The Dr. John Delony Show - I’m Drowning Under the Weight of My Family’s Needs

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

Today, we hear from: - A mom of five kids under six who has lost who she is outside of meeting her family’s needs - A man constantly plagued by imposter syndrome in the workplace - John on why parents need to take responsibility for their kids’ video game addiction Lyrics of the Day: "Sister Christian" - Night Ranger 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 Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future 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. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm the parent, and if my 12 year old is so focused on a particular thing, a video game, I'm the parent. It's my job to intervene. Here's the dopest thing about electronics, there's a button on the side and it says off. Woo! What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I've had way too much caffeine today, man. Coffee with the family, full kill cliff, and now some more coffee. I don't even know why. I just, I'm just, let's see how far we can push this engine today.

And about noon, you may see me face down in a field somewhere. My body just said, we're done. We're done. Hey, but we're so glad that you have joined us for a mental health podcast where I start the show by telling you I'm not doing so great. Hey, if you want to be on what is clearly the greatest mental health and marriage and relationship podcast of all time, give me a buzz. 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask A-S-K. Hey, real quick, somebody on the internet's pointed this out, and I can't believe I just blew it. On the episode we did, I don't know, it was a couple days ago now,

on seasonal affective disorder. Sad, right? I talked about getting a light table, and I also, I just completely whiffed. I use this little device. It's called the Valky, V-A-L-K-E-E. I think it's just completely whiffed. I use this little device. It's called the Valky, V-A-L-K-E-E. I think it's out of Sweden or something. It's a, my wife calls it, it's one of my gadgets. It just goes in a tray.

She said, I don't even know what this stuff is. And I think it's all shenanigans. This is incredible. I love it. Here's what it is. You can get sunlight inside your body through your eyes. That's the main portal. You can get through your your body through your eyes. That's the main portal you can get through your skin. Um, you can also get it through your ears. And so if you click it, you can see it lights up really bright and you just put in your ears like headphones and you go about your morning and it lasts for about 12, 15 minutes. And I do several rounds of this. I don't get one penny from this, this organization. I don't know who this organization is, but I do use this thing. I don't even know if it works beyond psychosomatic stuff, but I love it. And I use it all the time. And I feel like it gives me a great boost in the morning. It's kind of brightens things up.

And so anyway, I forgot to mention that. Somebody reached out and said, hey, I thought you used that thing. And I was like, I did. And I completely blew it in that segment. So there you go. Also, one other thing that I screwed up, Lane Norton called me. He called me on the phone the other day and he said, hey, I listened to your podcast and you told somebody something that was wrong, like inaccurate. And I'm just calling you out from this friend to friend and scientist to scientist, I'm calling you out. And so we talked through it and he is right. He's right. Here's what he told me. I gave some guy, a guy was calling in about nutrition and about how he runs to certain foods

and things when he's feeling certain ways. And I told him in my house, I have to go with the scorched earth approach. I cannot have certain things in my home because I can't control myself. And I even pointed to some genetic testing I've had done that said I have something called a cookie jar gene that makes it very hard, whatever. And Lane, Dr. Norton said, hey, and he used my language against me

as a good scientist does. He said, I believe it's just a story you're telling yourself that you are unable to not have to live your life fearful of certain foods or fearful of certain moods. Oh my gosh, I should be a rapper, moods and foods. But you don't have to live your life that way. And when he said it, it just kind of washed over me. I was like, that's exactly what I tell people about anxiety and about depression and about, I don't know how to have hard conversations in my marriage and sex intimacy has become too weird to talk about. I tell people, hey, that's just a story you're telling yourself and there's a path forward.

And so he talked through some of the research around, he's right, he was right. And so to the gentleman that I gave the wrong advice to, I think there's a season, this is me bridging the gap here. I do think there's a season for scorched earth. I think there's a season. This is me bridging the gap here. I do think there's a season for scorched earth. I think there's a season

for overcoming addiction on some of these things. And there's things like alcohol. Like I'm never going to have this for the rest of my life. But I also think that we all, myself going first, need to be cognizant of stories

we tell ourselves about things we can and cannot do. And if we find something in our life, I just can't do that. I just can't. I just can't. Can I truly just not? Maybe if you're five, six, you're not ever going to dunk. Maybe that's true. But if it's, I just, I just can't hear another story, but really, or I just can't have that conversation with him because really, I just can't be around gummy candies because I can't control myself. So this morning I walked in, somebody bought me a bunch of gummy candies

and it was on my desk and I looked at it and I thought, I really want these for breakfast. Then I let that feeling pass. And then I went about my day and I thought, fricking Norton, he's right. It's the benefit of having brilliant friends who will call you out. Iron sharpens iron. Thanks, Brother Norton. All right, let's go to Stephanie in Ventura Boulevard, California. What's up, Stephanie?

Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm good. What are you doing? Good. I'm currently sitting in my car alone. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It's a great thing. I'll tell you a little bit about me, but I'm a mom of five. I was going to say, are you a mom of small kids? You have five under six?

Yes. So there's a little backstory to like my question today. And basically it's five children. Hey, listen, I don't know what your backstory is. Can we just take a minute? You're all by your, hey, listen, here's the deal. If you just want to hang up the phone right now and just sit there quietly for 20 minutes, that will probably be more beneficial

than anything I'm going gonna say to you this morning just great wow five kids under six yeah okay good for you all right let's hear the backstory let's do this um well i guess the backstory is just that i have five kids so they're they're um they're six five two and then my last are twins, and they just turned one. Because you know what? Why not? Why not? You know what?

Hey, here's what I love. You and your husband were like, let's have one more. Yeah. Let's have one more. And he was like, I don't know if I can do this. Or you were like that. One of you. Which one was it?

Oh, him for sure. Okay. He's like, and he thought for her, I'll do one more. Tell me about, tell me about the conversation when you were like, so plot twist, how did that conversation go? Well, the plan was to have six. So that was the plan. And then we had our first two a year apart. And then our third, we gave it a little bit of a three-year buffer. And so with my, with our fourth, I was like, let's just do it again. We've done that. We can handle that. And then surprise,

two more beautiful babies came. How many diapers are in your home right now? Used and unused? Oh, Lord knows. I don't know. There has to be a thousand. I have no idea. Oh my gosh. It is wild. Hey, God bless you, dude. I don't know what to say, man. God bless you. Thank you. All right. So how can I, how can I, how can I, I don't know what I can offer you and you haven't even asked your question yet, but go for it. Well, I'm just finding that having so many kids so quickly has kind of caught up to me in really in every way.

But I'm just finding that a lot of my day is full of other people's needs. And somebody asked me the other day, like, what do you like to do for fun? And all I could say was sleep. I was like, I'm so sad. I don't even know how to answer this question anymore. No, there's nothing sad about that at all.

It's like John Mayer wrote a new song called Your Body is a Jungle Gym, right? You've just got kids all over, people all over you. Hey, and by the way way they're one now right your your twins are fully one yes okay so has husband started like raising the eyebrow like hey uh i mean see you you are never your own you're never your own it Listen, if the most erotic fantasy you could summon right now, combined with the most realistic physical and mental health things you could summon, and you put them all in one big jar and shook it up, what would come out is just sleep, right?

Yeah. I mean, that's like, if he came in and was like, hey, you want to turn the lights down low? You'd be like, yep, and I'll be asleep in eight seconds. So that honestly doesn't relieve yourself. I mean, it's like give yourself peace. Okay. You are. That's the goal.

You're everywhere. And you're just, it's winter. And so you got to wear a coat. Yeah. It just is. It just is. Six under, five under six. Mm-hmm. Man. just is six under six or five under six man um here's here's here's what i think

well here's what i've seen help a lot okay there's three three kind of bullet points i would attach to life two of them are relatively easy they're uncomfortable, but they're easy. The third is really challenging. Okay The first one is be very clear about the reality of this season It just is It's not fun. It's so lovable and exciting and all of that. It's the best worst time and I want to free you from the moments you're like I hate everybody.

And your husband walks in and you just look at him and say, I hate you the most. And you just want to go run screaming into the snow. Or you're in California, so you don't have that. You want to go run screaming into the ocean, right? That's okay. You're not a bad mom because you want your kids just to shut up. You're not a bad mom just because you want your kids just can you just go away so I can You know what I want to do. Here's what I want to do

I want to go to the bathroom all by myself I want to wipe with nobody staring at me. That's what I want. I want that more than anything, right? That's okay. I want you to know you're not a bad mom. Okay, you're not a bad mom. Okay, um Be very clear about the reality of the season. And that leads to number two. You haven't done this in a while. And you're at a point now where your kids are out of, I don't want to say survival mode, right? They still have to, have to, have to have their mom, right? But you know the difference between like a one-year-old and a five-day-old, right?

Totally. You got to be very, very clear about what you need in this season. And my guess is you have been living with a scarcity mindset. There's only this much time and there's this many kids. And so that question seems absurd. It's insane, right? Totally. You've run long enough without any oxygen.

And if you don't make a shift at some point to put your health and wellness at the center of this thing, this ship just runs out of gas. Or it runs aground, right? I'm mixing my metaphors. The truck runs out of gas. So asking yourself, being very specific, okay, for the next four weeks, what do I need? And that is going to dictate your budget. That's going to dictate what y'all spend money on. It's going to dictate what you end up asking your husband to do or what support you need. We need to hire a housekeeper. We've got to ask mom to come visit for a few months. Like, what do you need? And let's do this on a 30-day increment. And let's get in the habit of asking her, okay, what do I need right now?

And you have to hear me say, the greatest gift you can give your kids is to speak your needs out loud and give other people the opportunity to help you meet those needs. Okay? Even if that's hiring a high school kid to come over and just be in the house while you take a two-hour nap. Can you imagine how awesome a two-hour nap. Can you imagine how awesome a two-hour nap would be? We do have a nanny that does help with that. There you go. So let's be super clear about what we need. Sometimes it's just when you hire a nanny in your situation, it's just like, I just, whatever, I need help with it. Let's be real, real clear. Okay. And this leads to number three. This is i think the big the big thing happens

to all of us happened to me with one kid happened to me with two kids and you have a thousand kids and it's happening to me too i just kept imagining my life as it was before i had kid number one and i tried to just insert the new kids into that world in the world before before I had kids, my wife and I could just have sex whenever we wanted to. We could spend money on pretty much whatever we wanted to. We could just travel whenever we could just do whatever we wanted because we were in a glitch in the matrix. We had grown up jobs and we had no kids. And so I didn't know at the time, but we had very limited responsibility. And I kept trying to just insert kids into that world and I never stopped to realize that everything about my world had changed and so there's something about exhaling and getting

out of the house for a day or half a day and you sound like that's insane and cool man we can do extra pumping and storing for a while you and your husband go away for half a day and you have to reimagine your life because it's new now. And if he's still waiting for that crazy, fun girlfriend, wife that he had before, and if you're still wanting to get back to whatever, the phrase, if we can just get back to, if I can just get to,

that is a recipe for disaster in your relationship. Yeah. I actually, I actually think we're doing honestly almost the opposite. Like, oh, if we could just get to the three-year mark, three years has been like our magic number for our kids. Like, okay, if we could just get to three years, like we'll be able to leave the house again or like not be run by naps. There is that. I mean, there's definitely markers, right? You're running a marathon and you're like, dude, if I can just get to mile five up that big hill, then miles five through seven are downhill. There's definitely a component to that. What you leave out of that equation is, oh, then we can finally get to that. If we can just

get everybody to three and you don't understand what life is going to be like when you have a nine-year-old. Right. And that's a whole other set of challenges right and then when when your nine-year-old turns 12 and is like they dumped me and now we got a whole other set right so you're always going to be shuffling and moving and then what happens is if you keep waiting for the next milestone like i worked in colleges for 20 years. The number of parents who come and they're just, they are wide-eyed. What just happened? My kids are gone.

I just dropped off my last kid. And we kept waiting for, well, then they get to high school and then we'll be able to, and then when they get to, then now they're just gone. And so I would encourage you to reimagine your life

full of one-year-olds everywhere. And our life right now is not a life conducive to going out unless we have seven to eight babysitters here to help out, right? And that means the nights we go out, they're going to be very, very special. And that means we're going to be intentional about them. And that means we're going to be gross about them. We're going to text each other a week out and be like, ew, hot date coming up, because that's how intentional we have to be because this is our new world, and the world where we could just be like, dude, we got a bonus. Let's just go get steak.

That world's over right now. It's over. And we can be sad about it, but it doesn't exist. Here's our new world. Here's what dates are going to look like. We have to still go on them. Here's what romance is going to look like. Romance might be just holding hands and watching The Office till you doze off. Romance, oh, honey,

you want to get me hot and bothered? Go change diapers in the middle of the night just once a week. Just, right? I just, I won't be able to breathe. I'll be so hot and bothered, but I'll be asleep and you won't know it. So like it's re-imagining your life as it is,

not just white knuckling it until you get to some magic milestone because the milestones, man, you get one milestone here, but you're off to the races on another one and you just never feel like you can stop. I will say this, when all of your kids are able to go to the bathroom

on their own and get in and out of the shower on their own, that is pretty awesome. I'm not going to lie. It's pretty amazing. Looking forward to it. Like right now I have a six-year-old and a 12-year-old. I can just say, y'all go shower. And they do. And I can just stare off into space. It's pretty awesome. I'm not going to lie. And I haven't wiped another human's butt in a while. So it's pretty awesome. I'm not going to lie. That is a milestone, but don't miss the one-year-old years waiting until they become three-year-old years because then you're going to

wait until they become 10-year-old years and then they're going to leave. Right. Be in it with them. And most importantly, be in it with your husband. Okay. Yeah. But do you just ever sit and weep? Just cry. Oh, all the time. Okay. Do you have a group of women that you can text and talk and say, am I going crazy? A few, yeah. That sounded like shenanigans. One. Okay.

Can you tell that person everything? Yeah. Can you get one more? I can sure try. I think you can. And here's the deal, or maybe two more, and let them know I'm starting a text thread because I'm going insane because I have five kids under six. And so I'm going to text y'all when I have a question about something or when I feel like shaving my head just to see what I look like without any hair. Like whatever is happening. People will be honored to be on the other end of that text message.

Okay. And it would be really gangster if you got together once a week just to have nachos and be like, whoa. Okay. You're not abandoning your kids if you do something with other people once like, you know, on some interval once a week or something like that. In fact, it'd be a gift to them and it'd be a gift to you. Yeah. Cool. Awesome.

Thank you so much. I keep, I'm like, I want to say I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. I'm super excited for you, but I just know. No, I'm so grateful. Thank you. I really respect your show and what you do. Well, I appreciate you. I can tell you, I really respect you.

My gosh. Y'all are in it. In it to win it. Yeah, reimagine your life. Everything's different now. Reimagine it. And that should be a fun and exciting exercise. It'll be filled with grief.

It'll be filled with some bummed out. But man, that's pretty awesome when you go, all right, here's what it is. We have lots of diapers in the house. Let's make this work. Not only let's just make this work. Let's make this incredible. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to.

We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own 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 behind costumes and masks, 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 be honest with yourself and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic 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 Better Help. Better Help is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. And 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 dot com slash Deloney. All right, we're back.

Let's go to Christian. Sister Christian in Kansas City, Missouri. What's up? Hey, Dr. John. How are you? Partying, dude. What are you doing?

Not a whole lot. It's Friday, so enjoying that. Friday? Nice, nice, brisk 28 degrees, I think, so that's fun. Brisk 28 degrees. If it got to be 28 degrees in Tennessee, they'd shut the state down. So what's up, man?

First, I just want to say thank you for all that you all do. You all are great. Really helps listen to you guys. I've extrapolated a lot and put into practice what you teach and advise, and it's made a difference I appreciate it thank you thanks for listening dude been in our gang yeah and I also I know you're from Texas but open invitation if you ever want some real barbecue head on over to KC we'll hook you up all right fighting words and I've had barbecue in Kansas City and it is

incredible I've got family in Kansas I love it it is incredible. I've got family in Kansas. I love it. It's incredible. Awesome. Yes, very well done. Very well done. So I wanted to call and talk to you about something I think I've kind of combated most of my adult life. Okay. The one phrase, I guess, is the inner critic, but the more ominous title is imposter syndrome.

So what kind of brought it up was one of your callers I listened to not too long ago was a young gentleman that would get burnt out really quick on a job and switch to a new one every several months or so. And after that, I was just like, you know what? I need a call, Dr. John. Okay, great. I'm actually taking a new position at the start of the year, really excited about it. Um, but then here come all these feelings of, are they going to find out that I'm not the right one? Do I know enough? Do, am I smart enough? Will I contribute enough? Like all of these things that are telling me that I don't measure up. Um, and when I was starting to write some of this stuff down to kind of keep my thoughts in order, I was

like, you know, I think I've dealt with this for a long time. It just manifests in different ways. Um, like one example would be, uh, when I was going through undergrad, um, when I would, you know, write all these down and demand evidence from them, as you would say. Graduated with honors, 3.8 GPA, so did really well, but the entire time I was just like, is this major for me?

Am I smart enough to do this for my life? Who taught you that your thoughts about yourself didn't count as much as somebody else's? Just home. So like in the about me stuff, I had a pretty strict upbringing, I would say. I know my parents probably had the best intentions. Sure. I know my parents probably had the best intentions, but it was the way I absorbed it and the way I've kind of been brought up to think about myself was minimizing pretty much everything. So there's a pretty strict church. I was going to say there's some pretty compelling research about strictness and strictness void of relationship

creates very anxious, uncertain kids because there's a message of strictness, if you will, that ultimately says you cannot be trusted. And there's some truth to that you're a child of course you can't be trusted right but there's this it's the air you breathe your thoughts are stupid what you think you want to do is stupid the things that you think are going to make you feel good are stupid you want to be in relationships stupid and it's just this, it's this, it becomes your heartbeat. There is some power to very strict parents who also have very deep relationships with their kids. That's what I'm aiming for. I'm a strict dad. Like let's take video games. I talk about that a lot. I'm very strict when it comes to video games. And I also know that because I've said no over here means I have to be very open to

doing things with my kids because I've taken this option off the table for them, which means we got to spend time together, which means you got to kick a soccer ball, which means I have tons of opportunity to tell my kids how that I'm proud of them, that they're doing good work. We laugh together. They get to see that they can make their old man laugh, right? Or they're faster than me or whatever the thing is. And so the strictness is in combination with relationship. And that is the quadrant I'm aiming for. But if you grew up in a home that was just, you know why we don't do this? Because we don't want to burn in hell in your dumb, right?

That is not a conducive way to create an adult who feels certain about anything, right? Yeah. Other than your own demise, right? Oh my gosh. Yeah. So yeah, that was, yeah, we went to church every Wednesday, sometimes multiple times, twice on Sundays, of course, that was the norm. Dad was in law enforcement. So it was always like- It's like my same house, dude. Behavior and perception were everywhere. I cannot misbehave because then I look like I can't control my kids or we get nasty looks at church or all those things.

And if he's in law enforcement, you can't misbehave because if you hold hands with that girl, that's going to lead you to dancing. And if you dance, that's going to lead you to smoking cigarettes. And if you smoke cigarettes, murderer, right? And that's what law, I mean, that's their world, right? That's their world. And so everything's a gateway drug. So all I have to say is this.

I want to back out and just teach on this for a second. Is that cool? I'm going to use you as a proxy. So your brain is always scanning 24, seven, three 65 asking. And again, I'm, I'm way oversimplifying this, but it's always asking, am I safe? Do I belong? Where's my tribe? Right? So am I safe here? Do I have a tribe? Do I have a gang? And does this feel good? The opposite being, am I in pain, right? And it's scanning all the time for these questions. And if you find yourself in a new environment, are they paying you more money, by the way?

It'll be the same pay, but like right now I'm working from home. And I think part of my issue is just where I left, I had a really great relationship. And I don't, like, I'm, you know, pretty isolated. Just really hard to get any sort of meaningful interaction. So the new place will have some interaction. This will be like a hybrid thing. Very cool. So this idea of, am I going to belong here?

And so your body's already spinning, like, man, I don't know about this. And then the safety, what if they meet me and they don't like me? And if they don't like me, I'm going to get fired. If I get fired and, and I'm not like, man, this is a gift that people who work in law enforcement give their kids, but it also turns into a curse when they're an adult. You are trained as the child of somebody in law enforcement to think 17 steps down the road and you very quickly i'm guessing can go from what if i don't know enough to i'm homeless and destitute and my family's there catastrophizing is one of my go-tos well it's hey it's because our dads my dad's the same that guy loved me like crazy and all day every day he dealt with murder and so he knew the steps to not get murdered and that was right imposed on like

as a kid and so man everything was done out of love and also it made for an insecure adult like i don't know what i don't know how to walk i I don't know what to do. There's murderers everywhere, right? And it's just spinning. So Claire Josa has a couple of great definitions of imposter syndrome. One is imposter syndrome is the gap between how you currently see yourself as being and who you think you need to be. And for your whole life, somebody has been telling you who you need to be. And instead of teaching you how to ask yourself that question. Okay. That's number one. Number two is imposter syndrome is the fear of others judging you the same way you judge yourself. And you are not nice to Christian, are you? Not at all. Because Christian sucks and he's never doing

it right and he's always gonna come on come on Christian oh now he's going to hell ha ha got it right there's no way there's no way for Christian to win and so you spend a ton of time thinking about Christian and how's Christian gonna keep safe and I won't put you on the spot, but I often see folks who are world-class, I'll say this nicely. I won't say liars, but exaggerators. They're able to get in and out of social situations or work situations. And they're able to navigate this and navigate this because they've been practicing it since they were a kid. They're very, very skilled at it.

And then all of a sudden, they find themselves in a professional position and they have either said they could or demonstrated or kind of around the edges, giving the impression that you can do this job. Cool, you're hired. And then it goes oh no yeah yeah right you're talking to a guy that hired a an accounting student that to come into my

office he sneak into my office and he taught me how to use excel when i was running multi-million dollar budgets because i didn't know how. I had to go get extra training from a student who was paying me tuition dollars so that I could do my job. Let me just say this, ask you this. Are you a fraud? Are you a fake? No.

You're not. I know you're not. No. Okay. So self-doubt is about what you know you can do and can't do. Self-doubt is about skills. All right. You don't have self-doubt. You know what you can do and you know what you can't do. Impostor syndrome is not about what you think you can or can't do. It's about who you think you are. And that's a huge difference that you don't belong, that you're never going to be enough, that you're going to get fired, that you're going to screw

this thing up. You're not going to fit in at this new job. Right? It's a feeling in your body that you don't belong in this job or you don't belong in this room or you don't belong in this marriage. That's imposter syndrome. Okay. And so I'll ask you, so, so solving this problem, let me say this, solving this problem isn't about trying to get new skills. It might, you might need to learn some stuff, new job. In fact, I would hate it for you if you took a new job and you don't have anything to learn. That would be a lame existence. Hopefully you have tons of new things to learn, right? Yeah. Yeah. There'll be plenty to learn for sure yeah going into a situation and not knowing things is only bad when you've lied about what you know if you've misrepresented yourself if you

haven't done that then going into a situation and not knowing what to do next is called being a human you've heard me on this show say i don't know when somebody calls me with their problem or i've been pretty open about the number of times i call an expert like Dr. Lynn Jennings or Dr. Michael Gomez or Dr. Lane Norton I call them and ask them hey I'm getting this I'm having a call today on the show I don't have any experience with this walk me through what uh what you would do because you're an expert in this thing like that's just that's being a normal human being and so that comes down the cool thing is getting over imposter syndrome is an internal thing. It's not an external thing. You see what I'm saying?

So go ahead. I've thrown a lot at you. What do you think? That's okay. No, that makes so much sense because growing up, one of the phrases I heard repeated a lot was, you have so much potential. Why aren't you doing X, Y, or Z? Like, why are you only getting a B? Like, why, why aren't you doing this homework? Like, why aren't you whatever? Or when I would even younger, when I would be upset or something, I got the, I'll

give you something to cry about. Like there was, there was no physical abuse, but there was that threat that whatever you're upset about is not worth the energy or effort you're putting in. Granted, I was probably young and I wanted the toy. I couldn't have it or whatever, but growing up and that's all you hear. Am I even? You just nailed imposter syndrome. Number one, the finish line always moved on you. Yeah.

Hey, dude, I got all A's and a B. You couldn't have got one more A? Really? Yeah. Seriously? Is that who you are? You're just all A's and a B kind of guy? And so, right?

So you go home and you have this like, I did it. I got all A's and a B. And then the finish line moves. And then you would have got straight A's and it's like, one of these is a 90. You barely made it. And then, all right, so the finish line moves again. And then at the same time, you're being told on repeat, you cannot trust your feelings. Bam, I hit my head.

Oh, that hurts. No, it didn't. I'll give you something to cry about. And it's this, it's this, it's, it's like, um, it's like, uh, like an hourglass, right? With the sand, like just slowly draining out of, out of it. That's what happened to your ability to trust yourself. And so what you have to practice moving forward is how do I trust Christian again? No, not again. How do I trust Christian, period? And here's the way I've had to learn to trust myself. I hold two things in one hand and

one in the other. In my left hand, I hold bad things could happen. I could get fired. I can get hit by a dump truck. And so I'm going to make sure I've got life insurance. So my family's taken care of, and I'm going to make sure I'm really good when I show up at work. I hold that very loosely. What I hold relatively tightly in the other hand is it's probably not going to happen. Does that make sense? So I give myself grace.

I make room for maybe this isn't as big a deal as your as your body's making it out to be Maybe it's not so let's don't respond to an email for 24 hours On the other side of it is hey, my body's telling me this is a huge deal. It might be So in 24 hours, i'm going to re-examine this i'm just going to learn to trust myself over time And when my body starts to feel like I don't belong in a room, like I'm an imposter, like I'm fake, like I'm, ah, I just smile. And then I'm curious, what are you trying to protect me from? Because I know this. Here's the thing that happened. I got a call out of the blue. I'm getting on an airplane. I got a call out of the blue. Hey, Jordan Peterson's team just reached out to you. Would you be on his show tomorrow morning in Los Angeles?

I was like, okay. And then I thought, oh man, that guy's real, real, real smart. And we don't agree on everything. And he is a controvert. He loves controversy. What if I end up getting dragged into deep water and he's smarter than me and we head off into the, like he's a union psychologist and I'm not. In fact, dude, I started going.

And then it ended up with, who do you think you are to even be sitting at this table? And then I started smiling. I was like, oh, I know what you're protecting me from. Embarrassment, getting canceled, looking dumb, right? And then I worked myself back. Dude, I've worked in colleges for years. I've been with faculty members who are brilliant

and have wonderful minds and interesting perspectives. So I was able to just demand evidence from it and reverse engineer it to, I'm just gonna have a great conversation. And if I look dumb, my wife still likes me on most days. My kids love me. Right. And I can go back to being a high school basketball coach. I love, I was good at that. And so I was able to land in a place where I could have a good conversation. And now that particular episode's got millions and millions of views because it wasn't a, and I found also Dr. Peterson to be a lovely human being, like off air. He was a great, great guy. So all that to say is,

no matter how good you think you are, I've got two PhDs. I've got all this stuff. I've got a number one best-selling book. My first thought was, you don't belong at that table. Who do you think you are? It still happens. And then I'm just going to work through my process. I'm going to be curious about what my body's trying to protect me from. Am I safe? Do I belong here? And does this feel good? I'm going to be off to the races. Is that cool? Yeah, cool. My hope for you is you begin to trust yourself as much as your employer trusts you. Are you married? Yep. Does your wife trust you?

Yep. No question. Are you worthy of her trust? Do you lie to her a lot? No. Do you cheat on her? Nope. Okay.

So, your wife, who you love and trust trust has said, I trust you. A for-profit company who can only stay open if they make money has picked you as the best person to lead that organization in that particular area. They hired you to help them serve people so that they can make money to stay open. They picked you. So it sounds like the only person who doesn't trust christian in this equation is christian And maybe christian's family who again loved you deeply And in an effort to keep you safe ended up robbing you of the ability to walk on your own two feet And so your life mission

For the next five years ten years is learning to trust Christian, learning to trust your feelings, learning when to know when, when your feelings are bananas out to lunch. They're way off. Um, learning when to make the next right move, learning when, Hey, this is something I should really be scared about, or, ah, that's just my body being anxious again. You're going to practice those things. Write them down, write them down, write them down, write them down. Check in with your wife.

Chances are she's tired of Christian talking to her husband the way you talk to you because she loves you. But remember, self-doubt is about what you can and can't do. You don't have that. Imposter syndrome is who do you think you are to even be in this room? And my hope is over time with practice and with intentionality, you can lean back and throw your shoulders back

and say, I'm Christian and I've earned the right to sit at this table. Your move, man. Congratulations on your new job. You're gonna do awesome. We'll be right back. 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 churchillemortgage.com slash D'Loni and get the home buyer edge today. All right, we are back and it's time for another installment of Facts Are Your Friends. Is something? Oh, sweet. Get at your Marlboro Reds and your Bush Tallboys. I don't know. Now, don't get any of that stuff out. It'll just make you feel bad tomorrow. I don't know if it'll make you feel bad right now.

All right, so Facts Are Your Friends. I'm doing a hostile takeover of Facts Are Your Friends today. Sorry, Kelly. Shake it off. James sent me, James Childss the old producer of the show that kelly dude it was hunger games and she got rid of him hostile takeover was dope um he forwarded me an email the other day um he's still employed he's got a job he's doing fine this is incredible listen to this a lawsuit has been filed in canada this is from uh fox news A lawsuit has been filed in Canada. This is from Fox News.

A lawsuit has been filed in Canada by parents who say their kids are addicted to the video game Fortnite. A Canadian Supreme Court judge authorized the filing by Quebec parents against their manufacturer. Parents say their kids are addicted, so, so addicted that they don't take care of regular everyday hygiene, such as showering. Some kids are so dependent on Fortnite, they stopped eating and sleeping, according to BBC News and reported by Insider. This gives me hemorrhoids at a level

that preparation age simply can't help. It's phenomenal to me that this is a thing happening on the planet right now. This is happening on the planet right this second. The attorney who brought the suit equated the games maker, the people who created and produced Fortnite, with tobacco let's let's pull that apart for a second because that's stupid and you've heard me on the show i think the people behind big tobacco were evil people behind some of the big food companies are evil because they're taking products and they are hiding, number one, they're taking products that they are handing to adults and who then hand them to their children. And they say, hey, we've done all the testing on these. These are super safe. And not only are they safe, look at our package. They're good for you.

They help out with things. And if you go back to the original cigarette manufacturers, cigarettes were something that helped calm you down. Menthol cigarettes were good for pregnant women, right? This is nonsense like that. And so when they got the reports that, hey, everyone's getting cancer and dying, they hid those reports and they lied about them. That's evil. You also have heard me say, I think video games are a scourge on humanity. I don't like them. I do know a lot of people that play and they're great human beings. And I actually like playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, still the greatest game ever,

and Metroid from the original Nintendo, legit game. And I might get my kids a system at some point. Fine. But here's the deal. I'm the parent. And if my 12-year-old is so focused on a particular thing carrots pizza cigarettes a video game i'm the parent it's my job to intervene and if that means smashing the video game systems

and cutting all the cords to the wi-fi to, to the high-speed internet coming into my home, then that's what I do because I'm a parent. I am mom and dad. I cut the cord. I also know that if I cut the cord, that means I got to do more parenty things that are really annoying and that hurt because I'm tired. I'm exhausted.

But the idea that I just can't control what's in my house. And I just don't know. My kids. No. Parents. Here's the dopest thing about electronics. And I didn't know this. There's a button on the side.

And it says off. And you can just push it. And it goes off. It turns off. You can take the controllers and set them on fire, making it impossible to play. I don't for a second believe that Fortnite or whatever video games are not addictive. I'm confident they are. I bet we could do a deep dive into some of the literature that they have, some of the studies they've done on how to get kids to play more, how to get people playing these games to play them more often with different fonts and different lights and withholding things in certain intervals. I'm confident that exists, but I'm more confident that it's the parent's responsibility to keep their kids safe.

And if your kid is unable to shower or eat or sleep because they're so entrenched in a thing, as a parent, it's your job to intervene, to keep your kids safe. And intervention is not lobbing grenades at some video game maker. They're doing their job, quite frankly. Their job is to get you to play more of their product. Cool. Cool. Here's what I love.

The makers of the game go on to say, parents can receive playtime reports that track the amount of time their child plays each week, and they can require parental permission before purchases are made in the game. So the company is not saying, hey, play less. They can't say that because they'd lose their job. But they're saying, hey, parents, we've even built in ways for you to participate in this. Here's the thing. At some point, at some point, moms and dads, we've got to step up and step into these situations and stop completely abdicating responsibility to raising our kids to third-party people whether it's a video game or a school or a youth group

or a church whatever i've got to be present in my kids lives and if your kids want to play i don't know what fortnight is i don't know anything about it but if they want to play it knock your lights out i don't know maybe is it i don't it an unhealthy game? Is it a bad game for kids? No, it's one – it actually is one of the ones. My son used to play it. He doesn't anymore. But it requires some thought process, and you have to – Knock your lights out.

Great, great, great. Yes, let your kids play video games. It's fine. But it's up to you as the parent to regulate it and how much time they're spending on it and who they're participating with. And are they being groomed for in-person encounters by people that you don't want your kids around? That's your job. It's your job. I also want to shout out.

If you're a single mom or a single dad and you're working four jobs and this is a way for you to breathe, I get that, man. I get that's hard. Like, hey, my kid, there's an overlap between my work shifts. My kid goes home, he plays Fortnite for a few hours. And that gives me a gap. I get it. I get it. I'm going to ask you to reconsider. using digital babysitters as a proxy for parental intervention or as a less risky endeavor than in any number of other behaviors we can put in front of our kids. I guess what I'm asking for is let's stop blaming people and let's start taking responsibility for the children inside our homes. And that starts with using the off button. It starts with saying no. It starts with telling our kids, you can't do that because it's not safe.

It's not good for you. That's what parenting is. That's what parenting is. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out

or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. As we wrap up today's show, I guess because the caller's name is Christian. You actually do love this band. I legit do.

I'm not going to lie. This tattoo is in Old English across Kelly's stomach. I've never seen it, but she just talks about it a lot. Night Rangers' Sister Christian. And it goes like this. Sister Christian, oh, the time has come. You know that you're the only one to say, okay. Where are you going?

What are you looking for? You know those boys don't want to play no more with you. It's true. You're motoring. What's your price for flight in finding Mr. Right? You'll be all right tonight. I don't even know what that means. That sounds like the cat in the hat. Green. I do not like green eggs and ham, Sister Christian, but I do like you. We'll see you soon.