The Dr. John Delony Show - I Was Just Fired from My Job & Feel Worthless

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode I've read Redefining Anxiety and I’ve learned to figure out what is making me anxious and resolve it. But how do I get the alarms to turn off? I was fired from my job in February and am struggling with the feelings of worthlessness I have two kids under two, lost a baby at full term, and I'm struggling to connect with my husband. Lyrics of the Day: "You Gots To Chill" - EPMD   As heard on this episode:  Conversation Starters BetterHelp Redefining Anxiety John's Free Guided Meditation Ramsey+   tags: anxiety, workplace/career, grief   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 about anxiety and what do you do when your body's anxiety alarm set off, both in the short term and in the long term. We talk to a guy who got laid off from his job, he got fired and he feels shame and frustration. We have conversations, starters and more. Stay tuned. What up, what up what up this is john with the dr john deloney show where we talk about your mental health your relationships your families your friends your boundaries your workplace everything anything we got you so glad that you're here if you want to be on this show never hesitate man give me a call at 1-844-693-3291 that's 1-844-693-3291 leave a message let me know what's going on not me i'm

not going to listen to it but kelly will and then she will call you back and we will set up a time for you to be on the show so excited for folks who want to be on there. We're getting calls from all over the planet. It's so rad. And if you are not a telephone kind of person, go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K, and fill out the form and we will be in touch with you. Cannot wait. Hey, we have a new segment I'm going to debut on this show.

It's called Why I Love James Childs. And I'm going to debut on this show. It's called Why I Love James Childs. And I'm going to do it in poem form. James, oh James, I love your curly hair. James, oh James, I'm the benefactor of your care.

That's the end of my poem. Was that good? I mean, it was no Shakespeare, but I really appreciated it. Wow. That was kind of a knife to my heart, but whatever. See, that was poetic. Knife to my... Oh.

Ooh, you're right. Include some more emo lyrics like that and I'll get on board. James, oh James, as I sit in the shadows writing sad poems. What rhymes with poems? Ah, James, oh, James, as I sit in the shadow writing lyrics. I come to work sad, but you lift me with your gentle spirit. Is that good? That was wonderful.

Better than Shakespeare? At least on par with Shakespeare. That concludes the new segment of I'm Grateful for James Child. I think it's a hit. I think it's going to catch on. That one's got some legs. That one's got some legs. That one's got some legs. Next week, we will debut the next new segment,

Why We're Grateful for Kelly. I need a week to write this one out. It's going to take a little more thought and off to seek some expertise and guidance. I'm so happy to be in this job. All right, let's go to John in Stafford, Arizona. What's up, brother John? How we doing?

Doing good. How are you, Dr. Deloney? We're rocking on, man, to the break of dawn. What's up, dude? How can I help? So I read your book, Redefining Anxiety, and I really liked it. There's a lot of really good stuff in there thanks man the question i have though is about you talk about your body's warning signals

throughout the book and i personally have a hard time turning off those signals. Very cool, man. I do pretty good at talking myself through situations and understanding when anxiety hits. But even when I like sometimes when I resolve a problem and I forget about the problem, I still feel that anxiety in me and I still feel like something's wrong, like my body's in danger. Yeah good for you man so number one thanks for reading the book and number two man you are in it now so you're thinking through so your body takes off on you or you find yourself in a situation um to beat the metaphor to death you're identifying these alarms are you able to to look at your overall ecosystem and say, oh, here's what those alarms are trying to tell me?

Most of the time, yeah. Okay. So give me a couple of examples of things you've found. The one that comes to mind the most when I think about it is if I get something wrong at work or something, my boss will come and tell me about it. And he's like a saint about it. He always is talking to me, well, moving forward, we're going to do this better. And he's sure to tell me like, I'm okay and everything. But it's still like, even when that resolves and I know that everything's okay, I still, it just lingers there with me throughout the day. All right. So that is a great example, dude.

Just for my own curiosity, has anyone told you, shown you in your past that you suck? I mean, yeah. that you suck um i mean yeah um did your mom dad brother sister remind you on none none of them they were good no i i was bullied in elementary school quite a bit okay so here's and it again we could you and I could probably talk for a couple of hours on the trajectory and history there. Here's a cool thing to note about your body. So your boss comes in and says, hey, you didn't do this right. And for a hundred reasons, whether it's stories you're born into, whether it's stories you've told yourself, whether it's stories that people all the way back in elementary school were telling you about your value, you're a loser, you're an idiot, you always screw this up, whatever those stories are. Your body detects a threat.

It sees a bear at the front of the cave where you're living. And it has an old operating system, man. It's got fight it or run away from it. And that's about it. It can, if he realizes I can't fight it, I can't run away from it, I'll just go to neutral. I'll shut this thing off, right? I'll shut the system down. You may have heard that called freeze, right?

But your boss can come look you in the eye and say, man, I love you. I'm so glad you work here. Your boss can come tell you, hey, you screwed this one up, man, with a smile on his face, but we got to get this one better next time. I need you to step up and do this right. At that point, your body has gone into a fight or flight because it's got a history. It remembers this story when somebody come up and told you, you are not of value, right? You don't have worth. And then he looks at you and says, hey, you're on my team. I love you. I'm so glad you're here. And now we're on to the next thing. Your body still has to deal with the cortisol and the adrenaline and the heart race, right? Your body is taking off on you.

And what we don't have a good system in our modern world is what to do with that. Does that make sense? Right. It's just there. So there's a couple of things I want to give you to back out of this so we're going to approach this two ways number one what do you do when your body's just detects a threat even though there's no threat in in your vicinity right so we can deal with that the other thing i want to do is begin to teach my body what is a threat and what's not does that

make sense we're going to just reteach it it's we're going to it's going to it's going to literally grow new synapses and new brain connections in in my head does that make sense so what we want to do is turn off a lot of the signaling stuff so here's a couple of ideas i'm going to rattle these off just for the sake of time. And you can keep this call, keep it in your library, man. And we will link to the stuff in the show notes. But I want you to write this stuff down eventually and keep it as a playbook for yourself. Okay? So will you work with me for 30 days on this? Will you give yourself 30 days, 60 days to start reconnecting some new, teaching your body new things?

Yeah. Okay, awesome. So, number one, no monster drinks or Red Bulls or anything like that. Is that cool? Already done. All right, great. Are you a coffee guy? No.

So you're like a no-caffeine dude. No Cokes, anything like that? I have my Dr. Pepper every once in a while, but that's about it. Okay, you get two of those for the next 30 days. How about that? Okay? Okay. All right.

The second thing is, tell me about your friends' community. Do you have any folks that you connect with on a regular basis? There's my wife and her family. They don't count. Yeah. Just my friends at work. And I have a couple of friends that I talk to every once in a while. All right. So new responsibility checklist number. So number one, you're going to cut out the stimulant stuff, right? We are working towards this. So I have folks who, for years, my students would come in and be like, man, I'm so anxious all the time. I've only had seven Red Bulls and four Monster Energy drinks today. Well, it's like, dude, your heart is beating a thousand miles. So we're getting rid of that stuff. We're going to

really dial back sugar consumption, candy, junk food, just stuff we're ripping out of packages and just shoving in our face. We're going to give our body a good system to work with. The second thing is we are going to double down on relationships. Your job is to get with a couple of guys and go do a thing once a week at minimum. That can be going to an arcade. That can be going to a bar. I don't care what y'all do, but I want you to go get with a couple of guys and it's going to be awkward. It's going to be weird. And you don't have to have any agenda or anything like that. Y'all just go hang out. Okay. That could be asking people at work that you trust to like, Hey,

let's just go hang out. We're going to go to a movie. We're going to go whatever concert, whatever. I don't care what it is, but y'all got to go do something. Go bowling, go do something. Okay. Um, the third thing, do you ever exercise, workout or anything like that? Not a whole lot. My work is pretty labor intensive, but not anything more than that. Okay. So starting today, you've got some sort of movement practice that's going to also, if you can, be outside. Okay? So if you work a really labor-intensive job, if you're slinging boxes all day, then I want

you to make sure in the mornings you go for a walk. In the evenings after dinner, as a postprandial glucose, I want you to go for a long walk. And I'd love for you to take your wife with you on this one or your dog. And I want you all to go for a long walk and you can, I'd love for you to take your wife with you on this one or your dog. And I want y'all to go for a long walk together and I want you to go slow. And I want you to breathe deep. And what we're doing here, man, is we are cycling that. We are cycling that excess energy out of our bodies. Okay. That pent up, ah, that's all there. We're letting it roll. Okay.

The next thing I want you to do, do you keep any sort of gratitude journal at all? I'm not writing down, no. You do now. Starting today, before bed. I want you to get on your way home from work. I want you to stop at like Walgreens or Walmart or something. 99 cents, pick up a spiral notebook.

And I want you to write at the top of it, gratitude journal. And I want you to write five things before you go to bed that start with the words, I am grateful for. And I don't care what you put in there. I'm grateful for. Mine this morning, I'm working on a book, so I was up late. So I got, I looked at my sleep tracker and had like four hours of sleep last night. My first thing was, I'm grateful for my air conditioned houseitioned house. It's hot in Nashville. And I'm grateful for my air conditioning. I was grateful for my kids and my wife. I was grateful for my faith community and my friend, right? So whatever it is, at night, five things. And since you're working on your body, I want you to do it in the morning too. So the first thing you do when you wake up, I'm grateful for. At night, I am grateful for five things.

Okay, you got it? Okay. Now, here's the next most important thing. I want you to have another spiral. And when your body takes off on you, I want you to use language that is third person. And I want you to be curious. Have fun with this. And I know that sounds nuts.

And listen, I've been doubled over insane with anxiety. So I get what I'm saying sounds bananas. But I want you to be intentional about being curious and have fun. And I want you to ask this question. John, what's your body doing? And I want you to write down your answers. What is it protecting you from? In that tone of voice, okay?

And I don't want you to say, what is my, what am I trying to, there's actually different brain circuits. When you say the words, I, my, there is a, I'm in it. There's a set of brain circuits. When you are distant from it, there's a different set of brain circuits that work on that problem. It's why somebody can come up to you and say, hey man, I'm really feeling anxious.

And you, John, can rattle off five or six things they need to go do. But when you're feeling anxious, it locks down on you, right? Or when somebody asks you, hey, what's a way my wife could, you give all that kind of answers. But then when your wife does it,

you're like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Because one of those circuits is when you're in it and the others, when you're distant from it. It's a great book by Eric Kropp, I think called Chatter. It's a quick book, but it was excellent about talking about how to distance yourself. So I want you to write down, hey, John, what's your body trying to tell you?

What is it scared of right now? It's probably going to come back to a story you've told yourself for a long time that you're a loser, that you're going to screw something up, that everyone doesn't like you, that you're a failure, that you're always an idiot. And it's probably going to come back to bullying in high school. It's going to come back to some coach. It's going to come back to a mom or a dad who should have told you they loved you and they didn't, whatever that looks like.

But that's how you're going to begin to unwind those stories. What's my body trying to tell me? Hey, John, what's your body trying to tell you right now? Oh, that I'm going to get fired. And then the final thing is, I want you to demand evidence from those things. Okay. I just want you to ask, hey, John, is that true? Then you can go, no, it's not true, John. He told you. I love having you on this team, right? I love having you on this team. So grateful that you're here, but hey, we can't throw boxes like that. We got to do it like this next time.

Love being married to you, man, but man, will you please take the trash out? Every alarm goes off. Ah, she's going to leave. Ah, she's just nagging. Ah, she... Oh, hey, John, what is your body trying to tell you? Oh, that I failed my wife. Is that true?

No, it's not. I need to take the trash out. Or I'm failing, it's not. I need to take the trash out. Or I'm failing my wife. Yeah, I need to take the trash out. Right, whatever it is. But get some distance from it and write it down. And one last thing, grab, while you're at Walgreens, grab a package of note cards and just write out your morning whenever you're about to leave for work.

Here's what I got to do today. Keep a small note card with you, just put it in your pocket. You can go spend $1,000 on one of those planners with like 500 ribbons in it. Enough with the ribbon planners, people. You can go get one of those or you can just get a note card. It's what I use. I got two in my pocket right now because I didn't finish everything from yesterday. And so get a note card and that's control, right?

So going back to connection, safety, and control. And then you're just going to start pulling apart those stories, man. But you, my brother, are on the right track. Those are a few simple things you can do. If you feel your body spin out on you, once you're in a, your boss's left, go outside and go for a walk for a minute in the sunshine, go for a walk. If you can, if you want to be a nerd about it, take your shoes off and walk in the grass. I was doing that the other day here at the office and somebody took a picture of me. And several people took pictures of me and they're like, hey, you look like a weirdo. But I'll go walk in the grass barefoot, right?

And there's lots of whole other podcasts. And breathe through it. And just be curious. What are you trying to protect me from right now? And there's something about not fighting. Letting your body know, we're not fighting. We're not running. What are you trying to protect me from right now? And there's something about not fighting. Letting your body know, we're not fighting. We're not running. What are you doing?

Often your body will go, oh, oh, you're in control. Okay, cool. And it will stop that system. And then you got to discharge the cortisol, the adrenaline, those chemicals, all that energy that's been fired up in there. Right? We're running on old operating systems. And then, of course, sleep, man. You know all that stuff, sleep and supplements and partridge in a pear tree. That's another thing.

That's enough to keep you busy. After 30 days, I want you to write me back, call me back and you can call back dude and say that all that stuff was stupid. None of that worked. It will, but call me back. Call me back. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Delaney 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,

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, let's go to Fayetteville, Arkansas. We're going to talk to another John, but with no H. What's up, John with no H? Hey, Dr. John, I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me a little bit man i appreciate you brother what's up how can i help man well i got i ended up getting fired from my job in february and i actually have a i had a two-year contract so i'm getting paid through march of next year but i'm just struggling because i thought i had another job in place

and I haven't been able to find anything and just trying to figure out where to go from here. I mean, they pay me good money. There's no financial need. It's just trying to find myself and find a use because my job has always kind of been who I am, and I've struggled with that and pretty self-aware of it. But I'm just kind of having a hard time with it sucks man what'd you get fired for

you know it's actually because I was being pursued and interviewed for other jobs and didn't end up getting them but thought there was a lack of loyalty and went a different direction was there a lack of loyalty you know I I't think so, because the jobs I was interviewing for were promotions with 50% pay raise, big time programs, that kind of thing. So, man, I've had seasons, I always tried to be their number one cheerleader, man. Sure. Right. So I'll tell you this, you're lucky that you're out of this mess. Okay. If somebody would rather cut your knees out and say, how dare you try to progress your career? How dare you try to go make more money? How dare you? Man, you don't want to work there anyway, right? Right.

Now, that doesn't help the existential issue, which is you got fired and that sucks. Right. There's some data that talks about getting fired as like the psychological impact, which means the physiological and biological impact. What does that mean? You're not a wimp. That means that your body has been injured, Okay. Similar to losing a loved one. And when we lose a loved one, we have a whole process for that. We have a funeral. We dress up in different clothes. We talk to our friends about it. We mourn it. We have a drink. We take some time away.

And when you get fired, you just go try to find another job, right? Right. Have you sat down and just straight up mourned this thing and grieved it? You know, probably not in that sense. The first two months afterwards, I was interviewing and looking for jobs, and I kind of sat back and relaxed and said, hey, I'm going to enjoy it. I'm getting paid. I've got two young kids at home. I get to coach my kids' t-ball team for the first time,

but I don't think I ever mourned it. I've tried to enjoy it and see the blessings that I have in my life. But then after a couple of days or a week, it goes back to the embarrassment, the shame. There you go. That's it, man. So you ignored it and you tried to run from it and you, hey, you ran from it and you hey you ran from it towards good things man coaching your kids t-ball team being positive about it those are all good things but you can't run from it okay what does the embarrassment and shame come from you know it's and i don't think she meant like my wife, I feel like I've lost respect. And she always comes, and we talk about it. We've got a great relationship.

But I'll say, hey, that was disrespectful. I know I don't have a job right now, but I'm still trying. And she said, well, I didn't mean it that way. And all my friends are in the same profession. And they're super successful. And I have been. I've been doing great. But it's, and they're the best.

It's just when you're around them and they're the, again, the best friends in the world, but hey, they're being successful. They're where I want to be. And now all of a sudden I'm not, we're on the level playing field. Now it's, hey, I'm unemployed and can't get a job when six months ago I was turning job, turning down jobs. That's right. That's right. So you're in a season, man. It's winter and it's cold outside, right? Yeah. Is it going to be this way forever? No. And that's, that's, and that's the hard part

is because March is a long way away, but it's close. It's just the hiring. It's kind of a interesting career, but the hiring season is in the winter and kind of waiting for that to come back again. Here's what you need my man two things number one you need a purpose you got to get out of bed every day so i want you to go find just a job okay go to a place where you can go do a thing and it doesn't have to be your dream job it doesn't have to be a whatever but it's got to go be a thing where you can contribute and where you even if it's i don't know if it's Starbucks, I don't care what it is, but you've got to go be a part of something where you're contributing. Okay. And the second thing

is, is I want you to double down on some service. I want you to find some people that are not in your house that you can go serve, whether it's go find two people on your street and you can just mow the lawn and do that regularly. Go find something outside of yourself because right now you're stuck inside your head and you are starting to tell yourself stories about other people who love you. And what happens is this thing's going to spin faster and faster and faster on you. They're not going to want to be around you because you're going to be hard to be around. And then it's going to spin faster and spin faster. And then it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Right. Yeah. So man, I've had buddies who've lost jobs.

I love them. It's hard. You know what I mean? It's heartbreaking. Right. And we're going to make fun of them either way. Cause they're my friends. Right. So if they start working at Starbucks,

be like, Oh my God. That's part of it. Right. I want you to put your head high. You got fire, dude. Own it. Yeah. Right. I think your wife I want you to put your head high. You got fire, dude. Own it.

Yeah. Right? I think your wife still loves you. She still loves you? Yep. Yeah, dude. She still loves you. That's awesome. And does your kids still love you?

Absolutely. Yeah, man. And so have a funeral for this thing. Probably take your wife out and let's do this thing right. Let's have a funeral for it. I want you to be open about like, I feel like a failure. I feel like a loser. And I'm going to put these feelings to bed today.

I'm going to acknowledge I liked this job. I wish I hadn't gotten fired from it. I was a good employee and they let me go. And then we're going to have a proper funeral for this thing. And then're gonna get up you're gonna go find a job and dude if somebody won't hire you because you had interim work then you don't want to work there either i would love for somebody to have a paycheck for a year and they're like man i just went and ground one out i just went over there to starbucks i went over there to my neighbor's firm i went to work for one of my buddies doing three levels below what I normally do just to have a job to contribute, get up and shower and put my clothes on for whatever. But, dude, go towards that, okay?

And make sure you're modeling for your kids. Make sure you're modeling. Hey, man, every single one of us gets punched in the mouth hard. Here's what getting up looks like. Here's what grieving it the mouth hard here's what getting up looks like here's what grieving it looks like here's what being sad looks like here's what gratitude looks like here's what service looks like and if you can't if kids are old enough drag them along and make them mow the yards with you right or go just go for a walk in the evening and pick up trash in your neighborhood do it for an hour who cares you're doing something to contribute okay and it's getting you out of your head.

Here's the thing, my brother. You're not a loser. You're not. You got fired. Sucks. Hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. But you're not a loser.

No, and that's, I know that. And again, I said I'm pretty self-aware, but it kind of resonates because I had another great job job before and it's a different profession but ended up getting hurt and couldn't do it anymore i went down kind of that that path and i could feel my mental health going down i'm not there because it was it was different it was right after college it was i mean it was playing professional football and now it's you know and obviously you know about that transitioning from professional athlete to something else is hard. And I kind of got through it, got back to the top of another career, and I just feel myself going down that path again. Hey, what do you want to do, man?

I'm a football coach. That's what I do. And I know I need to not live in my career, but that's my purpose. You love coaching. What ages? College. You love coaching college ball right oh yeah college ball is a zoo right now right it is it's bananas could you call a local high school and say hey i want to help out in spring ball and and i've i've gone down that path it's just i don't want to commit to something, and then if a job comes up, not do it. You're going to do that. You're going to, you know yourself until you're not going to get out of bed.

You're right. Right? So I want you to be on the phone with a high school or a middle school this week. Okay. And go let them know, hey, dude, I got canned from whatever university, and I'm a good coach. I'm searching the country for it. And by the way, when you're a football coach, you move a lot, and you also got a wife who's

hanging on now. That's right. Who can't commit to a community or to a church or to her friends because she's going to pack up a move, and they live in that limbo. I worked in university administration. My wife experienced the same thing, and I didn't realize it, that she was afraid. The joke in our house, but it wasn't a joke, was planting asparagus. She loves having a big garden, but those take two or three years to come up. And she'd say, I can't ever

plant asparagus because I never know where we're going to live. And that broke my heart, right? And so this year was the first year she actually planted it since we've been married, right? So all I have to say is, man, go down there and just start finding yourself. Get your whistle out and get those weird, ridiculous coaching shorts out and go get involved in the lives of young people.

Get back out there and the calls will come, man. You know that. Yeah. I hope so. Stop! Maybe you'll find out you love coaching

high school ball I coached high school it was awesome probably not but dude you gotta go do you know this right

yeah yeah do I have your word you're gonna go make some calls today yes sir excellent excellent man

and get out there and go volunteer help out with them whether it's in the weight room whether that's whatever go make it happen and then dude get on the phone and start calling some folks. I know that especially the college coaching world, man, it is about your friends

and who you know, and your brothers and your sisters and go make that stuff happen. Right. And if you've ever thought about transitioning out of coaching into doing something else or transitioning to high school instead of college. Now is the time. What do you want to do? College coaching is going to look super different in the next few years, especially if UT and OU blow up to Big 12 and then the Domino, oh, it's going to be a mess. It's going to be awesome, but it's going to be a mess.

And they can pay players. The whole landscape is shifting. If you've ever thought, man, maybe now's that time, right? But you got to get out of your head. Go serve. Go be with. Go do, right? Go, go do.

But I want you to first have a funeral with your wife. Mourn this job. Let this thing exhale. Tell her you're sorry for taking her all over the country. Now she's just in that limbo land. And then get it hey man thanks for the call dude i'm grateful that you trust me with that don't on we talked he got fired he got fired i got fired dude that's the loss of a loved one it hurts and it hurts bad all right man thank john thank you so much for that call, dude. You're awesome. Go do. You got it. You got it.

All right, hey, James, Kelly, something rad. I'm pulling out this secret beta deck of cards. You finally got into Magic the Gathering? I am into Magic the Gathering. I don't even know what that means. That's why you sprinkle dust all over the studio whenever I'm magic the gathering. All right. So ready?

Here it goes. I'm just pulling a random one. Kelly, tell me hashtag slash America. Tell me about a lie you got away with. Sounds like I've got to incriminate myself. I'm so excited about this. Tell me about a lie you got away with. Yeah. So in high school, my mother knew everything I did. I mean, I got away with nothing. But one time we had a bunch of my girlfriends. We all told our parents we were all spending the night with each other. And then it was it was my senior year and we got a hotel, a motel room, like at Red Roof Inn or whatever,

and had a party. But it was so bad because the entire night I was terrified that my mother was about to pull up outside. But I asked her not to, you know, a few years later, she was like, no, amazingly, I did not know about that. But I really didn't have any fun anyway, because I was so terrified she was going to find out and I was going to get killed. That's the lie? Yeah. Man, what a softball. But thank you for sharing.

We're not going to tell you anything too incriminating. What's a lie you got away with? I really can't think of one I got away with, but I can think of one that I super got busted for. In fourth grade, we had to get our parents to sign like every day that we did our homework or something. And I didn't do mine. So last minute, I tried to forge my mom's signature as a fourth grader. Nailed it. And somehow my teacher didn't buy it.

And I got in big trouble for forgery and that was my foray into writing fraudulent checks it's been downhill ever since same thing happened to me in 4th grade except I got caught because I misspelled my mom's name

I'm really smart so you're a forger and an honor student right oh yeah congratulations that's gt all day baby um all right uh one more real quick oh yes kelly what's your favorite rap lyric go she's dressed in yellow she says hello come sit next to me you fine fellow run over there without a second to lose hey what comes next hey bust a move there you go james man i'm gonna need to think about this one wow nick because you can and you won't and you don't stop oh my gosh you can and you won't and you don't stop. All right, so guys, listen.

This is so rad. We've got Corey back there. So I've been hearing over and over and over this one sentiment. All right, Deloney, we turned off all our electronics. We got all the kids in the room. Now what do we do? Or, all right, Deloney, I went to make friends

and I invited a bunch of dudes out, we all went to hang out or we got a couple of couples together and we all went out and then we just looked at each other. We talked about work and then about our kids, we don't have kids or we're doodle parents. Not a thing. Not a thing. I'm a cat dad.

Nope, you're not. Not, you're not. Not a thing. I'm a dog mom. Nope, you're not. Not, you're not. Not a thing. I'm a dog mom. Nope. Not real. Not real. So people were writing and saying, what do we do now?

And I realized, man, it's just a new skill we're going to have to pick up. So we created these conversation starters, but they're Delonified, right? So they're not just like, what's your hopes and dreams? But they're, what are your favorite rap lyric? When's the last time you cried? If I took you to a tattoo parlor right now, Kelly, what tattoo would you get? Go. My favorite quote, a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

Oh, I thought it was going to be stop, collaborate, and listen. You're going to get that on your forearm. That would have been dope. I've got a good one for this. It's super, super nerdy, though. I would get a tesseract or a hypercube, is a two-dimensional your glasses are falling down pushing back two dimensional representation of a four-dimensional cube it's super cool is that how you could play magic games i've never played magic i've never played it

so listen uh we set up a digital version of this so you can get these for free these are we're coming out with conversation starters. It's going to be for adults. You can take them to dinner, man. And what we're hearing back from the folks that we've baited internally in the company, we've got 1,000 people that work here, is they get through like two or three cards in an hour or two hours. They just start. It starts conversations.

It's so fun. It's so good. Even my wife gives about seven boxes of farts of what I do here, but she even, I brought them on our vacation. We played these cards. It was fun with our, we went on vacation with some friends. It's awesome. We're also going to create a deck of cards for parents and their kids. So you can, conversation starters for your kids. We're going to have conversation cards. We're going to call them Deloney After Dark, where you can talk about sex and intimacy with your partner in ways that it's going to like just,

and it's going to help you get into some of those conversations that are otherwise going to be awkward. And then we may even have one for parents. Talk to parents about kids. Just those conversations. You don't know, right? Like what time is bedtime? Do you spank your kids?

Do you not? Why? What do you think about your kid having 17 Google logins just to be a third grader in a public school? All those things, we're going to create cards for those. We're just trying to give you guys some tips and some conversation starters on how to be human again. It's human 101, right?

It's how to be people, right? If you text conversation, the word conversation, C-O-N-V-E-R-S-A-T-I-O-N conversation to 33789. 33789 is going to send you to a site. It's going to give you 20 of these for free. Print them off or they're going to be on your phone and then use them when you go to hang out with your buddies.

Or I just several times on today's show, on the last few shows, I've told people, go get some friends. Go start friends. Make it awkward. Take these with you and say, hey dude, some hack on a radio. I got these questions. These digital questions. We're going to do this. Hey Zach, you're back there. What's your favorite rap lyric?

What's your favorite rap lyric? I don't listen to rap. I don't listen to rap I don't listen to rap here's a fun game, it's called Get Out of the Studio unbelievable I don't even know how you got in there this is ridiculous so hey, conversation starters

text CONVERSATION to 33789 and dude, we're giving you lo-fi tools to change your relationships and man once you start changing your relationships, you start making relationships, then you're into fixing anxiety, fixing depression, fixing PTSD,

fixing all these things that have been hanging around for so long and just melting people inside out. Conversation 33789. And as we wrap up today's show, Zach, here's one of the greatest rap songs ever written. Pay attention. By, hey, this band gets no love. I guess it's rap group.

EPMD. One of the OG, I mean, one of the great EPMD. And the song is off the 19th. Isn't that some type of obscure therapy? EMDR? Ah, okay. It's cool to have producers that actually listen to the show. So close.

So close. EMF, that's radiation I think you get from... You use a lot of acronyms, so it sounded familiar. You're an acronym. Was that a thing? I don't know if that's a thing. Anyway, EPMD off the 1988 Strictly Business record. And the song is,

You gots to chill. And it goes like this. I love these guys. Relax your mind, let your conscience be free, and get down to the sounds of EPMD. Well, you should keep quiet while the MC rap, but if you're tired, Zach, then go take a nap. You're asleep back there right now.

Or stay awake and watch the show I take, because right now I'm about to shake and bake. The E-R-I-C-K is my name, and I spell thanks to the clientele. Yo, I rock well. I'm not an MC who talking all that junk about who can beat who, sounding like a punk. I just get down and I go for mine, say check one, two, and run down the line. To the average MC, I'm known as the Terminator.

Funky beat maker, new Jack Exterminator. You gots to chill. Oh my gosh, what a great song. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show. show.