and ask my opinion on certain things, sometimes I'll answer. Sometimes I won't. I'm not going to do the heavy lifting for you. But often beneath my beliefs and my morals is a cornerstone of my moral is help hurting people. A cornerstone of my beliefs is help hurting people.

Starting point is 00:54:00 And so I don't care what issue you're struggling with that's that is my morals and my beliefs and again that may be a trite easy answer did i get that right james i don't know that's what i think about it it's your answer oh that went against my morals and beliefs james i didn't want to give my opinion i'm practicing well played um let's see here That's it That's enough for today So that's almost an hour today Ask me anything Kelly do you have a question for me

Starting point is 00:54:32 As we wrap No I don't think we have enough time For all the questions I would have for you That might be a little frightening James I think I'm good You don't like Jazzmasters We're good It might be a little frightening. James? I think I'm good. You don't like Jazzmasters.

Starting point is 00:54:47 We're good. These guys are the worst. The worst and the best and beautiful and handsome. All right, that's it. So as we wrap up today, I'm going to read you like for real. So I speak in hyperbole. If you stuck with us this long, you're going to get one of my top threes of all time. This is for real. One of my favorite songs. James, I'm going to read one of my top threes of all time. This is for real one of my favorite songs.

Starting point is 00:55:07 James, I'm going to read the whole thing. Is that cool? It's a poem. Here we go. The screen door slams and Mary's dress waves like a vision. She dances across the porch as the radio plays. Roy Orbison singing for the lonely. Hey, that's me and I want you only.

Starting point is 00:55:23 Don't turn me home again. I just can't face myself alone again. Don't run back inside, darling. You know just what I'm here for. So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore. Show a little faith. There's magic in the night. You ain't a beauty, but hey, you're all right. Oh, and that's all right with me. You can hide beneath the covers and study your pain and make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain, and waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets. Well, now, I'm no hero. That's understood. All the redemption I can offer, girls, beneath this dirty hood.

Starting point is 00:55:56 With a chance to make it good somehow, hey, what else can we do now except roll down the windows and let the wind blow back your hair? The night's busting open. These two lanes will take us anywhere. We got one last chance to make it real, to trade in these wings on some wheels climbing back. Heaven's waiting down the track. I'll skip down here to...

Starting point is 00:56:18 There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away. They haunt this dusty beach road and the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets. They scream your name at night in the street. Your graduation gowns lies in rags at their feet. And in the lonely cool before dawn, you hear the engines roaring on. When you get to the porch, they're gone on the wind. So Mary, climb in. It's a town full of losers. I'm pulling out of here to win. Oh, Thunder Road. Bruce Springsteen from the Born to Run record in 1975, the boss. Merry Christmas, good folks. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show.

The Dr. John Delony Show - Ask Me Anything: John Answers Your Questions About Himself

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