The Dr. John Delony Show - Having Age-Appropriate Difficult Conversations With Your Kids

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Today, we hear from a young mom whose husband is deeply depressed, dig into having age-appropriate conversations with kids about difficult topics and how to survive brutal seasons at work. My husband is struggling with depression & I’m not sure how to help him How can I have age-appropriate conversations with my kids about difficult things? I'm a general manager losing lots of team members; I'm hurt and frustrated Lyrics of the Day: "The Thunder Rolls" - Garth Brooks Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Resources: Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we talk to a young mom whose husband is struggling with depression and she doesn't know what to do. We talk to a dad who's trying to teach body positivity to his young daughters, and we talk to a guy who's running a family business and everybody's leaving and he's taking it personally. Stay tuned. Good morning. Stay tuned. Good morning, good afternoon, and good night. This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show via The Truman Show. Hope you're doing well. Hope your families are okay. Hope you're okay. Hope you're better than okay. So glad you're with us on

today's show where we talk about mental health, wellness, making good choices, being on time. That's some inside baseball. Here's today so far. I got up this morning. It was frosty outside like the snowman. Went outside, turned the car on so it would warm up. Then I went to get in it. And I had a flat tire. So great.

And so then I had to get my wife's race Prius, the Prius, the race Prius and warm it up. I'm about to, cause that's what I was born to do, like crisscross. And then I got to work, L-A-T-E. And when you have a radio show, it's not great because then it starts. And then I got here. I didn't have a wedding ring, but I have a backup one in my bag. It's one of those days. So I feel like, James, you should sing a song, kind of control-alt-delete, and then we can get going.

I just want to applaud you for you texted and said you're running late, but you didn't give an excuse, which was very valid, that you had a flat tire. I put a flat tire in there, didn't I? No. You just said running late. Oh. I thought I for sure said, because I want to be like, I'm not just being late this time. Well, I didn't give you crap, so we're all even.

I don't know how I came up on top of that one, but that's awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I'll take it. So we're going to slap it up, flip it, reverse it, get our heads and whatever right. All right, let's go to Jessica in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. What's up, Jessica? How are you?

Hey, Dr. John. I'm doing pretty good. How are you this morning? I'm good. That sounds fantastic. Inside of baseball, we had some phone line issues probably on our part. And so now we are squared up. And you sound like a human.

That's awesome, Jessica. Yes. So you are filling me in. You've got some chaos in your house. What's going on? It's eight weeks ago. I had twin girls, and there's a lot of changes there. And my husband's been struggling, so I'm just trying to see how I can help him out

with this very cool so walk me through what one congratulations on having two twin girls and you've got two other kids right so you got a total of four yeah four girls and the oldest one is how old six wow okay so people email me all the time on the internets, or they slide into my DMs, and they tell me that I say the words, you're in it, too much. And so I won't say that, but you are super in it, man. Wow. Okay, four, six and under. That's a lot. Okay, so how's your husband struggling?

Well, we've had a lot of changes going on this year with the pandemic, and we had deaths in the family of our grandparents. The move, we moved in the summer. Where'd you move from? Like a new state or a new town? Just a new town. Yeah, we moved just about an hour away from where we were living. Okay. Oh, man, I've got a whole thing about that.

Okay, so when you say he's struggling, what does that look like? Just dealing with some depression, like just anxiety, fear of supplying for us, for the family financially. Just a lot of doubts and worthlessness, feeling not worthy or just feeling like he's not doing a good job. Gotcha. Where does he get that message from? Mostly himself, I feel like, or, you know, it's just thoughts that are being put into his head or attacks on him that, um, are coming from, you know, things that think they're going to happen, but then they don't end up happening. Meaning like people, people are going to offer him a job and then they don't come through.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He has a business that he started, so he'll have a plan and then it won't, you know, follow through. And he just gets really discouraged. Why, um, why'd y'all move? We just felt the Lord calling us to this area. Um, specifically, what does that mean when you say the Lord calls us? Like, what does that mean? We felt a really strong pull to this area. It's, it's a prayer, um, it's called prayer mountain

and we have some land here. Um, and so we have some family that live here, but we just felt that the Lord was trying to get us out of the city life and more into the country life with, you know, land and an area where we could raise our children. Um, we could hunt, we could, you know, be ourselves. Um, we could just be more free to be us and not have to live under that city type of lifestyle where we're, you know, always dealing with loud neighbors or, you know, things going on that we don't believe in. My coyotes are pretty loud neighbors too, but I get what you're saying.

So is there, I have some ideas, but I want to get a sense of what you're living with. You've got these two little babies, and twins are a lot. And you've got two other little ones who now were the center of the universe, and now they are understandably having to wipe their own bottoms, and they don't like that. And a lot of this, I'm guessing, because you've got somebody who just is trying to start a new business in a new little community, a lot of that, I'm guessing, because you got somebody who just is trying to start a new business in a new little community.

A lot of that falls on you. And now you are also having a weird task of propping up a depressed husband. Walk me through what that feels like. It's just, it feels hard. It feels like, you know, I'm taking this day by day, just trying to make it through the day or, you know, make it through the end of the week. But I also feel like I'm not doing a good enough job or being, you know, a good enough spouse for him. Like I'm doing my job by raising the children, you know, taking care of the babies, feeding them, changing them, all those things that come with a responsibility of being a mother. But also first and foremost, you know, your relationship with your spouse has to be, has to be top priority.

And you have to make sure that you're, you're on the same level with your spouse and putting them first. What, what's something is different now and it's making you nervous. What is it? There's something below what you're telling me is what I'm getting at. There's something else. Yeah. That this is all new to me.

Like this is all a change. Yeah. It's a big change. And we had full-time jobs. We both worked full-time at our old, um, where we lived and things were comfortable. Um, but now things are not so comfortable and the future looks kind of, you know, wishwashy. And it looks wishwashy and your husband thinks he's failing cause he's not making enough money. Um, cause people, he can't count on people cause he thought this move to the country was going to heal everything. And it was all going to – what does he feel like he's missing?

Or all of it. Yeah. It's just a lot of, like, pressure. He, he had this job that he did for somebody in their house and now they've come back and they're not happy or they, this is falling apart or this, this way. Sure. And he just feels,

you know, like he's not doing a good job. Yeah. It's, is it honest to say that he didn't do a good job on that one? No, that's not true. Okay.

Okay. Anything he touches turns to gold. You know, he's very crafts, craftsman. true. Okay, okay. Anything he touches turns to gold. You know, he's very craftsmanship. Okay. Very crafty. So, yeah, it's just, it's hard. Let me back all the way out here. Here's a couple of things I want you all to keep in your mind.

And some things y'all can do to kind of not get through this season, but to make this season something really powerful and important. And this touches close to home for me because I just went through this about a year ago. Moving from downtown, downtown. I mean, it was bustling. It was awesome. We were walking everywhere. The city was always going to. Now we live on some acres out in like the woods, woods.

Yeah. Like coyotes running across the yard, woods. Yeah. Right. I hear this a lot from people who make this transition. They think whenever I get there, wherever there is, finally things will be okay. And I will be a little less anxious about the state of the economy. And I'll be a little less anxious about supply chain issues. And I'll be a little less worried about COVID. And I'll finally

get out of these dumb schools because then I'll be able to whatever. And we play one side of that equation over and over. And we tell ourselves the story. We tell ourselves the story. We tell ourselves the story. And then every single thing we see backs up our story that we tell ourself. We forget the 50 emails that are positive that the school sends, and they send the one that makes us crazy. And we go, see? And we start looking everywhere for data points that are going to back up our story. And then we move. And some people, and this also works if you're going in

reverse, this, this is if you're going to break up with somebody and get somebody new, or you're cheating on your spouse, whatever the thing is, we think that when we get over there, wherever there is finally things will be okay. And the worst part about any sort of transition is that you go with you. And if you were anxious when you lived in a city, you're going to be super anxious when you're living out in the middle of the country. And if you didn't like customer interaction, you're really good with your hands,

and you didn't like customer interaction in your old job, and you can't wait to just do it on your own, well, on your own, it's all customer interaction. You know what I mean? So we miss the good parts. We miss the tough parts. We just look for the parts that validate our story. The second thing that I underestimated is it's lonely out in the country. It's lonely. And I had neighbors. I didn't even like them all, but I had them. And I had one neighbor. Dogs are always barking, barking, barking. They drove me crazy.

Now it's just silence. And their silence was awesome for a few months. And I kind of missed the dog. You know what I mean? So it's a both and. But I got really, really lonely. And then there's this weird thing about moving an hour away. And here's my little hypothesis about this.

There's no research to back this up. I think moving an hour away or 45 minutes away is really hard because you tell yourself that things will mostly be the same. We can still come visit them. We'll still go to this restaurant. We'll still go see these people because it's just an hour away. And you don't realize there's no chance you're doing that. And if you move 10 hours away, you have to pack up and move to a new place, but you kind of stretch it out when you move an hour away. Is that fair?

Right. Yes. It's like this. It'll be both and, and it's just not. And I don't know, you get, you get this, this, this middle space here. So here's, I'll just say what me and my wife have had to do. Okay. Um, one, have you called out his depression? Yes. And what does he say to that? That he just doesn't feel like it's something that he could talk to somebody about. You know, it's not becoming of a man to talk about his feelings kind of thing. And what I will tell you is it's not becoming of a man to melt your wife. And it's not becoming of a man to starve his four daughters of connection. And it's not becoming of a man to be in a home and not present. And so the most manly thing he could do would be to go take care of himself.

Yeah. And I'd love for him to call me because I'll take him to task over that nonsense. The most manly thing he could do is take care of himself. And I work with Navy SEALs behind closed doors. I mean, I work with some folks behind closed doors. And the baddest of the bad. And they take care of themselves.

Okay? So here's what y'all have to do that I don't think you have. Y'all need to have some sort of, and I know it's almost impossible with two eight-week-olds or eight-month-olds. You have to get away, even for two hours, and do a here's where we are now conversation. It sounds like y'all ran to a new world, and you didn't stop. You just kept, life kept going and it kept going

and it's still trying to just keep going, but everything has changed. And so if you were in, if you were a Navy SEAL and you had a mission and you went out on that mission and all of a sudden your lead Humvees blew up and you found yourself in another, you have to stop for a second and say, okay, our objective now is different. It was to go get the bad guys. Now it's to just get home. And everything's changed. You all have to have that conversation.

And that will look like this. Getting out some paper and writing down, here's all the things that I miss about our old house. Here's all the things I'm so glad that we're away from. Here is where I feel like I'm failing. Here's where I think I'm doing good. You got to put all that on paper and get it out of each other's heads. And now there's this tension between each other

because you don't know how to lean into him. And because it's, I don't know, it's like a little bit reactor-y or it's a little bit like putting your hand in quicksand. And then he feels that you're not there. And then he feels like he's failing and this thing just loops on itself, right? And now you are starting to wonder,

what am I doing wrong as a wife? And I should be able to say the right thing that's gonna snap him out of all this. And he should be saying, I shouldn't have a depressed wife, it's my fault. And now y'all end up way far apart. So somebody's gotta just say, hey, we gotta acknowledge this, call it out,

write down what sucks about this new season, what we miss, what we love. And you've got to start modeling. The only thing you can do here, you can't fix him. Let me put it that way. You've got to start modeling. I'm taking care of myself. And if that means I'm going to get a babysitter that we can't even afford, because I'm going to go see a counselor. I'm going to go talk to a pastor that I trust, whatever that looks like. I'm going to go do that. And here's the thing that, I hope this isn't controversial. Good grief. Who never knows what the internet's.

The reason I wanted you to dig in a little bit on this phrase, God's calling us. I hear that a lot all over the country. And two things happen. One, people make big crazy life moves and they say, God told us to. And they don't take ownership of the fact that we really wanted to move. We want to get out of there. And when we can say, God's telling us to, or some big universe is calling us, whatever that means, we often don't do the planning required. Do we have enough money?

Do we have a plan? Do we have any sort of income? Are we going to be able to pay the light bill? And not to say that, you know, faith isn't, obviously faith's important, but we don't do the planning. And then when we show up somewhere and it's uncomfortable, it melts everything. It melts our relationships. It melts faith.

It melts everything. And so I have no doubt, I'm never going to get between you and your faith ever, but I want you to have faith and plan. Like have faith and make really sound financial decisions and relational decisions. What does that mean? He's trying to get a business off the ground. He may have to deliver pizzas at night in this new community. He may have to mow lawns and cut down trees too for a season. And that's not going to feel like, quote unquote, I got called to this thing where I'm grinding, but that may be the season you're in because we've got to pay bills. And that's where you're going to get these little wins and begin to

get our feet underneath us. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I understand. The big thing is don't just let all of this change run over you and just try to get to the next thing. Y'all got to stop and acknowledge everything. You got to grieve it. We missed this stuff. We made a big move. This is our new world. And now we can build a new plan moving forward. And that's so, so hard. And what's going to be really hard for you, you're so great. What's going to be hard for you is you can't fix him and you can't help him. I mean, you can help him. You can love him. You can connect, but you can't fix him. He has to make some decisions about him being well,

about him gonna maybe let this dream die for a minute or do this dream on the side because he's got to make some money or maybe he had these dreams of a big house and he's gonna have to have a small house for the next decade and fill in the blank. We have to be honest about those things and he's gonna have to make the hard choice

to change his thoughts and to change his actions and be disciplined in taking care of himself and his relationships. And that's hard. And so I hope he sees this. I want to tell you, brother, you are worth being well. You're worth taking care of yourself. And I don't hear any more nonsense about what's unbecoming of a man. All of that is nonsense. The most becoming thing is taking care of yourself and being well. If you're not okay, you're not okay, man. I've been there. Every guy I know has been there. The courageous thing is, the brave thing is, are we going to be vulnerable and go get help? That's the question. Jessica, he's lucky to have you. Y'all get away and start grieving, and then we'll start getting,

then we'll get to making plans in the future. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Delonis Show. It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how powerless homebuyers feel. Mix that with the stress of moving and life change and job change, and you've got a tornado of anxiety fueling one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make.

This is not a good idea. So if you're a new home buyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the home buying process. You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is a Ramsey trusted provider that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades. And their Home Buyer Edge program will help you skip a bunch of the stress. Here's how it works. Apply to become a Churchill certified home buyer and cap your interest rate for 90 days. Then you'll get a $5,000 seller guarantee to help your offer stand

out. So go ahead, take a deep breath because Churchill has your back. Check them out at churchillmortgage.com slash Deloney and get the home buyer edge today. All right, let's go out to Phoenix, Arizona and talk to Jacob. What is up, brother Jacob? How are we doing, man? I'm doing so good, John. How are you doing? Doing outstanding. And your phone sounds great this time. We're having all kinds of technical difficulties. So good with it. That's probably because I had a flat tire this morning.

All of it. All right, so what's up, brother? How can I help, man? So ultimately, my question, I'm going to give you some examples. But my question is going to be, are we putting, me and my wife, are we putting too much on our kids as far as trying to give them life experience? And should we just be kind of letting them run free, worry free a little more? You were talking about treating people like dogs the other day, assuming that they have a bad past and that's why they're having a rough time. So our daughter came to us and she was having a bad day.

Some kid at school was mean to her. And we tell her, you know, maybe his parents are mean to him. Like maybe that's why he's mean to you. And he's just, he's scared. So he's acting like that. She comes home the next day and she's like, I told him that his mom is mean. And he said, no, she's not. And we're like, okay.

Another example, we've always been pretty direct about body parts. We, you know, what they're really called stuff like that. Um, because we figured kids at school are going to tell her, we want to be the ones to tell her. And then we realized she's the one at school telling the other kids, um, because we told her. And, um, so, and I have, I have other examples, but I just like, are we okay. One more example. We're at the park the other day. This is recent. Um, there's a, there's a guy who's definitely having a psychotic episode and, and I work in mental health, um, and he's, he's completely off. And we, um, so we got to a safe place and I called the police. Um, but then we sat down and we told like, Hey, look at, look at what's going on. And I talked to him about that.

There's, there's bad drugs you can put in your body that will really hurt you. And this is what it could look like. Cause I wanted to, I wanted him to have some context for it and not just see this guy going out of his mind. Yeah. Um, how old is, how old are your kids? Seven year old, five year old and a two year old. They're all girls.

So obviously the two year old, we're not, we're not like putting any of this on. Right. So number one, I want to applaud your heart dude like the idea that you want to walk with your kids through the world is such a gift that's awesome um having body positivity is awesome awesome awesome um all that man it's good man it's so good here's here's an important thing to understand about a seven-year-old and a five-year-old is they are more emotion than they are context and they're more feeling than they are context meaning when your daughter comes to you and says a boy is being mean at school, you and I, our default is I want to provide the explanation. There is a sound in the engine and I want to open up the glove compartment,

pull out the little box, the little, you know, the manual and find out what the noise is. And then I want to explain what's going on there. What a seven-year-old is asking for when she says that boy was mean is, am I still pretty? Daddy, do you love me? And so whenever I jump to, or whenever you jump to, well, he's doing this because of this. What that does is that squashes how she feels and gives her a explanation for her feeling. It gives her a fix for her feeling. And what a seven-year-old wants is validation and connection. That's actually what a 37-year-old wants too.

So my guess is your wife may come home and say, today was sucked at work. It was so hard, whatever. And your response might be, well, that's just because you said this. And it's like- Yeah, probably. You know what I mean? And, and

is that true? Yeah, that's true. Is that kid's mom probably pretty ugly to her? Possibly. That's not the question. That's, that wasn't the, the, the entry point for your daughter. And so, um, when, what, what I try to do with my kids, what I recommend people do with their kids is answer the question before them, not try to answer questions that aren't being asked. And so when your daughter tells you this thing, she's not asking a question on why is that boy being mean to me? She's asking, do you still love me, dad? Am I pretty? Do I have weird hair? Or whatever that boy said. That's what she's asking.

Will you protect me? Not, why is he being mean to me? Do you hear what I'm saying? Yeah, man. Oh, it hits home because I'm seeing my five-year-old. Tell me about that. It's, um, I work in, uh,

I'm a nurse and I'm working in mental health right now. And, uh, and I'm going into I'm working on my nurse practitioner for medical health. So I see all this. I see all this. Stuff kids go through. And my five-year-old

is it's like I know man. Take a breath, brother. You're good. Take a breath. Take a breath. Take a breath.

Take a breath. You're good. I know oh man take a breath brother you're good take a breath take a breath take a breath you're good I know we're good parents dude you're incredible I can tell right now you're incredible parents yes my five year old it's like if anything

if anything it's just the hair off it's like she's got this radar and it's just being and she'll just run over to you to like

grab you give you a hug she'll she run over to you so like grab you give you a hug so she'll tickle you try to make you laugh um it's like man she's so sensitive to any um any even negative vibe and we have a me and my wife we don't fight. Like we, we love each other so much. And I really think we have a good home. We're not perfect. We get frustrated, but it's like, I see, I see that, that she maybe needs to know in a different way and maybe needs to know more that, that we love her. I don't know. Well, I think she knows you love her. There's no question about that. I think there is a possibility.

And again, I don't know your home, man. So I'm just some clown on the radio. But my guess is your five-year-old would benefit from less facts and more touch. Yeah, yeah. And there's a moment when a parent, my son is very similar to your daughter. I have to be careful after a long, hard week. Like right now, dude, I am cooked, just tired.

Like it's been a long season. I'm exhausted. And we're coming up on the holidays. Thank goodness. I have to be careful that I don't lean on my son for support because he's 11. That's not his job. And his hugs, he feels it when I come in and he will come find me. And he'll say things like, I'm so glad you're my dad.

Yeah. And he gets that from me because I tell him every single day of his life, of all the people in the world, God picked me to be your dad. And I'm so grateful for that. I let him know that. And now he's learned that language, but now he feels dad's tired or he sees it on me or dad's anxious or dad's burnt out. And he knows, oh, dad loves hugs. And suddenly he takes it on his responsibility to prop dad up. And that's where that's a problem. I've got to be propped up by people my age, by a counselor, by my wife. But you know what I mean? Not by my kid.

And it's just hard because I love his hugs, man. And I love his heart. Now my daughter, she's just like, dad, you're annoying. Get out of here. So she just destroys me. But he's very similar that way. You're not doing – it's not a matter of you doing something wrong. I think it's just a matter of getting a new tool in the toolbox.

So going to the park, I think what a kid needs to know is that guy is not well. He's sick. He's hurting. The details over what happens there, like let's turn this into a life lesson right now. Imagine you are driving and your car has just lost control. That isn't the moment to be like, well, honey, you shouldn't have been driving. I mean, because you're about to hit the guardrail, right? That's when you reach over and just grab her hand.

Yeah. Because when your daughter's at a park and somebody's having a psychotic break, every system in their body goes haywire. Right. That's not the moment for the teaching moment. In a year from now or two years from now when she says, hey, dad, what are drugs? Now we're in a safe place. She's not in her limbic system.

She's in her frontal lobe. She's able to hear and learn. And then you can point back. Do you remember when that man at the park, now we can have a teaching moment. But in that moment at the park, what your daughter's begging for is the answer to the question, are we safe? Am I okay? And you are holding her hand. You have made the phone call. You know how to intervene with this man if you need to. That's all she needs because she's not hearing anything else other than am I okay, am I okay, am I okay?

And I try to, I do it, I overteach too. And I, like you, you're a nurse practitioner. You live in this stuff. And you see every day what the end result of some of these early life choices or some of this early life trauma that people go through. Who knows what hell that man's been through. And in his life, my guess is drugs make a lot of sense for the trauma this guy's endured. And so you and I experience these things in our jobs.

And then we want to go like, we want to reverse engineer and teach everybody that the right, like here's the right path because I know what happened. And a five-year-old can't hear that. Now the separate thing is I want to get to this because this makes me love you and your wife. It was in grad school that I had a professor and Dr. Marbley, she said,

I want everyone in this room to say penis and vagina over and over again. And she was like, say it again. I mean, there's all like a room full of 20 adults going penis. And then she'd say again, and it'd be like, and everyone's laughing and giggling. And then she called everybody out. She said, if you can't say body part names without getting flushed or red,

if you can't say oral sex without your, like, if you can't do that, you cannot work in the lives of other people. And you should not be a parent. And it was a, the whole room got real quiet. And it was 100% true. And so we have a generation of human whose parents called it TT or your little woo-woo or whatever the thing is. Or they, worse, they said nothing. They said nothing.

Or when their kids came in and they had, you know, like a tick and they're like, hey, will you look at this? Mom got all red and dad was like, oh. They just learned this part of my body is gross or unsightly or we don't talk about this. And so just being able to talk about body parts of your children is not gross or weird. And you are one of the few parents that are turning this thing around, this body positivity. Yeah, dude, that's your vagina. That's your penis, man. You have one.

I have one too. Everyone here has one. And man, I'm in the lobby. And so like I'm in a public, like the radio show has got a lobby out here. And you should see everyone in the lobby just looking, being like, wow, how many times are you going to say penis? A bunch. I'm going to say it a bunch. Your professor would be proud of you. She would, but there's a way to just, we've got to have these conversations. You got to be able to talk about sex in front of your kids. You got to be able to talk about body parts in front of

your kids. Now here's the magic. I'll tell you what happens at my house. I love fart jokes and I love diarrhea jokes. I love all bathroom humor, body – I just love those. I think they're funny. I thought Tommy Boy is hilarious. My wife did not think that movie was funny at all. I think all the Happy Gilmore movies are hilarious. My wife doesn't – so when I had a little boy, all of my life was made complete. Sure.

Because I got someone to share in my immature humor with me all the time. And now my daughter's the same. So my wife at some point said, John, not at the table. Not at the dinner table. Like enough. And so now my son, I'll make a joke and the whole family will be like, not at the table, dad. And here's underneath all that is time and place. So when it comes to using body positive, yes.

And saying, these are private parts. And we talk about this here at home with mom and dad. We just same as only mom and dad are allowed to see your private parts, your mom and dad or a doctor when mom and dad is in the room. And this is all just common language. And like, this is no, I'm not getting flushed. My heart rate isn't going up in debt.

This is just regular language, just regular talk. They feel that on us. When every time dad comes to help me in the shower does he look all weird does he avert his eyes from my little body is he uncomfortable whenever i have a tick on you know all my testicles does my dad go or does he just like approach it as though i've got a cut on my toe you know you know what i mean it's so they pick up that from us and then it's very fair it's appropriate it's important to say we don't talk about that at school we don't talk about our private parts of school

that's between conversations here and so it's both and how does that land with you guys it's good and it helps I mean it clarifies I mean I feel more comfortable with the body language talk and I feel like we're on the right page with that

but you really gut punched comfortable with the body language talk, and I feel like we're on the right page with that. But you really gut punched me with the, they want to know that they're safe. They don't want to know facts in that moment. Gotcha. So that was good. If they want to know facts, there's a difference between that man's a drug addict, and he's got this and this and this and this and this,

versus that man's sick. Right. And as we get older, you know, now my son's sick. Right. And as we get older, you know, the, the, the, now my son's 11, I explain much more to him now. And then when he's 16, I'll explain much,

much more to him and so on and so forth. Um, yeah, let's answer the questions they're asking. But dude, hey,

you're doing a great job, man. You and your wife, y'all should high five each other. And if you've been a nurse the last 24 months, you're probably exhausted, brother.

You're probably exhausted. I just want to let you know, I can't let you get off the phone without telling you, you're worth being well too, man. You're worth being well too. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Dillon Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, October is the season

for wearing costumes and masks. And if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going as Brad Pitt in Fight Club era because, I mean, we pretty much have the same upper body, but whatever. All right, look, it's costume season. And let's be honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind costumes and masks more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social setting. We do this around our families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can learn to be honest with yourself and you can take off the mask and the costumes

and learn to live an honest, authentic, direct life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy and you can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for your schedule. You just fill out a short online survey and you get matched with a licensed therapist.

Plus, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloney. All right, let's take one more. Let's go to Jace in Columbia, Missouri. What's up, Jace? Hey, how are you doing? Remarkable, brother. How are you? I'm doing great. Cool. So what's up, dude? So I am the general manager of a 40-year-old family carpet cleaning business. I'm third generation, and it's what I've wanted to do my entire life, as long as I can remember.

That's so cool, man. Yeah. I've been back as the general manager for the last, I guess, four years in January. And I'm going through a season where it feels like everyone is leaving. Oh, yeah. Yeah. One guy I was pretty close with a couple weeks ago

left with two days notice. Why? He said it was money that were kind of seasonal, but it's been something that I've been working on since I've been back. Yep.

Didn't give me a lot of explanation, but when he told me I was more in shock mode than I was to, like, try and dissect it. Yeah. And then, uh, um, no one's, he's the only one that's left so far. There's another one that I was told I intend to leave in the next month or so.

I once again citing money or more consistent hours, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Um, and then I've heard murmurs and rumors, um rumors from one of the guys that's been with us for 26 years about some of the other guys that have been talking about not being around in the next couple of quarters, probably. So in a family business, something you've wanted to do your whole life, this feels real personal, doesn't it? Yeah. family business, something you've wanted to do your whole life,

this feels real personal, doesn't it? They're not quitting a job for a dollar an hour. They're leaving. They're leaving you. There's been some of that, yeah. I want to tell you, I'm glad

this is keeping you up. That means you're a good leader. That means your heart's in the right place. So good for you. It's good. If you were like, well, screw you, I'll go. Then I would tell you, you probably shouldn't be leading people. So the fact that this is sitting in your soul and it hurts a little bit, that's good. I'm glad that's happening. Okay. I'm not, I'm not happy for your discomfort, but I'm glad that that's your disposition. You care about this thing. And so a couple of things I want you to think about. One is facts are your friends.

Are they right? And anytime somebody says, I don't want to be around you because you're a jerk, Or whenever we have team meetings and James says, when you are late, John, here's how this affects everybody else. First thing I have to ask is, is he right? And he is. He's right. And so when you hear people saying about money this and money that. Are they right? Have they gotten disconnected from the family mission, which is we are helping people. We're not just cleaning carpets. We are taking care of people.

Have you taken this guy that you were close to that just quit on two days notice? There's something else going on there because friends, I mean, connected people don't do that to each other. And so have you taken him out for coffee or grab a beer and be like, alright, so you're gone, cool. We're cool. Tell me what really is going on. Because that's not something people do. Even jerks give two weeks notice.

You know what I mean? So, I'll ask you, what are the facts here? Do they have a point? Is what they're saying true? I don't know. I haven't talked to him much since since he left and that's probably a misstep on me I just I don't know yeah it's new it's grief I mean make the next right step right I mean don't don't go backwards just make the next right step yeah um but no they're I know, I think a lot of the guys that work for us and being service industry, they see the world through a very short-term lens. So we are very seasonal.

So we're working, a lot of our work is in the summertime. So they're working, I mean, some of them are working 60 hours a week for a short period of time. And that's where you make your money. But when they spend that all throughout the rest of the year, then it gets real tight this time of year when I can basically guarantee them 30 to 35 hours a week. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. So as a leader, it's really easy to look at them and blame them for how they handle their money or for not planning right, or there's too short term or whatever. What I would love to

see you do is to offer solutions and opportunities for them. One of those may be a, I want to call a staff, like an all team meeting. We're going to have dinner and we're just going to talk through some things. I'm going to give y'all an opportunity to be heard. Like what's going on in your hearts and minds. We've had a crazy 24 months. I may be missing something. Y'all may be like, walk me through what your life has been like. Give them an opportunity to fill out like a questionnaire or to raise their hands and just listen. And you can tell, I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to listen tonight and I'm going to pay for dinner. I'm going to pay y'all for the two hours you're here. Like, tell me what's going on in your world. And then from that conversation, you might get, um, here is like, if you work 60 hours, these four months and you work 35 hours,

these other eight months, your total at the end of the year is $45,000. Here's how we can. Here's like Ramsey's, the company I work for has a money tool for businesses just like that. They just help people over the arc of a year with their smart dollar product, right? It's an HR product. Is there a product you can help with? Or is there a, I'm going to teach budgeting classes on the weekend,

or I'm going to also create another. Does anybody have another idea for a business in the off months? And listen to those customers. I'll pay $1,000 in cash for the person who comes up with the new opportunity for the off season. Is that, but you're bringing them along

and suddenly they've got purpose. They're a part of this thing and they're not just carpet cleaners. Yeah. And for you, this is a family business. This is third generation. I've always wanted to do this thing. You've got to understand

they don't have that investment right now. And I'll blame you, the leader. You got to give them that investment. So then, so the other wrinkle being, I mean, I'm just, for lack of a better word term word or whatever, um, just more so middle management. So I got my, my dad and uncle are co-owners and they're the operations there. And I feel like I'm in a, sometimes in a cycle of like asking for kind of a vision and a leadership and not leadership, but just a vision of like where we're going or like,

when is the transition? Like how, what does that look like? All that kind of stuff. And it leads to frustration. And then, I mean, obviously I bring that home,

home life, all that kind of stuff. So that when you ask for those questions, they just won't answer you or they say, I'll talk about later. It's one of those things. It's like of those things. It's like,

yeah, it's not the most pressing issue. How much do you make a year? Me? Yeah. What's your take home? My take home is this year going to be 75. Okay.

Here's what I want you to do and this is going to sound bonkers. Okay. I want you just to, for the first time, maybe in your life, I want you to survey, and this is going to sound bonkers. Okay. I want you just to, for the first time maybe in your life, I want you to survey your area where you live and see how many jobs are between $60,000 and $80,000 for a GM of a successful carpet company, cleaning company.

Is there other service-oriented jobs? And here's why I'm telling you that. Your family is not worth this. Your heart and soul is not worth this. And if you've got two family member owners who won't tell you what the future is going to look like, won't catch the vision, and won't let you do that, what I'm going to tell you is you're going to end up bitter and exhausted and chasing people. And you're going to end up cleaning the carpet at 2 a.m. because you got no workers and you're going to have no say on anything.

And your family isn't worth that. And you are worth more than that. And I'm not telling you to leave. I'm telling you right now, you're starting to, I can hear it in you. You're starting to feel trapped. And when we get trapped,

we make dumb decisions. Yeah, we do. That's when we respond to that girl's text. That's when we have one too many drinks and we get in a car. Or we just do stupid stuff. That's when we yell at our wife or our kids and we didn't mean to. That's when we just do dumb. We go buy a car that we don't need.

We just do dumb stuff. Am I on the right track? Yeah. No, that makes sense. I haven't, thankfully, haven't gotten to that point where I've done dumb stuff, but I feel like I've been in this cycle of- You're on the road, that's right. I've been trapped, but every six months or so, I sit down with my dad, and it's like, I've pent up frustrations, and we handle things when they're at an eight or a nine, rather than dealing with things when they're at an eight or a nine rather than dealing with things when you're at a one or a two. Dude, the fact that you have that language is incredible. So the goal now is this. I want you to have,

I want you just to survey the area and not feel trapped. You might look around and be like, dude, the highest paying job is $41,000 and that's it. Like I'm kind of in this job. My guess is with your experience and your character and your drive, there's going to be some opportunities for you, especially now, right now, especially in the service sector. I want you to look around. And I know this has been your lifelong dream, and it may be your lifelong career, and it may not. So I want you to at least go look And when you have some

Huh, there's an opportunity over there that might be kind of awesome and they're going to give me full reign And i'm going to make 140 000 a year i'm gonna have to work like crazy But i'll get to make some leadership decisions. I'll get to honor some of these people I'll get to have conversations about dollars per hour and whatever My life would be better to have conversations about dollars per hour and whatever. My life would be better. That's when you sit down with your old man and you say, here's how this is about to go.

I'm going to leave or this. And then he gets to make grown-up boundary decisions. But right now he's acting like a child, and he's treating you like you still live in his house, like you're a child, you're not you're a grown man with your own family and i still think you get all of your people together you pay them for two hours and you serve them dinner and you say i just want to take a state of the union how is everybody and as a general manager you're allowed to do that. And if your father or uncle say,

you're not having dinner with that crew. They're just the workers. Then you quit. You go find another job because that tells you all you need to know. There's no way they're going to do that. But I think you sit down and listen to your team and you begin to paint a vision of,

y'all, we're not just cleaning carpets. We're helping families. We're helping people save their home. We are helping fill in the blank. We're taking care of people. We have a purpose. And y'all are a part of that purpose. And by the way,

anybody comes up with an off-season business, cash. I'll give you cash. And now, man, people aren't going to leave on two days' notice. I want you to take that guy out, though, also. Take that guy out for coffee and just be like,

all right, brother, let's go grab a beer and say, where are we at, man? Where are we at? What happened? What happened? How can I be better? Thanks for the call, Jace.

You're awesome, brother. All right, as we wrap up today's show, man, I asked my son this morning, hey, Hank, what's your favorite song? You get song of the day today on the show. He picked the sixth single that went number one for the one and only G, Garth Brooks. Nothing like an 11-year-old telling you his favorite song is Thunder Rolls.

But a guy cheating on his wife. Man. Whenever you think, I should send in my application for dad of the year, my son comes through. Here's the song my 11-year-old son picked. It goes like this. 3.30 in the morning, not a soul in sight, and the city's looking like a ghost town on a moonless summer night. Rain drops on the windshield. There's a storm moving in. He's heading back from somewhere that he never should have been, and the thunder rolls, and every light's burning in a house across town. She's pacing by the telephone in her faded flannel gown, asking for a miracle,

hoping she's not right, praying it's the weather that's kept him out tonight. And the thunder rolls. She's waiting by the window and he pulls into the drive and she rushes off to hold him. Thankfully he's alive,

but on the wind and rain, a strange new perfume blows. And the lightning flashes in her eyes and he knows that she knows. And the thunder rolls. And this is not a song for 11-year-olds. Right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show.