The Dr. John Delony Show - My Affair Ruined My Relationship With My Son

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

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I had an affair, and I had a 16-year-old son, and my relationship with him is not good. It feels like someone has died. Yeah, they have. I'm assuming during moments of clarity, you've sat down and said, I was wrong. I blew this thing up, and I'm sorry that I blew your life. Yo, what's up? What's up? This is John, with a Dr. John Deloney's show coming from Nashville, Tennessee. Take in your calls.

Real people going through real challenges. I'm a real person. I'm a real boy. And we are taking your calls on what's going on in your marriages and your mental and emotional health with kids, family, life, everything. You want to be on the show? Go to john Deloney.com slash ask. And please take 30 seconds really quick, really quick.

And hit the subscribe button, whether you're watching this on YouTube or you are listening on your favorite podcast player. All right, let's go out to Charlotte, North Carolina, and talk to Dale. Hey, Dale, what's going on? Hey, Dr. John, how are you? Doing all right. How about you? I'm doing good. Thank you. It's an honor to speak with you. It's an honor to talk to you. What's going on?

Thank you. Well, I've listened to your show for years and always respected your advice and just thought I would write in with my issue and see if you had any words of advice for me. About two years ago, I got divorced. I had an affair and I have a 16-year-old son and my relationship with him is not good. He is extremely hurt, as I can understand, from what I did, and we really don't have a relationship at all. I have legal joint custody of him with my ex, but he has never spent the night with me. He rarely communicates with me. I'll go weeks at a time without seeing him. And it's just been really hard. I don't know what to do.

gone to counseling and, you know, they pretty much just said, just give it time. He's in a really hard age and this is just going to take time. Yeah. But that's really hard. I can't. I'm so in love with my 10-year-old daughter and I'm so in love with my 15-year-old son. I can't imagine being in a place where they, either one of them said, I refuse to see you. Yeah. It feels like someone has died. They have. Yes.

I mean, what was your relationship with them has died. Yeah, it's over. Yes. Yeah. I'm assuming during moments of clarity, you've sat down and said, I was wrong. I blew this thing up and I'm sorry that I blew your life up. Over and over. Okay.

All right. I've written, I've written a couple of letters. Yeah. I've owned my mistakes. I mean, I've done about all I know. do at this point. Okay, so here's the hard, terrifying reality that you face, okay? And it's just going to take something that very few people have. And you're now aiming for a relationship with your 25-year-old son, not your 16. And what that means is you have to simply just keep showing up

for the next 10 years. Okay. I'm going to write him a letter once a week. And no, Oh, and he may not read it. I'm going to send him a text message twice a day. I do that. So. But here's what we're looking for. We're looking for a decade worth of evidence that my mom's character is complicated. And one time she did a really bad thing that had a really negative effect on me.

And I have a decade's worth of evidence that she's a person who owned her mistakes and she's pretty amazing person. She never stopped coming for me. Okay. And that will be exhausting and tireless and heartbreaking. And here, I'm just going to be super honest, it may not work. Because I don't know what he's getting fed by his dad. Right. But I want there to be evidence. I never stopped coming for you. Okay. And however that looks like for y'all. Yeah. You can't buy your way back. Yeah, he plays baseball, so I make sure to show up at every game. I do everything I can to show up. And all you can do at this point is to continue to show up.

Okay. And to continue the invites, even if you know he's going to say now? Yes. Are you still with the person you had the affair with? I am not. Okay, all right. And also, here's another tension. anytime he has a feeling of I miss my mom or I just want to hug my mom or I just want to go home

there will be a hot burning fire of disloyalty against his dad when he feels like that that makes sense and so know this that every time he does say yes to you he's doing that at the expense and this sounds strange of his 16 year old conscience which is I'm being unloyal to my father And I know that's a lot of emotion to process for a 16-year-old. I mean, I can't process that. I'm way older than 16, right? I mean, the thought of being disloyal to somebody is such a core value of mine. Like, being loyal is such a core value that if I'm doing something that I think is disloyal,

dude, I can't deal with that. Yeah. Yeah. But I've heard that over and over and over and over from countless teenagers who are going through divorce, which is anything I do, I feel trapped because I miss my dad. I miss my mom. But every time I send a text back, I feel like I was disloyal behind my dad's back. Right. I hadn't really thought about it like that before.

And so if you think about this way, it might be that he doesn't want to be around you right now, but it might be, and this sounds crazy, he can't be. because it's such a conundrum, like a conundrum of consciousness that he's found himself in. Yeah. And so I, as an adult who loves him, I'm going to do my best to not put him in those conundrums.

Okay. But I'm going to damn sure let you know every opportunity I can that I kept showing up and I kept showing up and I kept showing up. Yeah. He will have no evidence to the contrary that mom is in his biggest fan. He won't. Well, I can absolutely do that. But it's going to be hollow for a long time.

Yes. I can't even imagine the amount of hurt. Well, and, you know, the guilt from it. Of course. Of course. You know, it's a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

One day at a time. Yeah, one minute at a time. Yes, that is very true. What does healing look like for you now? We talk a lot on the show about like, what do I do when somebody else does something to me. I don't think we spend enough time wrestling with like, what if the pain in our life is because we did a thing? Well, my fate has grown a lot. I find a lot of peace in that. I do have a wonderful group of friends and a wonderful family who have done nothing but

support me for the last two years. I have a little dog that I love. I have a wonderful job. I'm just, I wake up every day and remember what all I have to be thankful for. And I thank God multiple times a day for all of my blessings. When I first left, you know, I prayed that my son would change his mind, that he would come back to me. And I've stopped praying that specific prayer. And I've just said, God, your will be done. You know, if your will is for him to open his heart towards me, but your will be done. Can I challenge you on?

Yeah, absolutely. What if you shifted your mindset, your prayers, the way you see it as, give me opportunities to love him well? Okay. And dear God, please help that he knows he has loved. What I don't want to do is, and again, I know this is in scripture or not, but like your will be done has a, I'm taking my hand, I'm just, I'm parking the car now. Yeah.

Versus. Yeah, I can see that. I want to make paths clear for me on where I can show up. Okay. And so, like, taken out of this context, because I know this one's raw, like, I'm not going to pray a prayer of, there's so many hungry people in my community, your will be done. Right.

That's not going to, that's not my prayer. My prayer is help me to have eyes at sea. And hands that can do something. And help me have the discipline not to blow all my money on stupid stuff so I can be a, service and of care and love to people in my neighborhood. Like, that's the prayer. Yeah. It's an action. It's an action.

And if you pray for help my son feel loved, it might be, that's where you begin to let go of, he doesn't feel loved when I keep harassing him to come stay at my house. He's already told me now. Mm-hmm. But he'll feel loved when I say, I'm inviting you, no pressure to come, I miss you, and I hope you having a great weekend. Yeah. Okay.

I don't ever want him to feel like he has to take care of you. No. Because he's 16. No. That's not his place. It's not his job. Yeah, there we go. It's awesome.

Yeah. Day of time. Yes. And you know what? Might be crazy? Write a letter to 25-year-old him. And write him a letter about all that? No, write it right now.

Okay. And don't send it to him. Okay. But in that letter, detail what you did. So that he would know his mama was always coming for him. and maybe when he's 25 you can hand it to him but I want it to it can almost be a roadmap for you to follow over the next I don't know five 10 however long how many years

be a roadmap there that you can follow I'm going to write him a letter every week I'm going to send him a Starbucks thing on a till account every week I'm going to fill in the blank I'm going to be at every baseball game I can be at and when I go up to the dugout to walk by and say hey, I love you and he rolls his eyes at me. Hopefully his dad will say we don't do that,

but I'm going to tell him I love him again the next time. And when he says one day, I don't want to have any contact with you, so I'm going to honor that. I love you. And I'm going to write him a letter every day and just not mail it so that if contact is ever restored, I can say, hey, I wrote you a letter every week

for the last four years when we weren't talking. I want you to know, I never stopped thinking about you. It's a lonely, lonely place to be. I think it's the right step for a mom. who wants to make sure her son knows you're always loved. All right, when we come back, a man asks how to live with integrity when being honest about his faith may cost him relationships. I just got back home from an amazing elk hunting trip in the mountains of New Mexico.

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Thanks so much for taking my call and giving me some time. Of course, man. Thanks for calling in. What's up? Yeah. Yeah. So I don't have a great way of word my question. Every time I try and write it out, it feels a little bit too specific to one thing. But I think a general way to start would be I feel a conflict in my situation between my desire to, have integrity and my desire to maintain relationship. Whoa. I would say this, any relationship that cost you your integrity is not a relationship worth holding on to.

Sure, yeah. But I'll also say this before you even go in, I'm going to ask you details because I want to put a caveat to that. Okay. You know what? No, I'm not. I'm just going to keep moving forward. So go ahead.

What are you struggling with, man? Yeah, well, so I'll give a little bit of. of a background and I might ramble, so you feel free to stop me anytime. Dude, I'm the chief rambler, brother. We'll ramble on together. Go for it. Cool. Yeah. So I was raised Christian and my dad was a pastor of like a non-denominational evangelical church. And growing up, me and my family were super involved. You know, all through high school, I was super involved.

Anyways, while I was off in college, I went through some kind of church hurt. and also just a lot of like experiences that were new and came to the conclusion that I was better described as an agnostic. But I didn't really identify that way to my family. I was kind of, you know, just like not explicitly lying to them but also not like outwardly telling them, you know, or standing up and saying things that would be super uncomfortable for me. And so, you know, when topics of religion or things like

like that came up, I just kind of like, you know, said like a, or you know, like not a long. And then fast forward, you know, at the end of college and going into my first year of like being professional, I just really struggled to like connect meaningfully with people, whether that be like deep friendships or any like meaningful dating relationships. And so then fast forward again about a year and a half after college, I reconnected with a childhood friend of mine from my hometown, and I fell in love.

And, you know, this was like the first meaningful relationship. I fell in a really long time, and so I pursued it. And she is a Christian, and so I kind of pursued, I, like, chose relationship, or the way I'd think about it is I chose relationship over holding too fast to my, like, you know, holding on to my,

beliefs too tightly. So I started going to church again and, you know, was in a small group and didn't really hold back questions and such. Fast word again, just over a month ago, we got engaged and ever since then, I've just been feeling a lot of like stress and heavy introspection about my values and beliefs and where they might differ from my family and my faith community and her family. And I don't really know how to navigate that because, you know, I think there's a lot of really complex ideas or, like, you know, things I don't understand about faith and that I think a lot of people in history don't understand. And like, I read about those and they don't necessarily just like make sense all of a sudden. But then I also don't want to just like hide, um,

in the face of some big like life decisions or you know um like a wedding day type you know who I present myself to be to my future family and everything so um man there's so much here the question that keeps like I'm trying to sort like whenever somebody tells me their story I'm trying to find a through line okay trying to hear your story and hear how you're saying it And what's the story behind the story behind the story? The question that keeps rising up to the surface for me is this one. And it's kind of happening over and over again, okay? Okay.

Why don't you like you? I think I don't know. So I've listened to your show and I've heard that question a few times. And every time I hear it, I'm like, I kind of ask that question myself. And I think I do like parts of me a lot. I know, I know, but that's not what I'm asking. You think something is fundamentally wrong with you. which by the way this is hard to hear

it's not uncommon for pastor's kids yeah yeah I think I don't know because I feel like well maybe I don't feel confidence myself because then I would be more willing to say that to other people but like I

I don't know I have so many people around me that like treat certain things as kind of obvious right, like in relationship to faith and they just aren't to me and so it's really like strange though to find people that or it's very hard to find people that

don't want to just like give you an answer because you know the people I talk to about my faith that are Christian often want to like you know I don't often feel a sense that they want to walk alongside me they want to like correct me and then on the other side like when i talk to a more non-christian

or like someone who does kind of see things similar to some of the ways that i do then they kind of just don't care they're like well like just yeah but move on with it you know and i'm like well i don't feel like either of those fully represent what i'm thinking through you know sure and and and all of that is characteristic of somebody who spent their life performing Yeah And at some point Your avatar runs out of gas Because your body is still solving for reality all the time

Regardless of what mask you're putting on And I can tell you how me and my wife have solved this in our house And how I've dealt with this Because I'm exactly where you are I have my beliefs And I hold them very loosely Because if one through line in my own life has been, I believe things and I'm wrong a lot, right? And,

yeah, but I'm pretty anchored into my values. And so my wife and I anchor into values. It is not that one of our values together is not we're going to believe the same thing always. In fact, I don't want that kind of marriage. It's a boring life. But our value is, for me and my wife, there is something bigger than us out here. And so we, our value we share is we're going to continue to pursue that with everything we got. And so we're anchored into the same value. And over the course of my 23 and a half years of being married, I've been super Christian. I've been an atheist. I've been a full-ta, a Calvinist for a decade. I've been a, like, I've been all over the place. But the guy she married was a guy who was always seeking.

And it would be a violation of our values if I threw my hands up and quit. Sure. Yeah. But believing different things, right? If she said, here is a value that we will have the same belief on this thing, our relationship never would have worked. But the challenge you're going to run into is the longer you perform, the more people, including yourself, get hurt.

because really performance is a really eloquent way of saying dishonest. Right. And can I add one more caveat to that? It is not dishonest. And this is a weird cultural thing that's been going on for about a decade. It is not dishonest to not answer questions that you're not asked. Right. Right.

And so people are like, I just need to be my true self. And every time I walk in and my family's talking, talking about thing, I have to insert my insert religious or like sexual orientation or like political. You don't. You don't have to. You can be in the presence of people who are saying things you don't agree with and still be fully you. And you can still love those folks, still care deeply, still show up for them in the middle of the night when they need you and not hang out with them every day. There can be certain conversations.

I have family members that we have a moratorium. We don't talk about certain things because we love each other and we're invested in each other and that always gets nuclear. And that's not us not being our truthful selves. It's us being wise about our relationship. Yeah. Yeah, I think that does resonate true with me. But then situations come up in my head where I'm like,

you know, for example, my fiance's family is also very Christian, and I just think about, like, okay, if we were at, like, a dinner table someday, and they, or like, honestly, if right now we were all sitting at a dinner table and they asked me a question about some, you know, very foundational Christian thing, I just know my fiance's, like, stress level would go to, like, a thousand because I talk, with her very openly and honestly, and like she knows what I think, but her family doesn't necessarily know that. And so like, I don't know how to like love her in that moment without just like, you know. You can't own the feelings in her chest. You could own the way you were hospitable in your answer, right?

So if they put you in a situation that you know, like, let's take it out of this context. One day she can call to you and say, do I look good in this dress? And you can go, nope, you're too fat. You could say it like that. And that would be cruel and insensitive. And it might also be the truth.

Or you could say, I like the other dress so much better. Or you could wink at her and say, would you wear that dress that I love? And she would know exactly what you're saying. But that would be in a way, you would be saying the same truth. in a way that honors her. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, that makes it. And respects her dignity.

And so when you're sitting at a table surrounded by people who believe differently than you, which has been the majority of my life, right? I'm sitting at table and someone says, what do you think about fill in the blank religious story? You could say, I actually don't believe that at all. And people who believe that are crazy, I think. Or you can say, I am in a season of just wrestling with all of it right now. And I'm really honored to be around folks who have a pretty secure attachment to some of these ideas because it helps me feel a little less crazy.

Right? Yeah. That's just being kind. I'm not going to blow up your dinner. I'm not going to blow up your life. I'm not going to send you. And here's the thing. I've come to have a deep compassion for folks who are highly religious on any spectrum because those who, quote, unquote, like you said, try to fix me or solve me.

I actually have a lot of respect for that. because if they think that me being wrong is going to cost me eternity, thank God they feel courageous enough to speak up and try to save me. I have compassion for that. Right. I get to decide with what I do with their responses. Do I let them shame me? Do I send me off on a whole quest of, oh my gosh?

Or do I say, my God, thank you for shoving me out of the truck that you feel like. is coming right at me. I'm really grateful for that. Right. And then I'm going about my day. And you know this. There's a scripture. It says faith is a gift. I didn't get that. I didn't get that gift. And I'm actually jealous of people who are just like, this is it. Period. End of sentence. I'm jealous of folks. Like, I really am. I wish I had that. Me too. I feel that exact same thing. Right? And I'm not any better that I ask card questions and then I can pick apart people's answers. and but I'm not. And I've also had to follow,

I came to this backwards. I came to this through the social science data, which was like, the rhythm of getting up and going to church is good for you and for your family. And so I literally started going back to church not to like, quote unquote, find God. I went back to church because I was like,

okay, this is a healthy activity I could be a part of. And of course, being around good people listening to the messages, having some concrete thoughts and getting wiser as I got older, I landed back as a different version of a guy who believes in Jesus. But that took me not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and me not going after people for trying to love me the best way they knew how, even if it was annoying or even if I didn't agree with the way they were trying to love me. And again, this is you just owning what you can control.

But I'll tell you this, as a kid who grew up in a performing house, you're constantly gaging what could happen, what questions could be asked, and how is the response to this question going to be taken, how is this outfit in this environment, how is you being seen at this movie,

how is I going to impact this, and dad's job, and what you're doing is you're already future imagining conversations with your in-laws that might happen, that might do that, and I'm going to tell you that's anxiety. That's exhausting.

And that's anchored in a guy that is unsafe inside his own skin. And that is what I want you to begin focusing on. Not how you play whack-a-mole with everybody else is everything else, but why do I feel so unworthy of just having thoughts inside my own body? Why do I feel so unworthy of where I have to feel like I'm deceiving everybody? I want you to work on that from the inside out. I'm going to send you a copy of building an unentious life.

It'll be my gift to you and hook you up. As you're heading into your new marriage, I want you to, A, sit down with your wife and come up with a set of four, five or six values that y'all will anchor into not beliefs values and expect your beliefs to change over time that's why we listen to podcasts why we read books that's why we go to conferences that's why we go to church if you go to church it's why you like do like have conversations so that we can get new perspectives and new ideas that might change our beliefs over time but we're going to stay anchored into our values i think you're actually in a good spot brother especially if you're being fully

open and honest with your wife you're not trying to pull the wool over here um and then you and you and all two together can create a life where if I get these questions here's I'm going to ask it. And if people don't like my answers, they get to choose what they do next. I can't be responsible for that. But I will be responsible for treating people with dignity and respect and kindness all the time. Thanks for the call, my brother. Great, great, great, great question. We come back, a man asks how he can overcome imposter syndrome after gaining success in his business.

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for three months using my link. Go to hallow.com slash Deloney and sign up for free today. That's Hallow, H-A-L-O-W.com slash Deloney for three months. for free. All right, Wichita, Kansas. Let's go out and talk to Ken.

What's up, Ken? Hi, Dr. John. How are you today? I'm good. My brother, how are you? Well, in Dave's words, I'm better than I deserve. I love it. What's going on, man?

Hey, here's my question for today. How do I get past the sometimes overwhelming feeling of imposter syndrome? As my business has grown four to five times faster than my original projections, Okay, so hey, congratulations. What's your business? So I'm a hoof trimmer for cattle. Sweet! And I specifically do, I specifically work on smaller hobby farms and homesteads and projects that other people don't want to do. And I never dreamed I'd be as busy as I am.

Amazing. Hey, I don't spend a lot of time on Instagram, but one of, or two of the accountants, I follow are actually hoof repair guys. Yep. What you guys do is amazing to me. It's unbelievable. I love it. I absolutely love it.

Well, that dude, that's awesome. So I have a couple of thoughts about imposter syndrome, but I don't want to put words into your mouth. So when you say I feel imposter syndrome, like be pretty specific with me. What are you feeling? What are you experiencing? So as I go to these places,

What I feel, and especially on social media, I feel like I don't deserve all the recognition I'm getting. For instance, I can post something on social media and it will absolutely explode. And then I'm getting overwhelmed with requests for service and stuff like that. I am being asked and invited to be on podcasts all over the country. I'm invited to a bunch of conferences all over the country to speak on and educate people about what I'm doing and how it works and what to look for and all that stuff. And they just get this feeling sometimes that I don't deserve it. Intellectually, I know where it comes from. My father is not exactly, he's a great guy.

Don't get me wrong. He's not your average lovey-dovey guy. he's never told me he's proud of me he's one time in my life he's told me he's loved me like intellectually I know where it comes from I just don't know how to get past it actually I wonder if it's a step a layer deeper okay did you grow up in a house where those people were the ones that drove those cars lived in those houses and did those things for sure okay and so you have an identity shift that's happening right and it's hard to wrap your head around a psychology when those people, and anytime we say the word they, I want everybody to be careful with that kind of language.

But when you spend your whole life thinking they are fill in the blank and you create stories about they, and then suddenly you become a they, that's un, it'll unspool you pretty quick. Right. It's very, it's like walking on eggshells and not knowing what you're stepping on. I just, it's hard to wrap your head around. Yeah. Which, as you said, intellectually, you know, know that comes from a boy who's always wondering, daddy like me now, daddy like me now. Right.

Right. And when a whole bunch of eyeballs turn on you real fast, you suddenly, if you're not careful, you can feel like you have a whole bunch of dads that you're trying to keep happy. Right.

And you can't keep the Internet's happy. Right. You can't. You can't keep the people at every conference happy. Right. And so I'll give you two pieces of, two pieces of just here's my own experience with this because I had a very similar thing.

I just took the thing I was doing behind closed doors and then they put it on the internet and my whole life changed. Right. Thing number one is imposter syndrome. I love a definition. It was somebody out of the UK that gave us definition. I forgot her name, but I love it. It was imposter syndrome is the fear that other people are judging you as harshly as you judge yourself. Right.

And if that's the case, I want you to write yourself a long letter. Okay. And if you have never been told that somebody who's proud of you, I want you for the first time to tell yourself that I'm proud of you. And if you want to be a gangster about it, read this letter out loud to your wife. Okay. But I want you to call out in yourself the things that you are proud, that you've overcome, that you are continuing to do, the way you got into this job to help other people.

You started a small business doing it what I think every small business owner should start, which is not what do you want to do, but what is the world need that nobody else is willing to do? And that's what you did. Right. And, man. And you must be also doing it in an enjoyable, entertaining, like, connected way because people want to connect with you, right? Not just over your trade. Oh, yeah.

It's, yeah, it's an experience. When we show up, we do consulting work. We do whole herd consulting type stuff. Like when I show up at your place, I'm there for, even if we're only working on one or two cows, I'm there for half a day usually. That's great. It's great. All right. And here's the other thing about imposter syndrome.

Sometimes it's right. And you have to have the humility that when everybody's telling you how great you are and every metric you have is saying it's up into the right. it's everything's growing, growing, growing. You have to have either, A, know this for yourself, which is very hard, or have a couple of men and women in your life that you trust to say, okay, I'm really good at these things. I am not good at scaling a business.

Right. I'm not, or maybe I'm not skilled at, I'm really great at fixing hooves on cows. I'm really an expert in helping people with their herd management. I have never hired and fired people well in my life. Right. I'm not good with books.

And so sometimes imposter syndrome is right. It's your body saying, hey, we are way over our skis on this deal. And it's why to this day I still have experts in nutrition, mental health, trauma, exercise that I reach out to because I, early on, I just started answering questions. And I had some folks tell me, like, hey, you're wrong on this deal. And so I've had to settle in. I don't fully understand how the Internet's work. And so I trust the experts here at the studios where I work to say, hey, this is the path we need to go on this one.

Right. And it's also the overwhelming feeling of trying to get systems in place as you're growing this fast. That's exactly right. You're trying to change the oil on the car while you're driving. Right. That's exactly right. If you don't take 72 hours and get around some wisdom, some folks in your life that can help you with those systems,

you're going to get a lot more car wrecks than you would otherwise. Right. Right. Right. And then here's the last piece of wisdom I'll give you. And this is for people in your space who just suddenly were doing a job, and now it's on the internet, and now people are asking you to, like, it works there.

But I think I just was talking to somebody before the show on my way into work this morning, who is not a, what I would call a public-facing person. Sona. And this is advice my wife gave me. If you create any sort of false avatar, if you create any sort of googie-to-goo, this is me, hey guys, whether you're meeting somebody for the first time,

you're dating, or you are starting a business, or you are suddenly a public figure, all of your energy will go towards propping up that avatar not to getting good at your craft and continuing to grow your business. Right, right. And eventually the avatar fails. Right. I was told a long time ago, you never have to, if you never tell a lie, you never have to

remember the lie you told. So just expand that to, if I am a person who doesn't, doesn't, I don't believe in God, I am not going to start going on Christian podcast and making up stories to try to be adjacent just so I can get clicks. Right, right. If I'm a person who believes in amp grazing, right, like the carbon cowboys, if I believe in regenerative, regenerative, I say that wrong, cattle farming practices, I'm not going to go on podcast talking about how we need to spray more.

Right, right. I'm just going to be the best I can at being me. Right. And the chips are going to fall where they may on that one. Right, right. But it's way less exhausting. Correct. And that means you're going to have to say crazy things like, I don't know.

Right. Or a close friend of mine is an amazing, I think, I think she's a really gifted, amazing comedian. And she has paralyzing stage fright so that when she gets an opportunity to go to a set somewhere, it costs her a week of her life. And so that's her body saying, hey, not for us. Right. And so you have to have the courage to say, I love this part, I love this part, I don't love the public speaking part. So I'm not going to do that. Right. Or I do love the public speaking part. You know, whatever.

I don't mind it so much. It's just, like I said, it's just getting over this, I don't belong here mentality. None of us do. None of us have a psychology for this world. Right. No human has the wiring inside their body to be viewed by millions. of people. That is not, that's abnormal for the bodies we have. Right.

So, if you're like, this is uncomfortable at some point. Yes. What we're doing is insane. Right. Right. It's crazy.

And so then, then if we're going to enter into this thing, I got to be responsible for. How do I stay well when I'm doing this? What are the systems I have in place to keep my relationships that I care about safe and how do I take care of my physical body? How do I keep learning? How do I keep things with open hand? How do I deal when somebody says, hey, you're wrong on this in a loving way? And how do I deal when somebody just bombs you with, I hate you, and you're an idiot and blah, blah, blah,

right, right. Right. Right. But I would, I would tell you this, the discomfort you feel doesn't mean something's wrong with you. Right. Right. I get that. Yeah. And like you would tell any cattle owner who's got a cow who's limping, like, well, that's telling us where we need to press. Spend some time by yourself. Take a half day, dude. Yeah. And write down on a piece of yellow pad, a piece of paper. Here are the things that scare me about moving forward.

Here are the things I'm really excited about. Here are the things I'm kind of blah about. And here's the things I need to get some more skills on. Right. Okay. And by the way. I can definitely do that. Well, it'll just free you.

you a path forward. It's kind of like when you're examining the foot of a cow, you squeeze here, you press here, you go up the leg here, and then you go, okay, I know exactly where to go now. Right, right. And you might be good at something now, and as you're entering into a new space, you realize I need more skills. Right. There's a, there's a hilarious story that happened here. There was a small group of people that knew I was going to leave my job at the university to come over here. but they had me speak at one last event and you've probably done enough public speaking now to know

like I knew about five minutes in I was crushing it right right it ended in a big standing ovation a guy who's become a close friend of mine big Navy SEAL comes bombing out of the crowd picks me up hugs me it was a whole thing it was amazing yeah backstage my new boss Dave Ramsey says man you have some really

great raw skill we're going to turn you into a world-class speaker. And the standing ovation was still going on. Right. And I looked at him and I laughed and I go, I think I'm pretty good. And he smiled and goes, we're going to get you there.

Okay, and here's the thing. A year later, I was speaking to 2,500 or 3,000 business leaders at a big event. And about halfway through that talk, I was like, oh, this is a whole other level. but I'd had a year of speech coaching,

of training, of watching film for crying out loud, right? Right, right. And so I was good at a thing, but I had to put in years, and I've still do, that's why I go to comedy clubs now. I'm still trying to get better at it. Like, I have to put in the work

to not be good at this thing anymore, but to be great at this thing. If I'm going to ask somebody to pay money, to listen to me, if I'm going to ask someone to get a babysitter and to leave their home and to come out and see me live somewhere, dude I better be a good steward of their time and their money I better be amazing

I don't ever want someone to leave an event going home and being like man I probably should just stay at home watch Netflix that means I got to put the work kit right so you might find I got some good skills I got to get really good at these skills and as you're going to get tempted to get pulled into veterinarian medicine and like you're like nope I'm going to stay doing this thing because this is what I'm really good at and that's been hard for me I've had to I've had to circle back So all I have to say is I think you're in the right place, man. Let that feeling of imposter syndrome. A, if you're judging yourself, stop, man.

Write yourself a letter, make peace with yourself. I'm proud of you. You tell yourself you're proud of you. And if that imposter syndrome is saying like, hey, we got some things we need to learn. Sweet. Now we have a roadmap. And that's where we're going to head directly into. Thanks for a call, brother.

Last night, I took Beams Dream Powder before I went to bed and I got a hundred on my sleep score. And that's why I trust Beam. It's why I use their products in my home. It's why I take them because they're amazing. When I need a great night's sleep, I drink Beams Dream Powder. It takes like 30 seconds to mix, and it helps me fall asleep faster, sleep deeper, and wake up clear. Last night was incredible. And I woke up this morning with no groginess because there's no weird chemicals.

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A great day starts the night before, and Beam's dream powder helps me rest and show well for the people that I love. Right now, Beam is giving my listeners a great. deal. Go to shopbeam.com slash deloni and use code Deloney to get $20 off all beam products. That's shop, S-H-O-P, shop beam.com slash deloni, and use code Deloney to get $20 off all beams products. All right, Kelly, you said you want to talk about men as always.

Yes, but, however. Two T's? Yes, you are. Correct. So I saw two things recently on social media that I thought were just super cool because you often talk about how hard it is to make friends as adults, especially for men. Yeah, it's the worst. Yeah, they don't get out and like they're not as social as we ladies are. So two things that I thought were super cool that maybe he'll spark some ideas.

So one of them was a guy that moved into a new apartment. And it's like one of the internal apartments, not, you know, external. and the video that it shows is from his ring camera. And his neighbor came over and he's like, hey, you don't know me. We've never met. But the guy that lived here before you, we would often have Nerf wars. So I'm just going to put this on your front mat. And then it was just this compilation of all of these grown men that lived in this apartment building having Nerf wars.

And this is how they met. It was, you sent that to me and I smiled the whole way through it. It was great. It was incredible. Yeah, it was like these, they'd just shooting each other and like, like one of them would be bringing their groceries in and he'd pull the, the gun. It was like Godfather, you know, pull the gun out of the bag. But my favorite part of the whole video, the whole, I mean, there's some hilarious things that they do to each other over time. And they're all, it's all ring camera footage.

But my favorite part was seeing how uncomfortable the first conversation was, was him knocking on the door, the guy doesn't even open it. He just goes, yeah. and him holding this Nerf gun and trying to be like I know what I'm saying is crazy but also it was kind of awesome and so I used to have this Nerf gun war with my neighbor

and so I'm putting this gun on your desk you can get rid of it, you can throw it away whatever but it's kind of awesome it's like a perfect visualization of go first and be weird just go first and be weird and what's not on the ring camera is he may have tried that with somebody else

and it never went anywhere, right? The person, like, threw the gun away or whatever. But that, him having the courage to wade through, that was so awesome. Yeah, I love it. And so the second one is apparently there's a Facebook group out there called, I don't know, it's like a dad's life or something like that. And they did their first in-person event. I don't know what city this was in, but it was for dads with little girls.

And it was called pigtails and pints. Oh, nice. And they sat around this huge table, and they had, these ladies came in and they brought in like mannequin heads with, you know, wigs on, and they learned how to do hair while drinking. And it showed them in like shaking hands and meeting each other and learning how to French braid and showing off what they did. And it was just so cool because it was, you know, meeting each other and getting out there

and doing something to, you know, that they can do with their daughters then. And, you know, so they can buy with their daughters. But what a cool idea. So just the whole idea of there's something out there. I love that. If it doesn't exist, create it. Created. So I was talking to Sheila yesterday, my wife, about a call we had on a previous show a few days ago where a woman was struggling with PTSD and her husband wasn't helpful at all. And there was just a lot of tension.

And I was telling my wife, I was like, the only path I could think of is here's how you can love me. And her immediate response is that gives her yet another thing to do. And I was like, I know. And I don't know what else. And she said, in a perfect world, that guy. has a couple of friends who already have kids and he can invite them over and say, all right, when the kid's screaming, what do I do? And how do I change this diaper? And if dads would show up and help new dads, it would alleviate a ton of this stuff, right? Because I think there is merit in, there's a lot of merit in a new mom feeling like, oh, I have to take care of you. I need to come

with a curriculum for you on top of everything else. I get that. And I also get the paralyzed feeling of dad being like, I was telling my wife, I remember doing all the laundry. I went and got all laundry. And I used the wrong detergent because there was a special kid. And it was like, oh my gosh, you did it wrong. And I was like, I'm trying so hard. I don't even know what I don't know. But all of that can be alleviated if a group of dads would be like, oh, one of our new buddies is having a dad. We're coming over for dad boot camp. You buy the beer and the pizza and we're going to teach you everything you need to know. Yeah, because when a woman has a baby, women rally around her, her mother, her sister, whoever comes to help, and dad is supposed to just figure it out.

Well, and I didn't know my wife had a community. I didn't know she was texting these people in the middle of the night about a rash or a thing. I just thought she knew all this stuff. And I'm sitting there going like, I'm such a loser, right? And, but anyway, I'm going to make it a point that when I've got people in my world that have a new kid, like be like, boot camp, dude, Dad camp, and we're going to teach you some of these small things. I think that's awesome. So good on those dudes. I love the idea of some dudes just getting some beers and learning how to braid.

That's awesome.